■LEISURE
Neihu Sports Center to open
The Neihu Municipal Sports Center will be officially opened on Aug. 16, and the Taipei City Government is inviting residents to sample the facilities for free before the opening. The 11-story building, located on Zhouzi Street, is equipped with the biggest indoor rock-climbing facility in the city on the first floor among other facilities, Taipei City’s Sports Office said. The Neihu Municipal Sports Center was one of the 12 municipal sports centers initiated by former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The office said all residents are welcome to use the facilities for free between today and Wednesday.
■HEALTH
Razors need clean-up
The Consumer’s Foundation yesterday advised consumers about the need to clean razors properly. The foundation said dirty razors can harbor up to 100 million colony-forming units (CFU), which is 1,000 times more germs than a NT$100 bill. Razors should be kept in a dry environment, rather than the bathroom, which is humid and germ-friendly, foundation Chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said. The foundation also warned against sharing razors to prevent transmission of hepatitis B, AIDS and other viruses. Hsieh also suggested using a solution containing at least 70 percent alcohol to disinfect razors rather than simply running the blade under hot water.
■CRIME
Raids target gang members
Police raided 21 locations around Taoyuan County on Wednesday and arrested 13 members of the Bamboo Union gang. The 13 gangsters all belong to the same cell, called Hsin Tang -— one of the gang’s 24 cells. Among the detainees was the cell’s 40-year-old leader, identified by his surname, Chang. According to police, Chang turned himself in under an amnesty program in 1997 giving assurances that he would withdraw from gang activity. However, police discovered recently that he was still active in the Bamboo Union and had been promoted to cell leader. Police said Chang had even joined the Taiwan District of Kiwanis International, an organization of clubs that place special emphasis on children and youth, and became a director of its cultural division. Citing the offenses allegedly committed by Chang and his followers, police said they used a financial consultation firm as a cover to provide loans and used intimidation and force to obtain repayment at exorbitant interest rates. The 13 gangsters were being questioned and will be referred to the local prosecutors’ office to face charges. The Bamboo Union is the largest of the three main gangs in Taiwan,with a membership estimated at more than 10,000.
■COMMUNICATIONS
ROC stamps to return
The state postal company Chunghwa Post announced yesterday that on Aug. 20 it will resume the issuance of postage stamps bearing the country’s official name, the Republic of China, after a suspension of more than a year under the localization policy of the former Democratic Progressive Party administration. The first issue marking the resumption will be a souvenir sheet comprised of four NT$5 stamps featuring the Yimin Festival, the company said. The festival, mainly celebrated by Hakka, is observed on the 20th day of the seventh lunar month and falls on Aug. 20 this year. The stamps will read Zhonghua Minguo in Chinese and “Republic of China (Taiwan)” in English, the company said.
■AVIATION
Passenger gets fined
A Vietnam Airlines passenger faced a fine after he set off the inflatable emergency slide of a parked Airbus A321 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport over the weekend, media reported yesterday. Cabin crew discovered the device had been released shortly before the jet was to fly to Hanoi, the VN Express online newspaper reported. Vietnamese passenger Le Van Hanh, 26, triggered the device when he touched the emergency handle on one of the exit doors, the report said. Hanh, who works in Taiwan and was on his second-ever flight, met Vietnamese aviation authorities in Hanoi yesterday to sign a paper committing him to pay a fine of up to US$3,000. Hanh said the incident was not his fault. “The incident happened because the air hostess did not provide me with a thorough explanation,” Hanh was quoted as telling the news site. “I touched [the door] by accident, not deliberately.”
■SOCIETY
Music festival opens
The 2008 Taichung County Musical Instruments Festival opened yesterday for a four-day run at the Houli Horse Farm in Houli Township (后里). Taichung County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生) said this year’s festival was particularly meaningful as the event coincides with Lovers’ Day. He said the festival had lined up 100 saxophonists to play and 100 drummers to beat taiko drums at a ceremony tomorrow. There will also be various music performances and competitions during the festival, Huang said, adding that the public can bring their own instruments and get up on stage during a series of free jams. Huang said he chose Houli as the venue for the event because the agricultural township is famous as the world’s third-largest producer of saxophones.
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
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
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