■ CRIME
Court ordered to reconsider
The Taiwan High Court yesterday ordered Taipei District Court to reconsider its decision to reject former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) declaration that documents seized in the “state affairs fund” case were classified information and should therefore be returned by the court. This was the third time that the High Court had asked the district court to reconsider its decision. The district court had earlier responded by saying it needed them as evidence during the trial. The High Court said that based on Ruling No. 627 by the Council of Grand Justices in July 2007, the former president enjoyed the right to decide what constitutes a national secret and he has the right to keep the information classified. The Presidential Office under Chen subsequently announced that documents detailing the contents of the six diplomatic projects from July 2002 to December last year were classified information under the protection of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) and asked the court to return the documents.
■ POLITICS
Hsu interested in post: Ker
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said yesterday that the party was considering former party chairman Hsu Hsin-liang’s (?}) offer to run as the DPP candidate for the Taoyuan County commissioner election later this year. Ker said Hsu expressed his interest in the post during a dinner party of DPP senior officials. Hsu rejoined the party last July after withdrawing in 1999 when he failed to secure the party’s nomination for the 2000 presidential election. Hsu ran unsuccessfully as an independent. Hsu has been associated with the pan-blue camp over the past few years, particularly during the campaign against then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in August 2006 initiated by former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德). Hsu is a former commissioner of Taoyuan County.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Trash sorting successful
As much as 45 percent of the nation’s trash was recycled last year thanks to the government’s garbage sorting policy, statistics released by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) showed. During the period from January to November, each resident produced an average of 0.839kg of garbage per day, with the trash incinerated averaging 0.46kg per person per day. Since 2006, the EPA has promoted a policy under which garbage should be sorted and separated before being taken to the garbage trucks.
■ DIPLOMACY
MOFA confident of US ties
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed confidence that Taiwan-US relations would not be affected by plans between the US and China to resume military consultations. There was no need for concern that they would affect the continuity of smooth ties between the US and Taiwan, said Harry Tseng (曾厚仁), director-general of the ministry’s Department of North American Affairs. Beijing called off high-level military exchanges and non-proliferation talks with the US in October after the Pentagon notified Congress that it planned to sell a package of advanced defensive weapons to Taiwan. Tseng said he expected the US to reiterate its “one China” policy if asked by Chinese leaders to comment on the Taiwan issue, since this framework had proved successful in helping to maintain peace and prosperity in the region over the past three decades.
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