■ LAW
Amendment targets abuse
The legislative Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to the Civil Code yesterday that would allow for a divorce should either the husband or wife be the victim of abuse. Under the current law, only the husband can apply for a divorce in an abusive relationship. The amendment would allow judges to grant a divorce to either party in cases of child or spousal abuse, with hospital treatment records or police reports required as proof. The amendment, moved by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) legislative caucus, targeted Article 1,052 of the Civil Code and will be submitted for final approval. DPP legislative caucus whip Wang Tuoh (王拓) said that the rising number of cases of child abuse was the main reason behind the DPP's decision to push for the amendment.
■ MEDICINE
Cardiology congress opens
As many as 2,000 medical professionals and researchers from all over Taiwan and the world are expected to take part in the four-day Asian Pacific Congress of Cardiology that opened yesterday, event organizers said. "It's an affirmation of our level of expertise in this field that the a majority of the congress' members supported Taipei's bid to hold the congress this year," Taiwan Society of Cardiology secretary-general Hou Jia-yin (侯嘉殷) said. The topics to be discussed range from stem cell therapy for cardiovascular disease to recent advances in cardiovascular imaging. The congress will feature a series of live demonstrations of cardiac catheterization operations transmitted by satellite from operating rooms at four major Taiwanese medical centers. This is the first time such technology has been used at the congress, Hou said.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Touch data transfer possible
A new "contact communication system" has been developed by researchers at National Taiwan University that enables data exchange with a simple handshake, university sources said yesterday. Invented by a team led by Lu Shey-shi (呂學士), a professor at the university's Department of Electrical Engineering, the system uses the human body as a data transmission medium. Equipped with signal units, two users can exchange information such as telephone numbers and e-mail addresses with a handshake, or a person can submit identification information to operate security systems and ATM machines at the touch of a finger. Lu said that although scientists had known for a long time that the human body is capable of conducting electricity, real applications in data transmission through body parts had never existed before.
■ AID
WVI president visits Taipei
World Vision International (WVI) president and chief executive officer Dean Hirsch is visiting Taipei to promote the Micro Enterprise Development (MED) program aimed at helping children from impoverished families, a World Vision Taiwan executive said yesterday. Hirsch said the MED program has been launched in 58 of the nearly 100 countries where WVI maintains operations. Under the program, WVI has offered US$1 billion in soft loans to help individuals and households launch businesses and earn a sustainable income. Hirsch said the MED has only US$250 million in capital, adding that WVI intends to raise more funds for the program with the aim of helping improve the lives of 8 million children around the globe, creating 4 million jobs and providing loans to 2 million people by 2011.
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