■ CRIME
Ladies scammed online
More than 20 housewives fell victim to an online scam involving discounted department store gift coupons in May and last month, the fraud prevention hotline 165 said yesterday. The women were cheated out of more than NT$50 million (US$1.64 million), said staff at the hotline, which was set up by the police several years ago for reporting suspected fraudulent activity. One of the victims, surnamed Chien, said she lost more than NT$9 million belonging to her, her family and friends in the scam, including NT$5 million of her retired aunt’s pension money. Chien said that her aunt was so distraught after hearing that the money had been lost in the scam that she had to be admitted to hospital. The hotline team urged citizens to be wary of online offers that sound too good to be true.
■TRAVEL
Hualien-Japan route opens
The inaugural charter flight between Hualien City and Yonaguni-chou in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture took off yesterday, flying a 72-member group led by Hualien Mayor Tsai Chi-ta (蔡啟塔) to the Japanese island for a four-day trip. The charter operated by Taipei-based TransAsia Airways was arranged to celebrate the 26th anniversary of sisterhood ties between the two localities. About 5 million Japanese tourists visit Okinawa per year, and Hualien stands a good chance of seizing business opportunities as a one-way flight between the two destinations takes only 40 minutes, the mayor said. The TransAsia charter plane was slated to return from Yonaguni to Hualien later the same day, carrying a 21-member group of Japanese tourists headed by the Yonaguni council speaker for a four-day visit in Hualien.
■HEALTH
Enterovirus in Sijhih
A 13-year-old boy in Sijhih City (汐止市) who was recently admitted to the hospital with symptoms of herpangina has been confirmed as Taipei County’s 12th serious enterovirus case of the year, the county government’s Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The boy was checked in to the hospital on June 21 when his condition began to worsen, and doctors at the hospital reported the suspected enterovirus case to the Department of Health’s Centers for Disease Control the same day. The center later confirmed that the boy had been infected with enterovirus 71 (E-71). The Public Health Bureau said there have been 296 serious enterovirus cases confirmed around Taiwan so far this year. In Taipei County, a total of 34 suspected cases have been reported to date, with 12 having been confirmed and 11 still being tested, the bureau said.
■EDUCATION
US culture camp on offer
In celebration of the Fourth of July, the American Institute in Taiwan and Taichung American Corner (TAC) are inviting Taiwanese youth ranging from eight to 15 years of age to participate in an English Summer Camp today. The event will be held at the TAC for Aboriginal high school students and at the Providence University Foreign Language Center for elementary school students. The program aims to increase awareness of US society, culture and values. Campers will also learn about US holidays and baseball, as well as American Indian folklore. The Chinese Professional Baseball League is a co-sponsor of the event. Several prominent Taiwanese baseball players are scheduled to speak to the young campers. For more information, please contact the National Taichung Library or the Providence University Foreign Language Center.
■HISTORY
High court upholds verdict
Taiwan High Court judges yesterday upheld a previous verdict of not guilty in a fraud case against cult leader Sung Chi-li (宋七力) and his assistant Cheng Chen-tung (鄭振冬). The ruling is not final, and the defendants as well as the plaintiffs can lodge a further appeal. The case in question dates to 1996 when then-Taipei City councilor Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) held a press conference and accused Sung of claiming to have supernatural powers and encouraging his followers to donate money. When the first verdict was handed down by the Taipei District Court in 1997, Sung and Cheng were sentenced to seven years in jail.
■HISTORY
Austronesian exhibit opens
The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung City yesterday launched an exhibition of marine explorations of the Pacific Ocean, presenting a glimpse of Austronesian marine cultures through historical crafts and tools. The exhibition displays 129 marine tools and crafts used in the daily lives of the Austronesian people — a group present in Oceania and Southeast Asia, including Taiwan. According to the museum, Austronesian people speak, or had ancestors who spoke, some 1,200 languages, adding that studies show Taiwan was the dispersal point for Austronesian migration. The exhibition will run through Oct. 19 and will then embark on a world tour to Australia, the US and Canada.
■RESEARCH
Academia Sinica grows
Academia Sinica yesterday named 19 new members, with eight in the math and science division, seven in the life sciences division and four in the humanities and social sciences division. Among them Lin Jen-kun (林仁混) — nine times nominated emeritus professor at the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the National Taiwan University college of medicine — was inducted into the life sciences division. Lee Yuan-pern (李遠鵬) — younger brother of Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) — was appointed in the math and sciences department.
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