■ HEALTH
Woman seeking donor
A Chinese-American woman suffering from leukemia is looking for a compatible ethnic Chinese donor for a bone marrow transplant, members of a Taiwanese expatriate group in the US said on Thursday. Ethnic Chinese aged 18 to 55 who are physically fit and willing to help are urged to get blood tests to see if they are a match for the 35-year-old woman surnamed Hsu, the US east coast chapter of the National Women's League of the Republic of China said. Potential donors can have their blood samples collected for testing at the following locations in New York: Central Islip Campus, New York Institute and Technology at 1:30pm tomorrow; Boon Church of Overseas Chinese Mission, Flushing, at 1pm next Sunday; and Chung Hwa Book Inc, Flushing, at 4pm next Sunday. They can also contact Cammy Lee Leukemia Foundation Inc at 16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10D, New York, or check out www.cllf.org.
■ HORTICULTURE
Expo logo, mascot unveiled
The Taipei City Government yesterday unveiled the logo and mascot for the 2010 Taipei International Gardening and Horticulture Exposition, which will be held from Nov. 6, 2010 to April 30, 2011, at the Zhongshan Soccer Stadium. The logo featured a flower composed of human shapes in five different colors, while the mascot, called "Flower Band," was formed by five smiling fairies. Lee Kai-an (李鎧安), designer of the mascot, said he combined the elements of flower and music to add some vitality to the design. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said Taipei will be the seventh Asian city to host the exposition, and the event is expected to attract more than 6 million visitors and boost the floricultural and tourism industries.
■ CONSERVATION
Rodent may be protected
The Council of Agriculture will soon list the Asiatic water shrew as the country's first protected rodent. The council's Forestry Bureau paved the way for the decision by approving a proposal to list the Asiatic water shrew as a protected species at a commissioners' meeting on the preservation of wild animals on Thursday. Lin Liang-kong (林良恭), a professor at Tunghai University's Department of Life Science, said the Asiatic water shrew -- one of 19 types of rodents in the country -- was discovered in 1971 along the Mei River in central Taiwan. The polluted river and a river treatment project have resulted in a sharp decline in the rodent's population in the area. The Asiatic water shrew weighs a maximum of 50g to 60g and feeds on water insects, small fish and small shrimp. It lives close to the water, and snakes are its natural enemy.
■ EDUCATION
College entrance test starts
The annual national college entrance examination started yesterday with more than 150,000 students taking the test. The two-day exam is held in every county across the nation, including the outlying islands. The College Entrance Examination Center said that only 1.7 percent, or 2,490, registered test takers, including seven students with special needs, failed to show up. A majority of the examinees said the test was more difficult than they had expected. One student, Lin Hung-hsun (林鴻勛) of the Taipei School for the Visually Impaired, took the test while hooked up to an oxygen tank. Lin, who suffers from lung disease, said he wanted "to give himself a chance" to take up public administration in college.
■ CRIME
PFP's Lin Chung-te indicted
Former People First Party (PFP) legislator Lin Chun-te (林春德) was indicted yesterday for vote-buying during his re-election campaign. Nantou prosecutors asked the Nantou District Court to sentence Lin to five years in jail and fine him NT$5 million (US$155,000). Lin lost his bid for re-election in the Jan. 12 legislative elections as an Aboriginal candidate. Prosecutors said that between July and November last year, Lin allegedly treated a total of nearly 100 Aboriginal voters to trips to Hualien, Taoyuan and China in return for their votes. Ten others were indicted in connection with Lin's case.
■ CRIME
Kaohsiung official indicted
Hsiao Yu-cheng (蕭裕正), the director of the Kaohsiung City Government Bureau of Environmental Protection, was indicted yesterday on charges of corruption and violations of the Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法). Prosecutors asked the Kaoshiung District Court to sentence Hsiao to 14 years in jail. Hsiao is accused of wining and dining Kaohsiung street cleaners in the hope of winning their support for a candidate in the Jan. 12 legislative elections. According to prosecutors, Hsiao solicited support for the candidate while throwing a lunch party on Nov. 24 for city cleaning staff. Prosecutors said Hsiao also embezzled funds from the bureau.
■ SOCIETY
Wheelchair access required
New buildings must be equipped with facilities for disabled people from this month or they will not pass inspection, the Ministry of the Interior said on Thursday. The announcement came after the ministry approved amendments to regulations governing wheelchair access to facilities within public buildings. The amendments are part of the ministry's efforts to expand the current scope of the regulations to create a more friendly environment for disabled people, an official said. Under the amendments, the definition of public buildings will be extended to include convenience stores, hypermarkets, cram schools and daycare centers occupying an area of over 500m2, the official said.
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