■ Military
Service length to be cut
The 16-month obligatory military service will be reduced to 14 months starting on July 1, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced yesterday. The ministry said it had coordinated with the Ministry of the Interior on the issue and would submit the proposal to the Cabinet for final approval. On whether the length of service would be reduced to 12 months next year, the MND said it would be contingent on manpower needs at the time. The MND said it could cut the length of obligatory military service again in the near future.
■ Education
Tuition hikes get go-ahead
The Ministry of Education yesterday announced that eight of the nation's universities would be given the green light to raise tuition fees by 3 percent. Soochow University, Shih Hsin University, Tamkang University, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Southern Taiwan University of Technology, Hungkuang University, Chang Gung Institute of Technology and Nan Kai Institute of Technology will be allowed to increase their fees this academic year. The hikes will be within a 3 percent range, from NT$578 (US$18) to NT$1,630, depending on the school, the education ministry said in a press release. The ministry also announced that nine schools -- mostly small technology institutes and colleges -- must lower their tuition costs by 1 percent because of poor management and academic performance.
■ Politics
DPP probes cheat allegations
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) last night said it would investigate whether any legislative hopefuls had cheated during the legislative primaries. The announcement of the primary public poll results have been postponed until June 27, DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said after a provisional Central Executive Committee meeting was convened to deal with the recent controversy over the fairness of the primaries. The dispute arose after the Chinese-language Next magazine alleged in a report on Wednesday that DPP Legislator Huang Chien-huei (黃劍輝) had leased 1,000 telephone lines to boost his chances of success in the poll. The magazine said 150 telephones had been set up in an apartment in Sanchong (三重), Taipei County, while the other 850 lines were directed to those 150 phones. The weekly said that Huang had staffers on standby in the apartment who had been told to support Huang if they were called by the pollsters. Huang denied the allegation.
■ Health
KMT tries to help doctors
In a non-binding resolution sponsored by 28 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers, the legislature on Tuesday resolved to ask the Department of Health to work out measures to help reduce the workload on resident doctors. KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), the chief sponsor of the resolution, said resident doctors work between 100 hours and 120 hours per week compared to 80 hours per week for their US counterparts and 40 hours per week for office workers. Citing a survey conducted by his staff, Lai said local resident doctors have to stay in hospital for night duty every three days and have to work a full day shift after the night duty. These unusually long hours have a heavy impact on doctors' performance and constitute a risk for their patients, Lai said, citing a US survey that found doctors undertaking a 90-hour work week are 50 percent more likely to commit errors on the job.
■ Health
Bird flu changes category
The status of bird flu has been changed back to type-one infectious disease category, the Department of Health said yesterday. The department said the possibility of a global epidemic with huge economic and social impact makes bird flu as dangerous as other type-one diseases. The disease will also now be officially referred to as the "H5N1 influenza" rather than "new type epidemic influenza" to conform with international terminology, it said in a press release. Other terminology related to the disease has also been changed in line with WHO definitions, such as "patient under investigation," "suspected case" and "probable case." The application of these definitions will help international epidemiological studies in the event of an outbreak, it said.
■ Crime
Ex-chairman sentenced
The Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled against former Chiayi Farmers' Association chairman Hsiao Teng-shih (蕭登獅) and gave him 14 months behind bars for bribing voters in the 2001 legislative election. The high court's verdict said that Hsiao, whose constituency was in Chiayi City, asked 51 of his vote captains and staff members at his campaign office to re-register their households in Chiayi from Taipei City. Hsiao then treated them to free tours of Chiayi as compensation. The Taipei District Court gave Hsiao a two-year sentence on June 29, 2005, but Hsiao immediately appealed. Hsiao can still appeal yesterday's ruling within 10 days upon receiving the verdict. Hsiao is from a politically well-connected family, known as the Hsiao Family Clan (蕭家班). The clan used to be the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) biggest vote captains in the Chiayi area.
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