■ Transportation
Bus firm's utilities cut
The water and electricity at Aloha Bus Corp's Cheng-De Station were cut yesterday morning by the Taipei City Government. The move was criticized by the chair of the bus company, who said that the city government was overreacting. But officials from the Department of Transportation, who went to the station accompanied by dozens of police, said that the department had issued notices on Jan. 4 and Jan. 6 warning that water and electricity would be cut. They added that the city government had issued an ultimatum to the bus company almost two months ago, asking the firm to relocate their stops along Cheng-De Road to the city's new transit center near the Taipei Railway Station. The bus company said yesterday it would still not relocate its stops, and claimed that there were unresolved safety issues at the new transit center. The company then parked eight buses across Cheng-De Road to block traffic, but the vehicles were removed by the police.
■ Business
Hu Jintao courts investors
China President Hu Jintao
(胡錦濤) told businesspeople in Xiamen, Fujian's commercial center, that China "welcomes more Taiwanese to come to the mainland to develop," according to a report on China's state-run television. Hu said growing Taiwanese investment in the mainland served the interests of both sides. "Taiwanese business investment in the mainland helps improve economic returns and benefits economic and trade cooperation between the two sides of the Strait," Hu said. His comments cut against recent warnings from President Chen Shui-bian(陳水扁) that rising Taiwanese investment in China is bad for Taiwan's economy. "The status quo is being changed gradually and steadily with more and more Taiwanese capital flowing to China," Chen said on Jan. 9.
■ Health
Brothers to return Tuesday
Three brothers from Taiwan who are suffering from a rare degenerative disease known as adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) will leave the US for home next Tuesday. Chang Ming-hui (張明輝), father of the three brothers, said in a telephone interview with CNA that his sons were very excited about returning home for the Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 29. He noted that the condition of the trio is "stable," and that the home trip has had the prior approval of the Minnesota State University's medical center, where the siblings have received medical treatment for the past year. "The medical center has made preparations to conduct bone marrow transplants if necessary," he said. Chang and his wife accompanied their sons to the US in January last year, and the center has checked and followed their illness closely.
■ Arts
German gets cultural award
Taiwan has presented an award to Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, president of Germany's Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation for his contribution to promoting a successful exhibition of historic treasures from Taipei in Berlin in 2003. Taiwan's representative to Germany, Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), awarded Lehmann a plaque featuring the title of "Cultural Goodwill Ambassador" on Thursday at a ceremony attended by dozens of representatives of Germany's political, economic and cultural sectors. After the efforts of Lehmann and his foundation, an unprecedented exhibition from the Taipei-based National Palace Museum collection was finally opened at the historic Altes Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin in July, 2003.
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