■ Society
Lee arrives in New York
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and his wife arrived in New York on Friday on the second leg of their two-week private trip to the US. Lee and his wife were greeted by Tsai Jen-tai (蔡仁泰), an adviser to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁); Chang Ya-feng (張亞鳳), chairwoman of the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association in New York; and nearly 30 other supporters in the city. Before arriving in New York, Lee visited Anchorage, Alaska where Governor Frank Murkowski, a staunch supporter of Taiwan, gave him a warm welcome and played host. Lee was scheduled to visit "Ground Zero," where the World Trade Center once stood, yesterday.
PHOTO: AP
■ Health
Teen suicide rate a concern
A mental health survey released by the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) yesterday found that nearly 20 percent of teenage girls have been suicidal in the past year, and among them 6 percent have attempted suicide. The survey was publicized yesterday at a conference held in Taipei to address issues concerning depression and suicide prevention for children and teenagers. Professor Chiu Yen-nan (丘彥南) of NTUH's Psychiatry Department released the results of an investigation into depression-related suicides in children and teens, which found that teenage girls had more suicidal tendencies than teenage boys. However, boys are up to three times more likely to succeed in killing themselves than girls.
■ Defense
Military removing munitions
The military will continue to dispose of outdated ammunition, land mines and vacant barracks on Kinmen to help boost development and tourism on the frontline island, a military official said yesterday. Wu Ta-peng (吳達澎), commander of the Kinmen defense command, said that the command has shipped 3,300 tonnes of unserviceable ammunition since April from Kinmen to Taiwan for disposal. While 1,800 tonnes of outdated ammunition has been destroyed so far on Kinmen, the command is planning to dispose of another 1,000 tonnes next year to reduce the danger to local residents, Wu said. In addition, Wu said the military had completed an inspection of the minefields on Kinmen in May and decided to funnel NT$470 million starting next year to clear the land mines over a three-year period.
■ Society
Sex recruitment denied
The chief pastor of the South Korean Jesus Morning Church in Taiwan yesterday denied accusations that the church was involved in sexual misconduct by recruiting young female university students who allegedly were to be sent to South Korea to be sexually assaulted by the church's religious leader. The church's chief pastor in Taiwan Lin Huei-chuan (林暉川) yesterday denied media reports that the church recruited new members by holding beauty competitions in university campuses and through its football teams for sexual purposes. Chung Myung-seok (鄭明析), founder of the South Korean Jesus Morning Star Church (南韓攝理教會), has been wanted by police in South Korea and Taiwan for 10 years for sexually assaulting his female followers.
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