■ DEFENSE
Congress told of arms sales
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday that the US Department of Defense had notified the US Congress of the government’s intention to sell several defensive systems to Taiwan under the Foreign Military Sales Program. “This is a significant and tangible demonstration of the commitment of the United States, under the Taiwan Relations Act, to provide to Taiwan the defensive weapons that it needs,” AIT spokesman Thomas Hodges said.
■ POLITICS
Tsai to miss Friday’s event
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will not attend the Double Ten national day celebrations in front of the Presidential Office, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said on Sunday. Wang, who is the lead organizer of the event, said he was disappointed by Tsai’s decision, but he could understand it in light of the not very amicable atmosphere between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Wang was referring to a scuffle between DPP and KMT lawmakers on Friday over Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan’s (葉金川) decision to attend a news conference organized by a KMT lawmaker while turning down the DPP caucus’ request for him to attend its meeting. Former presidents Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) will also not attend, Wang said.
■ MEDIA
DPP complains of leaks
The DPP caucus said yesterday the media might be violating the law by discussing ongoing criminal investigations. “The discussions of ongoing cases violate the [regulations against] leaking classified information in the Criminal Code and also the Broadcast and Television Law (廣播電視法),” DPP whip William Lai (賴清德) told a press conference. He said the caucus would collect news reports about Chen Shui-bian’s alleged money laundering activities to see if reporters or TV commentators have violated the law and forward the information to judicial authorities and the National Communications Commission (NCC). If criminal investigators leaked the classified information to reporters, they violated the law, Lai said. Fellow DPP whip Chang Hua-kuan (張花冠) said reporters arrived at Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen’s (陳明文) office and residence one hour before investigators raided those places, which would indicate someone was leaking information to the media. Chen Ming-wen, a DPP member, is under investigation for leaking a tender estimate.
■ LABOR
Scaffolding fall kills one
Part of the scaffolding outside an apartment complex in Hsinchu City collapsed yesterday, killing one worker and injuring four. The five were laying tiles on the outside of a building for military personnel and their families in a compound at the intersection of Jingguo Road and Yanping Road. The five fell from the eighth floor to a platform on the third floor when the scaffolding collapsed. One was pronounced dead at a local hospital, two were treated for minor injuries, while two others are listed in critical condition.
■ DIPLOMACY
AIT offices shut for holidays
All offices of the American Institute in Taiwan will be closed on Friday for Double Ten national day and Monday for Columbus Day, including the American Cultural Center and the Kaohsiung office. All offices will reopen on Tuesday.
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