■AGRICULTURE
Help for Kaohsiung farmers
The Council of Agriculture began accepting applications yesterday for subsidies for Kaohsiung County growers of corn, onions, leafy vegetables and cauliflowers who suffered crop losses when Typhoon Jangmi swept in late last month. Cash subsidies of NT$12,000 per hectare will be offered to eligible farmers, the county’s Bureau of Agriculture said. The county suffered total crop losses of NT$60 million (US$1.85 million) during Typhoon Jangmi. Regulations state that losses must top NT$90 million for a county to qualify for low-interest loans and NT$180 million to be eligible for cash subsidies. Affected growers can take documents of proof of their crop losses to the nearest agricultural affairs office in their jurisdiction. Applications will be accepted until next Wednesday. Following the screening of the applications by the bureau and the Agriculture and Food Agency, the subsidies will be immediately paid to qualified farmers.
■POLITICS
Lai appointment confirmed
Asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) whether Deputy Minister of the Interior Lai Feng-wei (賴峰偉) would fill the vacancy left by Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Kao Lang (高朗) confirmed yesterday that Lai had been tapped to be the other deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office. Kao made the remarks during a question-and-answer session at the legislature’s Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.
■POLITICS
Lai withdraws from TSU
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) last night announced her withdrawal from the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), ending her four-year relationship with the party. Lai’s decision came shortly after the TSU central executive committee said it would expel her from the party if she did not quit her position as -chairwoman within the next three days. The committee said the decision was made after five months of observation of a string of pro-China policies by the government, as well as Lai’s role as chairwoman, the TSU said. In her withdrawal statement, Lai said she had accepted her position with the blessing of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), the spiritual leader of the TSU, and that it has been her goal to open trade policies and minimize their impact on Taiwanese, as well as to maintain the nation’s dignity in the exchanges. “Today, after learning of the decision of the TSU’s central executive committee, I was surprised, puzzled and deeply sorry,” Lai said.
■MEDIA
IFJ probes allegation
An international media watchdog said yesterday it was probing allegations that the Taiwanese government tried to influence local coverage of China’s tainted milk powder scandal. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said the Government Information Office (GIO) asked a news agency to change its coverage of the milk powder scandal, the latest in a recent string of demands against the nation’s media. It said it was still investigating the charges and did not offer details of the changes that were allegedly requested. The GIO called the IFJ’s claim “groundless and misleading,” saying it was “based on false stories by reporters whose interests are at stake in the issues concerned.” Local coverage of the milk powder scandal, which has killed at least four children in China and prompted removals of Chinese-made goods from shelves around the world, has raised consumers’ fears of imported dairy products.
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