■ ENVIRONMENT
Group tackles nuclear budget
Environmentalists yesterday asked the legislature to stop budgeting for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairwoman Gloria Hsu (徐光蓉) said that the law required the legislature to review assessment reports for major public construction projects before it can begin appropriating budgets. Given that the design of the fourth nuclear power plant has been modified and construction delayed for years, Taiwan Power Co must first provide an updated assessment report, Hsu said. However, the company simply listed the construction costs when it submitted its budget plan to the legislature and ignored legal procedures. Yen Mei-chuan (顏美娟), president of the Home-makers' Union and Foundation, said this was not the first time the company had asked lawmakers to approve additional budgets, as it had done so for delayed projects
in the first three nuclear power plants. A Ministry of Economic Affairs statement issued yesterday said it had planned a budget of NT$233.5 billion [US$7.3 billion] for the project.
■ POLITICS
Lee Teng-hui out of hospital
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was discharged from hospital yesterday afternoon after undergoing heart surgery on Saturday, the Veterans General Hospital in Taipei said. Lee, 84, was recovering well, the hospital said in a press release. Doctors had inserted a balloon into his narrowed arteries to allow them to implant stents more easily. Altogether, the former president has had 11 stents implanted. Lee has had heart surgery three times before. Doctors, considering his age, had decided against coronary bypass surgery and conducted the less invasive cauterization surgery. The Taiwan Solidarity Union, of which Lee is considered the spiritual leader, said yesterday that he was likely to deliver a speech at its national assembly meeting on Saturday.
■ MEDIA
Taiwan Society eyes media
A pro-independence group announced yesterday that it was planning a series of events to address the issue of irresponsible media coverage following TVBS' involvement in a gangster's threatening video. Taiwan Society secretary-general Chet Yang (楊文嘉) said that three forums were scheduled for this month to discuss issues ranging from media policy and the journalistic profession to public expectations of the fourth estate. The organization will also make public who TVBS' major advertisers are and encourage people to stop watching the channel. A rally is planned for Sunday, April 29, in Yuanshan, Taipei. The organization will also form various sub-groups in the next couple of months, including societies for Aborigines, Mainlander descendants, young people and veterans.
■ WEATHER
Don't forget your umbrellas
Rain will resume this week as a frontal system from the north is expected to approach this afternoon, a Central Weather Bureau forecast said yesterday. The front will cause thunder showers nationwide and is forecast to remain for about two days. The weather could improve by Thursday, although another frontal system will arrive by Sunday. The bureau has warned ships operating off the north and northeast coasts that unstable weather conditions will likely generate strong winds and big waves in these areas today and tomorrow.
■ EVENTS
Bartenders and mayor meet
Representatives from the International Bartenders Association held a meeting with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) yesterday in preparation for the World Cocktail Competition, which will be held in Kaohsiung in November. More than 800 bartenders from the association's 52 member countries will gather for the six-day conference, which will also feature the World Flairtending Championship Competition at Chihteh Hall. Chen said bartending is not just a skill, but also a cultural art, and that the city would do everything it could to support the conference and increase the nation's visibility at international level. Last year, Taiwan's Kung Hui-chun (龔惠君) won the world championship competition and Taiwan has won four consecutive Asian Open Cup competitions.
■ MILITARY
Carrier target of exercise
Taiwan is performing a computerized military exercise for the first time that focuses on attacking a Chinese aircraft carrier, it was reported yesterday. The scenario of a five-day drill -- part of the annual "Han Kuang" series of military exercises -- is that in 2012 the People's Liberation Army (PLA) launch a blitz on the nation after they acquire their first aircraft carrier, the Chinese-language daily China Times reported. The Ministry of National Defense declined to comment on the report. In the drill beginning yesterday, the Taiwanese navy armed with home-made "Hsiungfeng II" ship-to-ship missiles and the improved version of supersonic "Hsiungfeng III" missiles was to simulate launching its arsenal against a Chinese aircraft carrier. F-16 fighters would also simulate attacks on the carrier, it said. The former commander-in-chief of US Pacific Command would witness the drill.
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