■ POLITICS
Su mum on county election
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday declined to say whether he would represent the party in the Taipei County commissioner election this year. Approached for comment, Su said only that “a good dish takes time to cook.” The party’s Taipei County branch has proposed an activity to compare Su’s achievements with those of Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋). There have been calls within the party for Su, who was commissioner between 1997 and 2004, to join the race.
■ HEALTH
ADHD, Web may be linked
A study by Kaohsiung Medical University suggests that adult attention deficiency hyperactive disorder (ADHD) could be associated with Internet addiction. The research by psychiatrists Yen Ju-yu (顏如佑), Yen Cheng-fang (顏正芳) and others on 2,793 college students found that female participants who were considered to have ADHD were more likely to be addicted to the Internet than their male counterparts. Compared with other ADHD symptoms, attention deficiency was the most prominent symptom among the students who were considered Internet addicts, followed by impulse behavior, the research found. The paper will be published in the next issue of the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior.
■ HUMAN RIGHTS
Tainan declares Tibet Day
Tainan Mayor Hsu Tien-tsai (?]) said yesterday that March 10 would be celebrated as “Tibet Day” from now on “to show [the city’s] respect for the universal values of human rights and self-determination, as well as our support for the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom and democracy.” As Tibetans and Tibet activists commemorate March 10 as “Tibetan National Uprising Day” in memory of an uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, many cities around the world have made March 10 Tibet Day to show their support. Tainan, following Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County, is the third region in the country to follow suit. Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilors proposed a Tibet Day last year, but it was voted down by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) city councilors.
■ HEALTH
Therapy cuts HIV infections
Methadone replacement therapy not only reduces opioid dependence, but has helped to cut the number of new HIV infections in Taipei County via needle-sharing, a county official said yesterday. The number of HIV infections confirmed in the county following the introduction of the therapy at Taipei County Hospital’s Banciao branch early last year has dropped from 68 in 2007 to 15 last year, said Fang Chuan-chuan (方娟娟), an official at the Taipei County Public Health Bureau. A narcotics control and prevention center at the Banciao branch administers the therapy to 300 opiate addicts a day, Fang said. Methadone, a synthetic opiate, is given to recovering heroin addicts to reduce withdrawal symptoms. During the therapy, Fang said, methadone is taken orally under the supervision of clinic personnel. Huang Wen-kwei (黃文魁), deputy director of the Taipei County Public Health Bureau, attributed the surge in the number of opiate addicts seeking the therapy to the convenience of taking methadone, its lower cost compared with heroin and the fact that it reduces the risk of contracting AIDS through needle-sharing. The therapy center also provides counseling to recovering addicts.
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