■ THSRC to add more trains
The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) will increase the number of southbound and northbound daily train runs to 113 next month, with more than 50 trains in each direction every day, THSRC executive director Ou Chin-der (歐晉德) said yesterday. He said that a train will depart every 10 minutes during rush hours and that they will offer open-seat tickets to serve more passengers. The prices of open-seat tickets have not been determined but it was unlikely they would be substantially discounted, he said. THSRC has also started to map out plans for the phone booking system, but it probably would not be ready before the end of this year. THSRC also plans to begin selling light meals priced at under NT$100, excluding beverages. Lunch boxes are also being considered, he said.
■ CRIME
Punishment a write-off
Tainan prosecutors asked a man to write Buddhism's Heart Sutra (般若波羅密心經) 100 times in return for dropping the charges against him. The man, surnamed Lin (林), was indicted for selling pornographic pictures and comic books over the Internet. Police officers contacted Lin through the Internet and asked for 15 comic books. Lin was arrested on Sept. 15 in Jenteh Township (仁德), Tainan County, when he delivering the comics. Tainan Prosecutor Chang Wan-ning (張婉寧) decided to ask him to "do something" in return for suspension of his charges since this was his first offense. So she asked him to copy out the Heart Sutra 100 times within three months. If Lin fails to finish his task or asks other people to help him, the suspended charges will be reinstated, officials said.
■ POLITICS
DPP and TSU negotiate
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) met Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) to discuss how to prevent their parties from hurting each other's chances in January's legislative elections. Huang dismissed speculation that the DPP would allocate a legislator-at-large seat to a female TSU legislator, saying such rumors only vilified his party's reputation. "The TSU is an independent party and therefore it is not an issue whether it will merge with the DPP," he said. Huang said he and Cho had discussed how to cooperate in eight constituencies and would talk again before Friday. The two men met after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) met Huang on Oct. 18. Chen and Huan agreed to negotiate cooperative efforts for the legislative elections as soon as possible.
■ EDUCATION
Survey shows stress rising
Junior high school students in Taipei suffer more serious stress than senior-high students, a survey released yesterday by the Taipei City Department of Health showed. The survey was conducted earlier this month among 543 students at a junior-high school and 1,060 students at a senior-high school. Both schools have test-oriented curriculums. The survey found that 30 percent of junior-high respondents described themselves as suffering from serious stress, while 28 percent of senior-high respondents reported serious stress. The two figures were both higher than the 20 percent of working people who claim to suffer from serious stress, said Kao Wei-chun (高偉君), the department official responsible for medical care and health management.
■CLA launches new program
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) recently launched a program to help young people find jobs amid high unemployment rates among new graduates. Many young people cannot find jobs after they graduate, council Chairman Lu Tien-lin (盧天麟) said, adding that the youth unemployment rate is 11.6 percent, three times the overall unemployment rate. A council survey found that 60 percent to 70 percent of young people said that they had trouble finding their first job, Lu said. The survey also found that up to 40 percent of companies polled have shut out first-time job seekers. The council has allocated NT$250 million (US$7.6 million) for the job-training program. People under the age of 29, with a bachelor's or master's degree are eligible. Participants will receive a monthly subsidy of NT$12,096, he said.
■ EDUCATION
NTU and NTUE to combine
The National Taipei University of Education (NTUE) is expected to be incorporated into National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2010, according to NTU president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔). Lee and his NTUE counterpart Chuang Chi-min (莊淇銘) said preparations for the merger are under way. The plan to combine the two universities was proposed by the Ministry of Education more than 10 years ago, and the executives of the two schools have been thrashing out differences ever since. The plan will be carried out in three stages, with the first stage integrating libraries and courses, the second stage integrating staff and finally full integration. The 110-year-old NTUE is the oldest academic institution in Taiwan, while NTU, only a few blocks away, is widely considered the nation's best and most prestigious university.
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