■ Health
EVA passenger hospitalized
An airline passenger arriving from Taiwan was hospitalized yesterday in Sydney after complaining of flu-like symptoms during the flight to Australia, but it's unlikely he has bird flu, health officials said. Quarantine officials examined the man at Sydney's international airport and took him to a hospital for a routine examination, the New South Wales state Department of Health said in a written statement. "This person has no risk for avian influenza and health experts believe it is unlikely that this will be the diagnosis," the statement said. The passenger's identity was not released. The airlines said the passenger was British. The man had complained of feeling unwell after arriving on an EVA Air flight from Taipei, airline spokesman Thomas Lim said.
■ Politics
KRTC sparks mud slinging
Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday implied that Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) should mind her own business. "Some would invite three or four people to organize a `special task force' to inspect the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) and the company has no option but to cooperate. We really don't have time for this. I wish these people would stop what they are doing," said Government Information Office Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) at a press conference yesterday, quoting the premier. Yao said Hsieh made the comments during the weekly Cabinet meeting earlier in the morning, after Acting Kaohsiung Mayor Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) complained that the media is only interested in reporting.
■ Society
Missing girl's body found
A girl, surnamed Wang, who went missing on New Year's Eve at the Shin Hai Bridge (新海橋) in Hsinchuang City, Taipei County, was found dead under the bridge yesterday, but her death was still an enigma. Police said because the bridge has 1.2m high railings, it is unlikely that she fell off the bridge accidentally. Her family and friends have told police she was unlikely to have committed suicide. Wang's family yesterday said they suspect she was pushed off the bridge. Wang and her classmates rode scooters to a party on Saturday night, with Wang traveling on the back of a scooter ridden by a male classmate surnamed Fan. Fan told police that his scooter suddenly lost power on the Shin Hai Bridge.
■ Crime
China sends back fugitives
Three Taiwanese fugitives were repatriated from China via the outlying island of Matsu to Taipei yesterday, officials from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said. Lin Chen-hsing (林振興), 46, an alleged gang leader from Yunlin County who is suspected of being a major accomplice of indicted kidnappers Hsueh Chiu (薛球) and Chang Hsi-ming (張錫銘), and two other fugitives, surnamed Wu and Lee, were repatriated back to Taiwan under the terms of the Kinmen Agreement, CIB officials said. Lin has been on the police's wanted list since 2004.
■ Weather
Cold front expected to hit
A massive cold front from China will reach Taiwan today. The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) forecast sharply falling temperatures around the country with rain in the north, northeast and eastern parts of the country. According to the CWB, temperatures could drop below 10?C from tomorrow until Sunday in open areas along the east coast. The weather will remain cold until Monday, when temperatures will rise.
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