■ Society
KMT to pay children's tuition
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday promised that the party would cover tuition fees for four cousins whose lost a parent during last Tuesday's earthquakes. Fang Shu-chuan (方淑娟) and her 34-year-old brother died when the three-story Pingtung County furniture shop they lived in collapsed. Fang is survived by seven-year-old twin boys and her ex-husband. Her brother is survived by two children and his wife. During a visit to Fang's family and other victims yesterday, Ma said the party would pay tuition fees from elementary school to high school. He also made a trip to other parts of the town and asked a KMT local branch to assist with reconstruction.
■ Society
Banging their own drums
Thousands of people were to attempt to set a world drumming record yesterday, officials said. "We hope at least 8,000 people will take part in the world record-breaking event" in Banciao, said an official from the Taipei County government, which organized the event. The drummers were to beat drums simultaneously for two minutes to the rhythm of Queen's We Will Rock You beginning at 11pm. The current world record for drumming was set in October in India, when 7,951 people beat their drums in unison. A total of 9,000 drums were sold by the Taipei County Government for yesterday's event. The funds raised will be donated to charity.
■ Society
Fear of germs ends marriage
A court has approved a divorce request filed by a housewife because her husband has mysophobia -- a pathological fear of germs, a local newspaper reported yesterday. The husband, identified only by his family name Wang, had for nearly two decades forced his wife and children to wash their hands and feet before entering their house, the United Daily News quoted an unnamed judge in Ilan County as saying. The paper said Wang also dictated that the entire family must eat out and no meal could be cooked or brought into the home because he found smoke and grease unbearable. The husband admitted that he was afraid of germs and that what he did was for his family's own good, the paper reported. The judge found his argument unconvincing and ruled in favor of the wife. The couple's two sons, aged 15 and 17, asked the judge to give their mother custody because they could no longer suffer their father's obsessions.
■ Politics
Su receives rebuke
World United Formosans for Independence Chairman Ng Chiau-tong (黃昭堂) yesterday said he would not support any bid by Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to run for the presidential bid next year if Su does not change the Cabinet's decision to loosen its policy on investment in China. Ng said Su did not actively manage cross-strait trade as President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had promised in his New Year address last year but had instead instigated a mistaken policy by relaxing investment regulations in China. Ng said a better policy would be to withdraw part of Taiwanese businessmen's investment in China. Former senior adviser to the president Wu Li-pei (吳澧培) also said that the Cabinet had not had any new ideas on the nation's policy on investment in China nor did it solve the problem of excessive investment there. Their remarks came after the Cabinet's decision on Friday to allow Taiwanese chipmakers to apply to manufacture chips in China using more advanced technology.
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