■ Society
Law trumps feng shui
A Taiwanese man has been sentenced to four months in jail for cutting down more than 40 trees at an apartment complex, claiming they would undermine the feng shui of his nearby house, a newspaper said yesterday. Feng shui is the Chinese practice of geomancy, in which objects and spaces are arranged to supposedly achieve harmony with the environment. The Taipei District Court convicted "feng shui expert" Lo Pu-yi (羅蒲逸) of cutting down the trees in an apartment complex next to his home on a hill in suburban Taipei, the Apple Daily reported. It said Lo's neighbors had accused him of cutting down the banyan and willow trees, as well as bamboo, saying the foliage blocked the flow of air and could undermine his livelihood. A separate court will handle his neighbors' claim for NT$400,000 (US$12,000) in damages, the paper said. Lo could not be reached for comment.
■ Health
CDC announces flight rule
A new regulation is slated to take effect as early as September that will bar people in the infectious phase of tuberculosis from taking flights that are longer than eight hours in duration. "This is a measure to protect the other passengers on the aircraft," Director of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) said. Infectious tuberculosis patients will be able to fly on flights shorter than eight hours as long as they wear a face mask. Taiwan is taking its cue from WHO standards in determining the eight-hour cut-off point, Kuo said. "If a patient follows the suggestions for treatment of tuberculosis, he or she should only be infectious for two weeks or so," CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ding (林頂) said. "In the meantime, they can still travel provided they adjust their itinerary to take shorter flights," Lin said.
■ Crime
Father dies, riddle remains
Yin Duo (尹鐸), the father of murdered navy captain Yin Ching-feng (尹清楓), died yesterday with his wish of uncovering the truth behind his son's death still unfulfilled. The infamous Yin murder, associated with the Lafayette frigate procurement scandal, remains unsolved after 14 years. Yin is widely believed to have been about to blow the whistle on colleagues who were taking kickbacks from the deal. Since Yin Ching-feng's death in late 1993, Yin Duo has been traveling around the country and collecting information to try and solve the mystery of his son's death, but to no avail. Yin Duo was admitted to Minsheng hospital in Taoyuan last Thursday with a brain hemorrhage. He passed away yesterday, aged 86. Yin Ching-feng's widow, Li Mei-kuei (李美葵), said that her husband died before his son's murder could be solved would remain a lifelong regret for the family.
■ Weather
Cold front approaching
An approaching cold front is expected to send temperatures in most of Taiwan to below 10?C over the next three days starting tomorrow, according to a forecast by the Central Weather Bureau. Meteorologists said that northeastern Taiwan and areas north of Tainan, as well as the outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu, could experience temperatures as low as 7?C between tomorrow and Monday. The mercury is expected to rise slightly from Tuesday but parts of Taiwan could still have early morning temperatures down to 10?C or lower until next Friday. The bureau warned aquaculturists to take preventive measures against cold weather losses.
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