■ justice
Lu calls for speedy ruling
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday called on the Council of Grand Justices to make a speedy ruling on whether prosecutors had violated the Constitution by questioning President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) over his alleged misuse of the "state affairs fund." Lu said she was not in a position to comment on the Taipei District Court's decision, but hoped the Grand Justices would tackle the case as soon as possible. The Taipei District Court ruled on Friday that they would continue with first lady Wu Shu-jen's (吳淑珍) hearing. She was indicted for corruption and forgery charges in connection with the fund. While the court rejected a request by prosecutors to seize documents concerning the fund Chen claimed to have used for secret diplomacy, it requested the Presidential Office present the documents by Wednesday.
■ society
Crackdown on firecrackers
The National Firefighting Administration yesterday urged the public to report any illegal firecracker factories, saying that informers would receive a reward of up to NT$500,000 (US$15,240). The administration made the appeal after an explosion at a firecracker factory in Miaoli resulted in one death. The administration said they have sent officials to join experts from the Central Police University to investigate the cause of the blast. It has also asked the Miaoli Firefighting Bureau to check the factory's equipment and security management to see if it violated any regulations. Violators face a fine of between NT$300,000 and NT$1.5 million. With the approach of the Lunar New Year firefighting bureaus nationwide have been told to crack down on illegal firecracker factories.
■ foreign affairs
Brunei office to re-open
Taiwan has confirmed it will re-open its representative office in Brunei on March 1 next year, almost a year after closing the facility on March 17 to save on diplomatic resources. In a news release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said that Customs Director-General Yu Shau-wu (俞邵武) has been appointed to head the Brunei office. The ministry said that lukewarm bilateral relations, including few official visits and civilian exchanges between the two countries, prompted the ministry to shut down the liaison office earlier this year. However, the move triggered strong protests from some legislators and Taiwanese expatriates living in Brunei. To promote mutual trade and economic relations, as well as ties with other Southeast Asian countries, the ministry decided to re-open the office.
■ industry
Animal testing lab planned
A Taiwanese clinical pharmacologist working with a leading US pharmaceutical firm is planning to set up a pre-clinical trial animal testing lab in Taiwan to win outsourcing contracts from global pharmaceutical firms. Tsang-Bin Tzeng (曾滄濱), senior director of the Clinical Pharmacology Department of AstraZeneca, headquartered in Delaware, told Taiwanese investment and trade representatives in New York that the time was right for Taiwan to have animal testing labs, as most of the global pharmaceutical firms were outsourcing clinical trial work overseas. Tzeng recently made a trip to Taiwan to visit science and technology parks around the country and the export processing zone in Kaohsiung. He said he was impressed by the facilities as well as government incentives for investors. With a qualified biotechnology work force and management personnel, Taiwan has an advantage in entering the animal testing business, he 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
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