■ Defense
Larger memorial suggested
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday urged the Ministry of National Defense to hold a grand memorial service for the eight military officers who died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday. In a statement issued by DPP legislators Hsueh Ling (薛凌), Sandy Yen (莊和子) and Wang Shu-hui (王淑慧), the ministry was urged to expand the memorial service from a smaller one limited to the brigade to a larger one involving the whole army. They said many military officers had suggested a larger memorial service because the eight officers died on duty during a military maneuver. High-ranking army officials and army flags should all be present during the ceremony to salute and honor the deceased, they added. The crash occurred on Tuesday when the UH-1H helicopter hit a transmission tower of the Police Radio Station in Chishan Township (旗山), Kaohsiung County, killing all eight passengers on board.
■ Defense
Air raid drill on Tuesday
The annual Wanan Exercise will be carried out in northern Taiwan between 2pm and 2:30pm on Tuesday. The Wanan Exercise is an air raid drill that is usually carried out between April and June in different locations around the country. The Ministry of National Defense said that the first drill this year will be carried out in Taoyuan, Keelung, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Ilan, Taipei City and County. During the 30-minute exercise, all vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be suspended. All indoor and outdoor lights must also be switched off. Personnel must be evacuated to the basement of buildings during the exercise.
■ Education
Library to hold book shows
The National Central Library is scheduled to hold several book shows on different themes this year to promote reading, with the first book show set to be launched on April 21 at the library's reading room on the second floor, a spokesman for the library said yesterday. The first show will run through July 1 and will be followed by book shows on "Old Photos of Local Places," to be held from July 3 to Sept. 30, "Reading France," to run from Oct. 2 to Oct. 31, and "Research Methods and Thesis Writing," to be held from Nov. 2 to Dec. 31. About 120 to 160 books will be exhibited at each show. A list of the books on display during each show will be posted on the library's Web site, the spokesman said. The shows are aimed at encouraging the public to utilize the library more and cultivate the habit of reading as part of efforts to create a "learning society" where "anyone can read books anywhere," the spokesman said.
■ Education
Aboriginal grants offered
Kansas State University is offering grants in the region of US$10,000 to Aboriginal students to study at the school. The program, sponsored by Taiwanese alumni Lien Hua-chi (連華圻) and his wife Ho Mei-Hsien (何美賢), is designed to offer more international learning opportunities to Aboriginal students. Lien also encouraged recipients of the grant to return to Taiwan after completing their studies to contribute to their communities. Applicants are required to submit grade reports, letters of recommendation and proposals describing how they will contribute to their communities after studying in the US. For more information, contact Chou Sung-tien (周松田) at (06) 205-0622 or (06) 272-1027, or send an e-mail to stchou@mail.ksu.edu.tw before the end of May.
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