■ Society
Dead man's sperm destroyed
Late army Captain Sun Chi-hsiang's (孫吉祥) sperm was destroyed yesterday on the orders of his family, despite Sun's fiance Lee Hsing-yu's (李幸育) pleas for the Department of Health to make an exception and allow her to retrieve some sperm for the purpose of in vitro fertilization. Sun's family decided to have the sperm destroyed because they did not want Sun's children to grow up fatherless or to affect Lee's prospects for future marriage. Sun's family has now returned to Taitung with the destroyed sperm. Lee had requested to keep some of Sun's sperm as a keepsake, but the family denied the request. Sun died on Sept. 7 after being hit by an accelerating armored vehicle.
■ Religion
Prayers shared for breakfast
Religious leaders from various countries shared their blessings, as well as concerns over terrorism, avian flu and cross-strait relations at a "breakfast prayer meeting" in Taipei yesterday. About 100 Christian and Catholic leaders, plus representatives from business and political circles joined the "2005 Taipei 101 Prayer Breakfast" yesterday on the 91st floor of Taipei 101. The event was hosted by the Taipei branch of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and Taipei City Government. The prayer session invited religious leaders from Canada, Korea, Israel and Singapore to share their blessings and concerns regarding major international and domestic issues. The prayer breakfast was part of the city government's efforts to make this year's Christmas events more spiritual and less commercial. For more information, please visit the Department of Information's Web site at: www.doi.tcg.gov.tw.
■ Cross-strait ties
Transport bill moves ahead
The Legislature's Home and Nations Committee yesterday gave preliminary approval to an amendment sponsored by opposition legislators which asks the government to start direct cross-strait transportation within three months. Before the preliminary result is reviewed, all caucuses are allowed to negotiate on the amendment for a maximum of four months. The amendment was jointly proposed by legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party, who say the government has been hesitant to start the direct link service. In his response, Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said the government has made it very clear that implementing direct cross-strait transportation is the government's policy and that whether the policy can be carried out is not a unilateral decision that can be made by Taiwan.
■ Diplomacy
Taiwan helps needy Filipinos
The government has donated US$200,000 worth of new clothing to the Philippines as an expression of the Taiwanese people's love and friendship for disadvantaged Filipinos. Taiwan's Representative to the Philippines Wu Hsin-hsing (吳新興) presented the donation to the acting secretary of the Philippine Social Welfare and Development Department (SWD) in a ceremony held at the SWD office. The brand new clothing, including baby wear, children's wear and adult apparel, was shipped to the Philippines in three containers. All the garments will be distributed to impoverished Philippine families and victims of the recent flooding in six central provinces, Wu said. Noting that Taiwan and the Philippines are neighbors, Wu said the Taiwanese government is more than willing to offer humanitarian aid to needy Filipinos.
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