■ Diplomacy
Fugitive removed from post
The Straits Exchange Foundation on Wednesday removed fugitive Rebar Group chairman Wang You-theng (王又曾) as one of the foundation's trustees. The foundation held a board meeting on Wednesday to discuss Wang's post. Secretary-General You Ying-long (游盈隆) said Wang's involvement in the embezzlement scandal had damaged the image of the foundation and it had asked Wang to resign but had not yet received any response. The foundation therefore decided to revoke Wang's position, You said.
■ Taxation
NHI deductibles raised
Taxpayers will be able to claim National Health Insurance (NHI) premiums as full tax deductibles when they file their income taxes this year. Deductions from NHI premiums used to be capped at NT$24,000. "You can deduct the full amount of what you paid," said Lai Li-wen (賴立文), an employee at the NHI bureau. "But as is the case with other deductible items, only those who choose to itemize their deductions will benefit. Those who choose to use simplified, standard deductions will miss out." Based on a sample tax calculation provided by the bureau, a family of four with a monthly income of NT$60,800 and annual NHI premium payments of NT$38,940 would be able to save NT$5,179 in taxes under the new rules.
■ Media
KMT sues officials over TTV
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday filed a lawsuit, accusing Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Government Information Office Director Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) and Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) of corruption in the the sale of Taiwan Television Enterprise Ltd's (TTV, 台視) shares. Lai Kuo-chou (賴國洲), the former chairman of TTV, and Sumio Hasegawa, an official at Japan's Fuji Television Network, said on Sunday that Cheng and Chen had arranged a lunch in January during which they suggested that Fuji transfer its TTV shares to the Liberty Times Group (the parent company of the Taipei Times). "Cheng is a member of the committee in charge of reviewing the qualifications of applicants bidding for TTV shares. His interference in this case violated related laws and regulations," KMT Legislator Hsu Shao-ping (徐少萍) said.
■ Crime
Chiu's respite short-lived
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi's (邱毅) happiness was short-lived yesterday as his hopes of putting off reporting to prison to serve his sentence were dashed. Chiu was sentenced to 14 months in prison on March 19, 2004, for leading a crowd trying to break through the gates of the Kaohsiung District Court. He later appealed to the Taiwan High Court's Kaohsiung branch, arguing that the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office asked him to report to prosecutors and begin his jail time on April 3 despite the fact he had yet to receive his verdict. The court granted Chiu's appeal and asked prosecutors to reschedule Chiu's first day of jail time. Acknowledging there was an obvious glitch in the process, the high court's Kaohsiung spokesman Wang Kwang-chao (王光照) said judges decided to suspend the initial order for Chiu to begin his jail time on April 3 and had asked prosecutors to refile another notification. Later yesterday Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chung Chung-hsiao (鍾忠孝) said that prosecutors would do as the judges requested, but Chiu would still need to report to prison on April 3.
■ Politics
Plenary session dismissed
The legislature's extra plenary session, which was scheduled to review the government budget for this year and the Central Election Commission (CEC) bill, was dismissed yesterday without producing any results. As lawmakers failed to reach a consensus on the set-up of the election institution and the budget request for the purchase of weapons systems from the US, the legislature put the bills on hold yet again on Wednesday. By law the legislature is required to complete its review of the government's annual budget request one month before the start of the fiscal year. This year's budget request should have been reviewed by the end of last November. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) told the press that he did not know when the budget would clear the legislature.
■ Weather
Cold front due on Tuesday
The Central Weather Bureau said another cold front is looming and will affect the country on Tuesday. The chance of rain will increase nationwide, the bureau said, and temperatures will drop significantly. It said it will be sunny until Sunday and it could get as warm as 30oC. There still could be rain in the northeast and fog in the western part of the island.
■ Crime
Drug `mules' nabbed
Two people were arrested at Kaohsiung International Airport late on Wednesday for allegedly bringing 3.54kg of heroin from Thailand, police said yesterday. The narcotics had a street value of more than NT$100 million (US$3.03 million) and were concealed in bags of coffee powder. Police said they found the drugs in the luggage of Wang Ching-shun (王清瞬), 53, and Yen Hui-ying (顏惠英), 40.
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