.style4 {font-weight: bold}
-->
■CRIME
Su charged with assault
Su An-sheng (蘇安生), a 65 year-old member of the pro-unification Patriot Association (愛國同心會), was yesterday indicted on an assault charge following an incident involving former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in July. Prosecutors suggested a four-month prison sentence. On July 21, Su allegedly kicked Chen in the posterior when the former president was attending a hearing at the Taipei District Court — an act that was allegedly preceded by similar attacks on former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (許世楷) and lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄). Doctors at National Taiwan University Hospital said Chen’s tailbone had been fractured. Chen subsequently filed a lawsuit against Su. Prosecutors said in the indictment yesterday that Su did not feel remorse for his conduct but instead accepted TV interviews, showing excitement over what he did.
■POLITICS
Moon cake plan defended
The Presidential Office yesterday shrugged off an accusation from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) abused national resources to help fund Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) promotional efforts. Ma used his special state fund to purchase boxes of moon cakes from charity groups and asked KMT local branches to send the moon cakes to low-income families or minority groups around the country before the Mid-Autumn Festival tomorrow. The DPP accused Ma of failing to draw a line between party and government affairs, and using national resources to help the KMT strengthen its relations with voters. In response, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chih (王郁琦) said yesterday that Ma had asked KMT branches to help distribute the cakes because they were more familiar with the situation in the cities and counties, and would be able to send the cakes to those in need without delay.
■SOCIETY
Gay carnival launched
This year’s Taipei Gay Carnival was launched yesterday. It will include a series of activities, such as an event billed as Asia’s largest gay pride march on Sept. 27. The carnival, in its ninth year, started with a composition contest for which the public is invited to write essays entitled “My Gay Friend.” After the online composition contest ends on Sept. 28, the Taipei City Government would select the best five articles and include them in a booklet on gay life in Taipei, which the city government plans to publish annually. The second part of the carnival is to start Oct. 9 with four seminars on gay and transgender rights issues, the city government said, adding that the highlight of the carnival was the Gay Pride Parade.
■SOCIETY
Direct China mail mulled
Chunghwa Post is considering the introduction of direct mail and money-wiring services to China, pending further cross-strait negotiations. Company president Hu Sheue-yu (胡雪雲) said on Thursday it had submitted a proposal to the Mainland Affairs Council to enable the sending of letters, packages and money directly to China without going through a third territory. The measure is expected to reduce the time and cost of delivery, she said. Currently, letters and packages to China must go through either Japan or Hong Kong. Hu said the postal company was also working with Visa International to offer a debit card service to its customers enabling them to use its ATM cards for purchases. The debit card service is scheduled to be available next September, she said.
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