■ SOCIETY
Sanatorium march tomorrow
More than 100 civic groups and organizations from across the nation will stage a march demanding the preservation of Lo Sheng Sanatorium tomorrow. Originally, part of the 77-year-old sanatorium was to be demolished on Monday to make room for a Mass Rapid Transport maintenance depot. Facing strong opposition, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Wednesday postponed the deadline so that an alternative plan that may preserve 90 percent of the sanatorium could be considered. Civil groups will stage a 2km march beginning at 1:30pm tomorrow at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei and ending at the Presidential Office. "Lo Sheng buses" leaving from several locations around the country will help bring people to the march. For more information, visit www.socialforce.tw/phpBB/post_484441.html#484441.
■ JUSTICE
First lady misses hearing
First lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) yesterday missed another hearing in the "state affairs" fund case. Prosecutor Chang Hsi-huai (張熙懷) quoted a letter from Wu's doctors which said that her health was likely to deteriorate further and that they therefore recommended against her attending the hearing. Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) summoned Wu to attend the next hearing on May 11. Wu has not appeared in court since fainting from low blood pressure during the first hearing on Dec. 15 last year. Wu was indicted on Nov. 3 on charges of corruption and forgery involving the "state affairs fund" budgeted for the president's discretionary use.
■ CRIME
Immigration staff questioned
Taoyuan prosecutors have questioned eight Immigration Administration officers suspected of collusion with foreign labor brokerage firms to solicit bribes from employers of foreign workers, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday. Taoyuan District Prosecutors' Office spokesman John Chang (張進豐) said he had "no comment" when approached for confirmation of the report yesterday. The newspaper reported that the brokerages were suspected of providing certain officers in the Immigration Administration's Taoyuan and Ilan task forces with the names and whereabouts of foreign laborers violating the terms of their labor permits. While workers violating their labor contracts are supposed to be repatriated and their employers fined, the eight officers are suspected of demanding NT$50,000 per worker from employees in return for ignoring violations and disregarding fines.
■ SPORT
Games dates announced
The 2007 World Wheelchair and Amputee Games are scheduled to be held in Taipei from Sept. 9 to Sept. 19 with the participation of some 1,500 handicapped athletes from 60 countries and areas. Chinese Taipei Paralympic Committee (CTPC) president Chen Li Chou (陳李綢) said that, as of Thursday, athletes from 42 countries and areas have completed their registration with the committee. He said the event would be the second of its kind since the first were held in Brazil in September 2005, adding that Taiwan beat four other serious contenders -- South Africa, the US, South Korea and Israel -- to win the right to host this year's games. Athletes will compete in 11 sports -- track and field, archery, tennis, swimming, power lifting, shooting, bowling, snooker, table tennis, fencing and badminton.
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