■ CRIME
Shooting case reopened
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Tainan City Council caucus and Lee Shu-chiang (李淑江), the wife of Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄), whom the authorities identified as the gunman in the assassination attempt on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in 2004, yesterday urged the Ministry of Justice to reopen the investigation into the shooting. During a visit to the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, Chen Yi-hsiung’s wife knelt down before Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), urging the government to “clear the family’s name.” Chen Yi-hsiung’s body was found in the sea off Tainan County 10 days after the shooting and police labeled his death as suicide. Although the official investigation of the case was concluded in 2005, the pan-blue camp and Chen’s family maintain Chen Yi-hsiung was innocent.
■ IMMIGRATION
New rules for spouses
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) announced on Tuesday that effective immediately, Chinese spouses of Taiwanese nationals are no longer required to register with their local police stations as members of a “floating population.” The SEF said in a news release on its Web site that the change had become necessary after the Ministry of the Interior repealed on Sept. 9 a clause in the Household Registration Act that required all members of the “floating population” to report to their local police stations. The SEF said that from now on, National Immigration Agency officials would be responsible for maintaining contact with Chinese spouses and keeping their residency records. The SEF said Chinese who arrive in Taiwan for the first time to meet relatives would now need to submit certificates issued by hospitals or licensed clinics to prove they do not have syphilis, measles, HIV, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites or leprosy.
■ EDUCATION
Hakka programs on TVBS
The Council for Hakka Affairs said yesterday it would launch a series of televised programs showing life in Hakka communities around the country while teaching practical everyday Hakka phrases. Council Minister Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) told a press conference yesterday that immersion, rather than sitting in a classroom, was the best way to learn a language, adding that the programs could generate public interest to learn Hakka. To reach out to more viewers, the council will broadcast the shows on three channels under the TVBS group rather than on Hakka TV. The program will run several times on weekdays between next Wednesday and Mar. 31 next year.
■ SOCIETY
Poor children receive help
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) launched a campaign with the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families yesterday to provide fresh fish to children from economically disadvantaged families in Yunlin and Nantou counties. Chang said she was saddened by the fact that many children from poor households in central parts of the country cannot afford to eat fish even once a month. “It is very sad to see how much poverty impacts on their height, intelligence and other forms of development,” she said. Ou Hou-cheng (歐厚成), a representative from the fund, said they had raised funds to offer 3,000 boxes of fish for the 1,329 children in need in the two counties, adding that more resources would be needed to turn the campaign into a long-term scheme.
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