■ DEFENSE
Sky divers to give show
Ten paratroopers from the Army's Airborne Brigade Sky Diving Team (神龍小組) will land in the square in front of Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall this morning. The show is scheduled to begin at 8:50am. This will be the first time the Airborne Brigade Sky Diving Team has landed in the city. The performance has been postponed several times because of poor weather. The team includes Sergeant Tseng Ying-chih (曾英志), the nation's only paratrooper with more than 1,000 jumps, and Staff Sergeant Cheng Yu-shan (鄭有珊), the only female Sky Diving Team member participating in today's show. The Marines' Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit, its taekwondo team and the Military Police's Special Service will also perform at the same venue.
■ LAW
Curbing drunk driving
The National Police Agency said it could increase fines on drunk driving to help prevent accidents caused by drunken drivers, an agency official said yesterday. The agency proposed raising the fines to a range of NT$30,000 (US$924) to NT$60,000 to better clamp down on driving while intoxicated. The current Statute Governing the Punishment of Violation of Road Traffic Regulations (道路交通管理處罰條例) calls for fines for drunk driving of NT$15,000 to NT$60,000. However, he said current fines were not significantly curbing drunk driving, which is still the leading cause of traffic accidents. The agency recommended the Ministry of Transportation and Communications use Japan's road traffic regulations, amended by the Japanese Cabinet in June, as a reference when crafting more serious penalties for drunk drivers.
■ LAW
Satisfaction with courts rises
Public satisfaction with civil sanctions imposed by Taiwanese courts has increased significantly, the results of a survey released yesterday by the Judicial Yuan showed. The survey of 6,160 concerned parties was conducted between June and September. A similar survey was carried out in 2004. The latest survey found that 70 percent of respondents were satisfied with the outcome, up 12.7 percentage points from 2004, with the dissatisfaction rate decreasing 7.3 percentage points. Seventy-one percent were satisfied with the speed of the procedure, up 20 percentage points from 2004, with the dissatisfaction rate declining 10.7 percentage points. The satisfaction rates with the attitudes of the judges, clerks and bailiffs implementing the sanctions all registered more than 70 percent, up 13 percent to 21 percent from 2004.
■ ANIMALS
More help to neuter pets
The Kaohsiung City Government said it has revised its quota for pet neutering. Prior to the change, residents aged 15 and over were only eligible to receive a subsidy to neuter one cat or dog. Kaohsiung City Economic Affairs Bureau director-general Tsay Wu-der (蔡武德) said the quota has been raised to three because pet owners usually own more than one pet. Pet owners will receive a NT$1,000 subsidy to neuter each female cat or dog and NT$500 for each male, Tsay said. Kaohsiung residents wanting to apply for the subsidies should bring cats or dogs that have received rabies vaccines and have ID chip implants to animal hospitals that are part of the bureau's Livestock Health and Inspection Laboratory. The bureau expects to subsidize 1,000 operations this year, Tsay said, adding that applications should be submitted by Dec. 15.
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