■ POLITICS
Bolton to visit Taipei
Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton will visit Taiwan in the middle of this month at the invitation of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Bolton has been a staunch supporter of Taiwan, meeting with first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) in Washington in 2002 in his official capacity as then-undersecretary for arms control and international security. He also expressed his support for Taiwan to join the UN at a congressional hearing on his appointment as undersecretary in 2001. He visited Taiwan twice in the spring of 2000 to witness the presidential election and President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) inauguration.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Tap festival opens in Taipei
Taipei City's tap festival kicks off today, with shows and classes offered by well-known dancers from around the world. The festival, organized by the Taipei Arts Promotion Association, will run through Aug. 14. Barbara Duffy and Van Porter from the US, Mandy Petty from England and Keiji Ichino from Japan are among the foreign tappers participating in the festival. A tap contest will be held on Aug. 11 at the Taipei Cultural Center. Petty, Ichino and local groups, including Tapwalker, will perform Sleepless Tap at 7:30pm on Aug.14 at the City Stage next to the center. Free tickets for the show will be available starting at 2:30pm that day at the stage. For further information, call 02-2382-6971 or visit the Web site www.taptaipei.blogspot.com.
■ HEALTH
DOH approves genechips
Locally developed genechips capable of detecting human papillomavirus (HPV) and speeding up HPV genotyping were approved for sale by the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday. The HPV detection genechips, with the brand name "Easychip HPV Blot," were developed about two years ago by a biotech firm associated with King Car Food. "Easychip HPV Blot" genechips are capable of identifying the genotypes of 15 of 17 high-risk types of HPV via a polymerase chain reaction-based method. Such virus types have been implicated in cervical cancer, which must be treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radical surgery, a company source said.
■ CULTURE
Street art symposium set
The Kaohsiung County Government will hold a street art symposium from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 and has invited French street artists to share their experiences with their Taiwanese counterparts. Elodie Presles, chief executive officer of France's national street art center, and two teams of French street artists will be invited to the three-day event, the officials said. Interested performers can register for the event through Aug. 10, officials said. Kaohsiung County committed itself to developing street art performances last year, and it has issued 104 performing licenses since then, officials said. Street performers' direct interaction with passers-by on streets, at subway stations and at other public facilities brings the art closer to the public, the officials said.
■ CRIME
Malaysian nabbed for drugs
A Malaysian man was arrested on Thursday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after officials found 35,000 nimetazepam tablets -- a hypnotic drug -- in his luggage. Lim Swee-chye, 29, was about to leave on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong when Investigation Bureau agents and customs officials asked to check his luggage. An official said 9.25kg of nimetazepam tablets had been hidden in eight bags of corn chip snacks in Lim's luggage.
■ SOCIETY
Tunnel pileup injures 34
A five-vehicle pileup on a northbound section of the No. 3 Freeway in Taipei County injured 30 children and four adults yesterday morning. The accident occurred at 9:25am in the Chungho Tunnel when two buses that had reduced their speed after entering the tunnel were rear-ended by two buses chartered by Kid Castle Kindergarten in Sanhsia Township (三峽). The buses carrying the children were in turn hit from behind by a container truck. A total of seven teachers and 54 children from the school were heading for the Taipei Zoo. One bus drivers suffered a broken leg, the others who were hurt had minor head and shoulder injuries. They were sent to four different hospitals in Taipei County for treatment. The accident caused a 4km traffic jam and traffic did not return to normal until around noon.
■ SOCIETY
Fathers put happiness first
Approximately 90 percent of fathers in Tainan City said the happiness of their family was their single greatest achievement, a survey released yesterday showed. The survey of 851 fathers was conducted by the city's family education center from June 10 to June 30 in order to mark Father's Day, which is next Wednesday. More than 90 percent of respondents were willing to make an effort to maintain their marriage and nearly 80 percent said that they would choose their wives again if given the opportunity to reconsider their marriage partner.
■ DIPLOMACY
Representative offers aid
Deputy representative to Japan Lo Kun-tsan (羅坤燦)visited the Niigata Prefecture government yesterday to express concern for those affected by a July 16 earthquake that killed 11 people. Lo presented Niigata Deputy Governor Kazuo Jinbo with a ?5 million (US$41,960) donation. The 6.8 quake injured more than 1,800 people and destroyed hundreds of houses.
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