■POLITICS
Lai allegations dismissed
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday dismissed allegations that Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman-designate Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) had asked to join his administration if he had won the presidential election in 2000. Soong also denied having any knowledge about Lai’s alleged bid for a legislator-at-large nomination from the PFP. “The speculations about Lai seeking positions from me are groundless and untrue. I hope that the public will stop speculating about the Cabinet lineup,” Soong said in a written statement. Soong made the comments in response to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi’s (邱毅) accusations that Lai, a Taiwan Solidarity Union member, had asked to join Soong’s campaign team during the 2000 presidential election via a business tycoon’s wife.
■DIPLOMACY
Philippines protests visit
The head of the Philippine Senate’s foreign relations committee called yesterday for a diplomatic protest over reported plans by Taiwanese officials to visit the disputed Spratly Islands next week. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, in a letter to Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, said the planned visit to the new airstrip on Taiping Island “would constitute a provocative act on the part of Taiwan” and violate a declaration by China and ASEAN’s Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. Taiwan is not a signatory to the 2002 declaration, but Santiago said “it is bound by the declaration, which in my humble view has since evolved into regional customary international law.” Minister of National Defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) and a group of legislators are planning to visit the island on Wednesday.
■DIPLOMACY
Tokyo governor plans visit
Governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara will visit Taiwan on May 19 to attend president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inauguration the following day, the Sankei Shimbun reported yesterday. Ishihara will depart from Narita International Airport for Taipei, the report said. Outgoing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is scheduled to confer the Order of the Brilliant Star with Special Grand Gordon on Ishihara in recognition of his long-term efforts in promoting Taiwan-Japan ties, the report said. Ishihara is also expected to meet former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and several economists in Taipei and to tour a high-tech park in Taichung.
■CRIME
Temple burglars arrested
Police yesterday arrested five members of a gang suspected of carrying out a string of temple burglaries over the past several years around the nation. In separate raids, police in Yangmei Township (楊梅), Taoyuan County, Chiayi, Taichung and Taoyuan City arrested the five members, including the suspected ringleaders, surnamed Yao and Hsu. The police also seized several items as evidence, including maps and information on the temples that were burgled, lock cutters, telescopes, walkie-talkies, fake guns and computer files with details of further planned burglaries. The members of the ring are suspected of having carried out more than 100 burglaries in which they grabbed over NT$10 million (US$329,000) in cash and valuable temple items, police said. Initial investigations revealed the ring members had also collected information on another 1,000 temples across the country.
■SPORTS
Champion kids run set
Three teams of children and parents will be selected next month to represent the country at the Olympic “Champion Kids” run in Beijing in August, sources from the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) said yesterday. The 2008 Olympic Day Run, sponsored by the CTOC, will be held in Taipei on June 15, and will allow children and their parents to team up to take part in a 3km road run. Elementary school students can team up with either their father or mother to take part in the race. The runners will be divided into three divisions depending on age and will run from the Taipei City Government square to Anhe Road. Participants can register at the CTOC’s Web site before June 25, officials said. A total of 300 teams will be selected worldwide to take part in the Olympic road run, CTOC chairman Tsai Chen-wei (蔡辰威) said.
■HEALTH
Stroke indicator discovered
A stroke study center at Changhua Christian Hospital in Changhua County has discovered a biological indicator that can be used to help doctors better diagnose strokes and assess the condition of stroke patients during their recovery, a doctor at the hospital said yesterday. The indicator, called CSC001, can be used to monitor the patients’ recovery and determine if they are at immediate risk of suffering another stroke, Liu Ching-shan (劉青山), vice superintendent of the hospital, told a news conference. Liu said an increase in the concentration of CSC molecules in the blood indicates a high possibility of deterioration or an acute situation in the following week, even if the patient only has mild stroke symptoms. A physician will be able to decide whether to step up treatment based on the indicator, Liu said.
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