■ CRIME
Kinmen fights vote-buying
The Kinmen District Prosecutors Office inaugurated its new "Investigation Coordination Center" yesterday as it kicked off a campaign against vote-buying in the run-up to the legislative and presidential elections in January and March respectively. A ceremony was held at the office to mark the opening of the new facility intended as a base for efforts to combat vote-buying, with prosecutors tasked to look into any allegations of illegal election activity, said Wu Wen-cheng (吳文政), head prosecutor of the office. Legislative candidacy registration began today. Wu said that the prosecutors' office on Kinmen had so far received more than 20 reports of alleged vote-buying.
■ EDUCATION
Teachers skeptical of policy
A majority of teachers think the nation is not ready for a 12-year compulsory education system, a Taiwan Provincial Education Association survey released yesterday said. More than 60 percent of the teachers polled said the education system was not prepared to extend compulsory education from nine years to 12, while 83 percent of respondents said the government had not taken important steps to facilitate the change. The survey was carried out from June 1 to June 30, with 16,927 elementary and high school school teachers surveyed. Huang Kuang-kuo (黃光國), a psychology professor at National Taiwan University, said the outcome highlighted the faults of the nation's education reforms. Huang said reform aimed at ensuring that all students have access to senior high school and higher education did not help students develop their potential.
■ culture
Square may be renamed
The Ministry of Education said yesterday that a proposal to rename the square in front of the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall had been submitted to the Council of Cultural Affairs for approval. Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) told lawmakers during a legislative meeting yesterday that the square and the inscription on the front gate of the hall would be changed from dazhong zhizheng (大中至正), meaning justice, to "Liberty Square." Taipei City Cultural Affairs Department Commissioner Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) threatened the ministry with a fine if any part of the hall is removed or renovated. "If they dare do it, we will fine them," she told a press conference. Chuang Kuo-jung (莊國榮), a ministry official, told the Taipei Times that the proposal had been submitted to the council, but nothing would be changed until the council approves it, adding that the bronze statue of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) would not be removed. "It's too early to say what will happen as we have just submitted the proposal," he said.
■ AGRICULTURE
Fund to protect farmers
The Council of Agriculture announced yesterday that it plans to create a fund worth NT$2 billion (US$62 million) within three years to set up a quota management system for the poultry industry and stabilize product prices in case of sharp market fluctuations. Officials said the council and local poultry industry have come to an agreement that beginning next year, each side will contribute NT$1 billion to set up the joint fund within three years to tackle imbalances in demand and supply in line with a quota-based management system scheduled to be fully implemented by 2009.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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