■ POLITICS
Losheng eviction to begin
More than 50 Losheng Sanatorium preservationists gathered in front of the Department of Health (DOH) building yesterday, protesting the eviction of Losheng residents and demanding that Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) listen to their pleas. “No forced eviction, we want dialogue!” shouted the members of the Youth Alliance for Losheng and Losheng Self-help Organization. “[Today] they will force [the residents] out. Why will no one listen to our pleas?” said alliance member Chang Hsin-wen (張馨文). The preservationists’ fight against what they consider human rights violations and the destruction of historic buildings has continued for four years.
■ DIPLOMACY
Kao defers on Dalai Lama
A visit to Taiwan by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, would be politically sensitive, and would be left to the country’s security agencies to decide, said Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission Chairman Kao Su-po (高思博). Kao said the commission would welcome his visit, but that security authorities would make an assessment before arriving at a decision. Kao made the remarks after the Dalai Lama, in an interview with the Hong Kong-based weekly Yazhou Zhoukan, said he would like to visit Taiwan again if the chance arises to forge friendly relations with Chinese brothers and sisters and to have exchanges with Buddhist followers. “The commission attaches great importance to the Dalai Lama’s possible visit, given his high profile in the international community,” Kao said. But in view of China’s concerns wherever he goes, “[choosing] the appropriate time for the visit and arranging his meetings with political heavyweights in Taiwan would be an issue that requires careful thought,” Kao said.
■ POLITICS
Water officials impeached
The Control Yuan yesterday impeached three officials and the former head of the Third River Management Office of the Water Resources Agency Hsu Che-yen (?? on charges of corruption. Prosecutors in Taichung sought a 20-year prison term for Hsu and a 10-year term for Yeh Yi-kuang (葉奕匡), Lin Jong-shao (林榮紹) and Chao Shih-jey (周世杰) for corruption in July, saying that they accepted favors dozens of times from businesspeople who were contracted for dredging constructions on the Dajia River (大甲溪). Control Yuan members Chien Lin Hui-chun (錢林慧君) and Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) said in the impeachment statement that they found the agency negligent in supervising its officials when they were away on business trips.
■ TRAVEL
MOFA warns travelers
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) urged Taiwanese travelers yesterday to take necessary precautions to avoid becoming embroiled in drug-trafficking, a serious crime in many popular Southeast Asian destinations. Victor Yu (于德勝), director-general of MOFA’s East Asian and Pacific Affairs division, issued the warning at a press conference after a report from the Indonesian government said 23 individuals — 13 of them Taiwanese nationals — were caught with drugs at the country’s gateways over the past eight months. Some of the Taiwanese nationals were severely punished, Yu said, while others are still in the trial process. More than 110 Taiwanese nationals are still serving sentences for drug-trafficking and other drug-related crimes in Thailand, Yu said. To avoid being implicated in a drug-trafficking case, Yu said travelers should not carry packages for strangers.
■ TOURISM
Amway workers to take tour
Some 13,000 Amway China employees are set to visit Taiwan on a cruise next March, which will give a boost to the nation’s tourism industry, Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said yesterday. In a report by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), Mao said the visit would be handled as a special case and not be subject to the quota of 3,000 Chinese tourists to Taiwan per day. Mao said the Amway China employees will be making the tour as part of the company’s annual bonus trip and to take part in an overseas training seminar in Taiwan. The employees will visit in several groups on cruise liners from Shanghai to Keelung Harbor and Taichung Harbor, he said. Although regulations limit travel from China to residents of 13 specified provinces, the Amway China employees would come from all over the country, Mao said.
■ HEALTH
Anti-cancer element found
A series of experiments has recently led to the discovery of an alkaloid-based compound that can efficiently kill various kinds of cancer cells and could be used in cancer drugs after further testing, the team that made the discovery said. The compound “antofine” is made from alkaloids extracted from herbs such as cryptocarya chinensis and ficus septica, said Wu Tian-shung (吳天賞), the project’s leader and a chemistry professor at the National Cheng Kung University. Alkaloids — nitrogen-based chemical compounds — can be naturally produced by numerous organisms, including bacteria, fungi, plants and animals. In laboratory testing, Wu said, the antofine proves effective in killing tumorous cells of lung cancer, breast cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, and multi-resistance nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
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