■ Politics
Ma slams new political party
Commenting on the soon-to-be-formed new political party which will call itself the "Taiwan Nationalist Party," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the move was "a deliberate attempt to move aimed to mess things up." The new political party will be formed by the KMT's pro-localization faction and grass-roots members. The party will be formally established this Saturday in Nantou, the group's spokesman, Hsu Teng-kun (許登崑), said. "While it is people's right to form political parties, I think a political group with scope and breadth would not have to resort to thing like that," Ma said. Hsu said that, out of courtesy, has invited to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to attend the inauguration on Saturday.
■ Politics
DPP eyes ex-KMT member
The Democratic Progressive Party yesterday recruited Chiu Bing-kun (邱炳坤), Miaoli City Mayor and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member, to be its flag-bearer in the year-end Miaoli County commissioner election. Calling Chiu an "opportunist," Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻), a Hakka nominated by the KMT to vie for the county's top post, yesterday called on People First Party (PFP) to nominate its candidate as soon as possible. Liu said that Miaoli residents have high hopes for pan-blue cooperation and ultimately a merger. He hopes to see the KMT and PFP conduct cross-party negotiations on the joint candidate once the PFP nominates its own candidate. If all fails, opinion polls will be the best means to produce the best candidate, he said. Liu said that he is confident he will prevail in the election and reclaim power in the county where the pan-blue camp lost 12 years ago. PFP Legislator Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) said that he would run as an independent candidate if his party and KMT fail to see eye to eye on the joint nominee.
■ Diplomacy
`China fever' attacked
Taiwan's embassy in Costa Rica hit out Monday at the "China fever" it said had seized the Central American country where some politicians and business-people have been calling for a strengthening of ties with Beijing. In an official statement, the embassy pointed to its many projects in Costa Rica and said "this sincere, pragmatic attitude of cooperation, based in loyalty, cannot be compared to vain commercial maneuvers with political ends." Costa Rican business groups and politicians have been pressing in recent months for reconsideration of relations with Taiwan, stressing the importance of the Chinese market. Central American economies "will suffer a hard blow, without any doubt," in trade with China, the embassy said. "We hope that the Costa Rican government will reflect on `China fever,'" the statement said.
■ Crime
NPA to crack down on gangs
The National Police Agency yesterday launched a three-day crackdown on gangsters, the fifth of its kind this year. According to police, gangsters are trying to interfere in political and economic activities through public assemblies or violent threats to facilitate the development of their organizations and the expansion of their financial resources. Some local politicians have also colluded with gangsters and other criminals in China in kidnap-for-ransom and blackmail, police said. Meanwhile, the underworld gangs are recruiting students and school dropouts to join their organizations during the summer vacation, they said.
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
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
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