■ CRIME
New office to tackle IPR
A branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office authorized to handle cases related to violations of intellectual property rights was activated yesterday, a spokesman for the Prosecutors Office said. The branch office — to be initially manned by four prosecutors and four clerks — was established as part of the arrangements for the nation’s first Intellectual Property (IP) Court, which will be inaugurated on Tuesday, the spokesman said. The branch office will mainly be responsible for investigating and prosecuting individuals or companies who have allegedly violated intellectual property rights, patent rights, copyrights or the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法), the spokesman said. The Taiwan IP Court will handle lawsuits and administrative litigation related to violations of intellectual property rights. Eight judges and nine technical examiners will staff the court.
■ SOCIETY
Pingtung church gets funds
A 150-year-old Catholic church in Pingtung County has raised enough money to give the Wan Chin Basilica a facelift thanks to the compassion shown by Pingtung residents, parish priest Ruben Mardinec said yesterday. Mardinec thanked county residents for donating NT$764,000 (US$25,132) — enough to help the church meet the rest of the NT$1.9 million bill for the project. The Pingtung County Department of Culture helped the basilica apply for a grant for the project last year from the Council for Cultural Affairs. The council agreed to provide NT$1.136 million to renovate the basilica, which is rated a grade three historic site. A fundraising campaign was launched in April to make up the balance. Church authorities want to whitewash the basilica’s walls, restoring them to their original look.
■ POLITICS
NCU maintains decision
National Chengchi University (NCCU) yesterday upheld its decision not to renew former Ministry of Education secretary-general Chuang Kuo-rong’s (莊國榮) teaching contract. NCCU chancellor Wu Si-hua (吳思華) said the university made the decision based on the school regulation that “teachers should not harm the school’s reputation.” Chuang sparked controversy during the presidential campaign in March, when he used a profanity to imply then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) late father had a salacious relationship with his goddaughter. NCU made a preliminary decision earlier this month not to renew Chuang’s contract.
■ SOCIETY
TGDA wins scholarship
The Taiwan Guide Dog Association (TGDA) has won a scholarship from the International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF) to help breed, nurture and train young guide dogs at an overseas training school, a TGDA official said yesterday. A delegation attended the IGDF Conference 2008 held in London last month, during which the TGDA was awarded a Derek Freeman Scholarship, a TGDA spokeswoman said. The scholarship was granted to Taiwan because it has produced exceptional guide dogs capable of dealing with “Taiwan’s very special traffic conditions and highly challenging environment for guide dogs to work and live in,” she said. The amount of the scholarship and how it will be used will be decided after TGDA secretary-general William Chen (陳長青) returns from a visit to a dog school in France, she said. Founded in 1989, the IGDF has a membership of 84 guide dog associations from around the world. The TGDA became a full member in 2002.
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