■ EDUCATION
Tuition increases limited
Increases in tuition and miscellaneous fees at domestic universities will not exceed more than 2.88 percent for the academic year starting in September, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. Based on the rate, tuition and miscellaneous fees can rise between NT$327 and NT$1,928, according to different departments and universities, the ministry said in a statement. The announcement came amid reports that many universities were planning to apply to the ministry to raise fees by between 5 percent and 10 percent for the next academic year. Opposition legislators have expressed concern that the hikes would deal another blow to cash-strapped households already hurt by inflation. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Pan Meng-an (潘孟安) said a 5 percent hike would push public university tuition and miscellaneous fees into the range of NT$26,000 to NT$42,000 per semester and those of private universities to NT$45,000 to NT$74,000 per semester.
■ AID
Taiwanese pledge millions
Taiwanese people and firms pledged more than US$9 million in one night to help rebuild schools in China’s earthquake-hit region, China’s state press reported yesterday. The donations were made to a television show on Thursday evening aired to raise money for victims of the May 12 earthquake that devastated Sichuan Province and killed more than 69,000 people, Xinhua news agency said. Taiwanese and Chinese singers performed on the three-hour show, which also featured video clips. The report did not give details of the donors, other than to say they pledged a total of 64 million yuan (US$9.38 million) to rebuild the many schools that collapsed in the quake, killing thousands of students. By the end of last month Taiwanese had also donated 2,000 tonnes of cement, 100 satellite telephones, 100 tonnes of tents, sleeping bags, medical supplies and other relief materials, the report said, citing the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
■ FLOODING
Authorities to investigate
The Kaohsiung City Government will assess the city’s drainage system following flooding on Thursday, Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday. Thursday’s torrential rains in central and southern Taiwan left many places in Kaohsiung flooded, with some low-lying areas submerged in knee-high rainwater for hours. The city received about 240mm of rainfall on Thursday, receiving up to 90mm in one hour. The drainage system is designed to handle 79mm per hour. Residents complained that a concrete wall built by the city government for dredging at Lotus Lake (蓮池潭), the city’s famous scenic spot, blocked the drainage facilities and turned out to be the major cause of the flooding. Chen said the city government’s Public Works Bureau and related authorities will investigate the reason for the flooding and if the investigation shows the cause was the concrete wall, the construction company that built it and the city government will take responsibility.
■ SPORTS
First lady for Paralympics?
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday suggested that first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) lead the nation’s delegation to the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, which will be held in September. After resigning as the head of the legal department at Mega International Commercial Bank, Chow decided to serve as honorary chairperson of Taiwan’s Red Cross Society.
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:
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