■ Politics
Chiu Yi, protesters sue Chen
Independent Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) and several frequent guests on TVBS's talk show, 2100 Quan Min Kai Jiang (Speaking Your Mind at 2100), yesterday led hundreds of people to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office to file corruption suits against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), acting Presidential Office Secretary-General Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成), Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍). As Chiu and the other rally leaders asked all the rally participants to line up to file their suits against Chen and the others, they paralyzed the prosecutors' office. A line of police in front of the prosecutors' office blocked the crowd from rushing into the office. Chiu said the protesters were accusing Chen and others of insider-trading and involvement in the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp scandal.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
■ Politics
Younger people join KMT
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has seen a noticeable change in its member structure, as more young men and women are joining the party, spokeswoman Cheng Lee-wen (鄭麗文) said yesterday. Speaking at a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting, Cheng said a total of 4,371 new members joined the KMT during the October-December period last year, while 2,570 had applied to re-register their memberships. According to Cheng, people aged between 20 and 30 account for about 22 percent of the new members, exceeding the percentages of other age groups.
■ Society
HK acquits WTO protester
Lee Chien-cheng (李建誠), a Taiwanese student arrested by Hong Kong police during an anti-WTO protest last month, was acquitted of the crime yesterday, after appearing in the court four times since last month. Lee and 13 other demonstrators, including one Japanese citizen, a Chinese citizen and 11 South Koreans, had been charged with "illegal assembly." With the exception of three of the charged South Koreans, the rest of the protesters were released. Lee is expected to return to Taiwan today. "The court decided to quash the indictment as the prosecutors hadn't found enough evidence to demonstrate the crime," said Tsai Jy-jon (蔡之中), director of the Mainland Affairs Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. While expressing gratitude for Lee's release, Tsai said the government felt unhappy with Hong Kong police. "They should not have arrested the protesters given ... that they didn't have enough evidence," Tsai said.
■ Lunar New Year
Matsu steps up inspections
Quarantine officials on the island of Matsu yesterday warned passengers traveling between Taiwan and China via the small three links not to bring animals or plants from China during the peak season of the Lunar New Year holiday. Because China remains an area affected by various diseases and epidemics, such as bird flu, mad cow disease and rabies, quarantine and inspection at seaports and airports on the island will be stepped up in an effort to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, quarantine officials said. Taiwanese businesspeople returning home and other passengers must not bring fresh or processed vegetables and fruit, or any meat, live animals or poultry from China, 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