■POLITICS
AIT admits breach
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday confirmed that two Chinese dissidents broke into its secured compound on Wednesday to seek political asylum, but declined to comment on claims that security guards failed to discover the two trespassers for two hours. “We can confirm that two People’s Republic of China nationals entered the AIT compound on Wednesday,” an AIT statement said. “They were apprehended for trespassing by AIT security staff and taken to an adjoining police station for questioning by local police and AIT officials. Taiwan has well-established and reliable mechanisms to assist asylum seekers and to protect their rights. In such circumstances, US policy is to allow the host authorities to administer such cases.” AIT Director Stephen Young thanked the Taiwanese police force for protecting the AIT and acknowledged the incident had been a security breach.
■TRANSPORT
Commuters get free burgers
A fast food company announced yesterday that it would give away 300,000 breakfast burgers to the public today to celebrate the opening of a new line of the Kaohsiung City MRT on Sunday. Wang Heng-shin (王恆鑫), a Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp executive, accepted the symbolic “payback package” containing vouchers for free burgers from the company’s general manager at a ceremony held at a Kaohsiung metro station yesterday. The 300,000 breakfast burgers will be handed out to the public this morning at the metro’s Red Line and Orange Line stations. The Orange Line is scheduled to begin operations on Sunday. The Red Line has been in service since March.
■CRIME
Fugitives repatriated
The son of failed Kao Feng Department Store owner Kao Ching-nao (高清腦) was repatriated to Taiwan from China yesterday after being on the run for nearly two years. The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said Kao Ta-chuan (高大川) fled the country in September 2006 soon after he was indicted for embezzling assets from the department store and forging the minutes of shareholders’ meetings. Kao was put on the wanted list by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office in January last year. He was arrested by police in Guangzhou, China, on Aug. 29. Kao and another Taiwanese fugitive, surnamed Hsieh, who was wanted on charges of homicide, were repatriated by China’s public security authorities to Hong Kong yesterday, from where Taiwanese police took charge of their repatriation, CIB officials said. Kao Feng Department Store, established by the senior Kao in 1975, ceased operations in November 2003 because of financial difficulties.
■HEALTH
Suicide center asks for help
The Taiwan Suicide Prevention Center called for action yesterday to reduce the suicide rate among the elderly, which it said is about twice the national average, a fact often ignored. The center made an appeal to the public to be “gatekeepers” for elderly people who may try to commit suicide, providing a listening ear and a presence that the elderly can trust. The center said 3,933 suicides were recorded last year, or 17.2 cases per 100,000 people, registering the first decline since 1998. But while there was a general decline, the rate of suicide among the elderly remained at 36.3 per 100,000 people, center director Lee Ming-been (李明濱) said. Suicide attempts by elderly people are mainly prompted by long-term illness, emotional problems and melancholia, Lee said.
■CRIME
Suspected shooter arrested
Chiayi County police arrested a man yesterday on suspicion of firing a gun at a police officer last month. On Aug. 21, Hsiao Po-jen (蕭博壬), 26, allegedly shot Changhua County police officer Liu Fu-hsing (劉福興) during a police pursuit, seriously injuring him. The Criminal Investigation Bureau’s Sixth Division head, Chen Chih-ming (陳志銘), said that Hsiao told officers during initial questioning that he had not meant to shoot the officer. “Hsiao told us that he did not know he did harm to Liu until he read the newspaper the next morning,” Chen said. “He said he was on drugs and was not 100 percent in control when he did what he did. He said he was sorry for what he did.”
■CORRUPTION
Banciao to detain officials
Banciao City (板橋) prosecutors yesterday requested to detain Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei’s (周錫瑋) chief of staff Mai An-huai (麥安懷) and two other Taipei County Government employees for alleged involvement in a corruption case. At press time, the Banciao District Court had yet to make a decision. The prosecutors made the request after questioning Mai, the county government’s Transportation Bureau Director Lin Chung-chang (林重昌), Parking Operation Department chief Hou Lai-huan (侯來換), Lin’s secretary-general Chen Wen-juei (陳文瑞) and Hou’s staff member Lin Kuei-fang (林桂芳). The case stemmed from a Next Magazine report in July saying that Parkimo Co, a firm that manages parking lots in Banciao, allegedly offered more than NT$10 million (US$312,500) to the Taipei County Government, two Mercedes-Benz vehicles to Mai and a Honda minivan for Chou’s official use in return for favorable treatment in its bid to manage Taipei County’s public parking lots.
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