■ Politics
Ma can `handle' two jobs
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that he has no intention of stepping down from his current post as Taipei mayor despite concern over his double duties. "I'd like to extend my personal gratitude for people's concern, but I can handle it," he told reporters after hearing a report at the disaster response center located at the third floor of the city fire department. Ma assured the approximately 870,000 Taipei citizens who elected him in 2002 that he would not forget his mandate and would continue his job until his term expired.
■ Elections
CEC offers election plan
The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday said that it hopes to finalize the redistricting of constituencies by September next year, paving the way for the legislative election in 2007. "We have already mapped out a draft principle, which has been sent to our regional offices to solicit opinions," said CEC spokesman and Deputy Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐). After the National Assembly in June ratified the constitutional amendments passed by the legislature last August, the number of constituencies will be increased from the current 29 to 73 because the amendments adopt a "single-member district, two-vote" system for legislative elections. As the election is scheduled for 2007, boundaries of the new constituencies are required by law to be made available to the public one year before the election.
■ Politics
Chen offers truce with Ma
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) called Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman-elect Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to propose a leaders' summit with him and other opposition leaders in a bid to iron out differences over major government policies, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman said yesterday. "We hope to see a friendly response from the KMT," said DPP Information and Culture Department Director Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦). "As Ma will not take the oath of office until August, we will be patiently waiting, and do not rule out the possibility of conducting direct negotiations if necessary." Cheng also expressed the party's hope to see the legislature call an extraordinary session now that the KMT chairmanship election is over. The DPP legislative caucus has filed a request for such a session and is awaiting approval from other legislative caucuses.
■ Weather
Typhoon cancels flights
A number of airlines using CKS International Airport are starting to change their flight schedules as Typhoon Haitang approaches. The storm, which is classified as a super typhoon, is expected to hit the coast of eastern Taiwan today. United Airlines announced yesterday that it will cancel this morning's Flight UA830 for Tokyo and UA890 for Nagoya, Japan. Japan Asia Airways also decided to cancel all its flights that were originally scheduled to take off before 4pm today. A spokesman for Mandarin Airlines said the airlines will cancel all its domestic flights today and delay the departure of chartered Flight AE825 for Nagoya by 24 hours. EVA Airways reminded passengers to check with the airlines before heading to the airport for any possible changes.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater