■ CHARITY
Tzu Chi helps blaze victims
The Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassionate Relief Foundation has twice this month airlifted blankets and other relief goods to the Philippines to help victims of a disastrous fire that occurred in a slum near Manila earlier this month, a Tzu Chi official said yesterday. Tzu Chi airlifted 2,000 blankets to the Philippines last Thursday. Transportation was provided free of charge thanks to the chairman of Philippine Airlines, Lucio Tan, who is a Tzu Chi volunteer, the Tzu Chi official said. Tzu Chi sent another batch of 3,000 blankets and 5,000 packs of first-aid and relief goods to Manila last Saturday, again free of charge thanks to Tan. The fire left more than 3,000 people homeless, Tzu Chi said.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Lights out at schools
Lights at the nation's government offices and at schools were turned off for one hour yesterday to mark Earth Day. At the suggestion of the Cabinet, lights at many government offices and schools were turned off between 12pm and 1pm to save energy and cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. The government issued the "lights out" order for the internationally recognized day in response to a call from 17 Taiwanese civic groups. The groups also urged that lights in the world's tallest building -- the 508m Taipei 101 -- be turned off briefly in a symbolic gesture. Taipei 101's lights will be turned off next month as part of another energy-saving campaign.
■ DEFENSE
Wan-an Exercise in Taitung
The annual Wan-an Exercise will be carried out in Taitung County from 8pm to 8:30pm on May 3. The Wan-an 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 reminded the public that all vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be suspended during the 30-minute exercise. All indoor and outdoor lights must also be switched off. Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) will be the convener for the exercise. The exercise will be a good chance for the county government officials to practice and simulate related procedures, she said.
■ POLITICS
TSU criticizes Lee verdict
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus yesterday said the Supreme Court's ruling against former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in a defamation lawsuit was too severe. People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) had filed the lawsuit and the Taipei District Court ruled in November 2005 that Lee should pay Soong NT$10 million (US$300,000) in compensation and run apologies in nine newspapers. The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Taiwan High Court's ruling that Lee, seen by TSU members as the party's spiritual leader, should apologize to Soong and compensate him for defamation. The ruling said Lee insinuated in a speech in 2004 that Soong was playing mahjong with friends on April 10, 2004, while his followers fought police after President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election. The Supreme Court ruled Lee should run apologies in three newspapers for a day and pay Soong NT$2 million. "The verdict was severe because Lee did not specify who he was talking about [in his speech]," TSU caucus whip Tseng Tsahn-deng (曾燦燈) said. PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), on the other hand, yesterday lauded the ruling, calling it "belated justice."
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