■ Society
Lotto winner flees gangsters
A woman recently fled her home because of threats from gangsters after she won a Big Lotto (大樂透) jackpot of NT$262.4 million (about US$8.2 million), local Chinese-language media reported. The winner, from Nanao (南澳) Township in Ilan County, apparently won the jackpot last month. The woman's family used to be dependent on government benefits, but after she won the money, she bought herself a BMW automobile, made donations to the church, and even planned to give NT$10,000 to every resident in her village. But when some gangsters heard about this, they came to her village and attempted to blackmail her, ETTV news cable reported. The woman eventually moved away from her hometown. Her current whereabouts are unknown.
■ Drugs
Two held over airmail dope
Two men were arrested on suspicion of importing 1.6kg of marijuana by airmail from Canada, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The two men, surnamed Wang and Tsai, said they ordered the marijuana from a Canadian man and used Federal Express to import it, the CIB said. The US Drug Enforcement Administration's Hong Kong office was informed on Oct. 21 that US customs officials had found a suspicious parcel bound for Taiwan in a Federal Express station in Memphis, Tennessee, on Oct. 18. The weight and thickness of the parcel attracted the officials' attention, the CIB said. The parcel was described on the bill of lading as a photo album, but a detector needle discovered that marijuana was hidden in the parcel. CIB agents said they will continue to track down the source and the distribution network for the drugs.
■ Education
More get bachelor's degrees
The ratio of 24-year-olds who have bachelor's degrees will increase dramatically in a decade to more than 80 percent, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said on Thursday. Council officials said that among 24-year-olds, 48.3 percent had a bachelor's degree in 2004, but the ratio was expected to balloon to 81.8 percent in 2010. In view of the rapid increase in the number of college students, the CEPD suggested that the government adjust the number and structure of the colleges and universities. The council also suggested the establishment of a fair assessment mechanism for colleges and universities as well as study and research programs for lecturers to ensure teaching quality. CEPD officials predicted that an average of 100,450 students will graduate annually from colleges in the science, engineering, agriculture and medical fields between now and 2015, but the supply of college graduates will outstrip demand from employers by 20,400 every year.
■ Health
Experts attend Tokyo talks
A delegation of three Taiwanese medical experts attended a bird-flu prevention meeting held on Thursday and yesterday in Tokyo after being invited by the World Health Organization (WHO). Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. This is the second time Taiwanese delegates have attended a WHO-sponsored bird flu prevention meeting, and that this reflects the necessity of Taiwan being included in the global epidemic prevention network, as the nation is in close proximity to countries that have reported cases of the H5N1 virus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday in a press release. The Tokyo WHO meeting was to discuss early responses to a potential influenza pandemic in Asia.
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