■ POLITICS
Court annuls legislative win
The Taoyuan District Court yesterday annulled the election victory of Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井). Liao was accused by prosecutors of handing out bribes during his campaign for the legislative election in Taoyuan County constituency No. 2 earlier this year. When asked for comment, Liao said he would appeal. Liao protested his innocence, saying he had upheld his integrity over the past four decades as a civil servant.
■ POLITICS
Wu implicated in scandal
Former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) yesterday became involved in another alleged corruption scandal. The Taipei District Prosecutors Office investigating alleged corruption concerning the construction of the Nangang Exhibition Center named Wu as a defendant. Prosecutors questioned former minister of the interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), another defendant in the case who has been detained since last Wednesday. Shortly after the questioning, Taipei District Prosecutors Office Spokesman Lin Chin-chun (林錦村) said Wu had been listed as a defendant, but refused to elaborate.
■ DEFENSE
Prep school to allow girls
The Chung Cheng Armed Forces Preparatory School said yesterday it expected to begin accepting female students next year. The school said it had proposed the idea to the Ministry of National Defense and received initial support for the plan. Two female military officers are scheduled to report to the school next month to help with its plan to accept up to 20 female students beginning next year, a school spokesman said. The Chung Cheng Armed Forces Preparatory School was established by the ministry in Fongshan (鳳山), Kaohsiung County, in 1976 with the aim of recruiting exceptional talent to help meet national defense needs and raise the quality of the country’s military officers. The school, which has no tuition, has accepted only male students since its inception.
■ DIPLOMACY
Idaho happy about ties
The signing of a joint statement between a Taipei-based business association and the Idaho State Department of Agriculture represents a renewal of the strong ties between Taiwan and the Midwest state, Idaho Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter said at a reception in Taipei on Monday. Otter, a long term supporter of Taiwan, is the first US state governor to visit Taiwan since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in May. Otter made his first visit back in 1998 when he served as Idaho’s lieutenant governor. “It was 10 years ago that I sat at that desk and had the opportunity to ... sign the birth certificate of a great friendship,” said Otter, adding that the statement represents promising bilateral cooperation between both sides. Last year, Idaho’s exports to Taiwan totaled US$304 million, an increase of 76.8 percent over the previous year, making Taiwan Idaho’s sixth-largest export market, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. In his remarks, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) expressed gratitude for the Idaho state legislature’s staunch support for Taiwan’s democracy and its bid to join the WHO. In 2006 and last year, Boise passed resolutions calling for Taiwan’s participation in the health body. It has also called for a US-Taiwan free-trade agreement. The governor and the 22-person delegation is expected to leave tomorrow.
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