■POLITICS
Ma to begin online speech
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will deliver a three minute to five minute speech via online video every Saturday morning starting tomorrow, the Presidential Office announced yesterday. Inspired by former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats and considering the large population of Internet users in Taiwan, Ma decided to launch the video addresses on the Presidential Office Web site, the announcement said. He will speak on a different topic each week, beginning with the subject of two-way Internet communication between himself and the public and an update of his recent activities, the Presidential Office said. The office said Ma is inviting his audience to participate in a forum on the site after watching the presentation. The office said it would consider suggestions for topics on which the president should speak. The power of the Internet and its potential influence could not be underestimated and Ma believed that the government can interact efficiently with the public via this medium, the statement said.
■DEFENSE
MND sorry for sex footage
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday apologized after footage was broadcast of two male soldiers possibly involved in a sex act while on duty. A cable news channel aired a video showing the soldiers, who were clad in camouflage uniforms, seemingly engaged in oral sex while about 40 others looked on and laughed. “The defense ministry is deeply sorry for the incident, which seriously damages military discipline,” it said in a statement. “We will thoroughly investigate the case and severely punish those involved to enhance discipline ... and prevent similar incidents from happening again.” The military has been plagued by a spate of scandals that observers say have tarnished its image. A recent crackdown has led to the investigation of 114 generals for alleged corruption or paying for promotions. The probe was launched in April after a retired lieutenant general was indicted on charges of bribery, blackmail and leaking secrets.
■EARTHQUAKES
Quake rattles nation
An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale struck at 6:48pm yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. Statistics from the bureau showed that the epicenter of the earthquake was 55.3km southeast of its observation station in Nanao (南澳), Ilan County, with a depth of 5.7km. The highest earthquake intensity was 2, which was recorded in Hualien, Ilan, Nantou, Changhua and Taichung. The bureau said yesterday’s earthquake was the second aftershock of an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale that shook the nation at 2:05am on Tuesday. The first aftershock, measuring 5.1 on the Richter Scale, occurred at 4:28am on Tuesday, with the epicenter also located off the east coast.
■ENVIRONMENT
Park passes assessment
The Erlin Science Park, one of four proposed parks in the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP), will pass an environmental impact assessment and complete infrastructure construction according to schedule, CTSP director-general Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) said. The park, scheduled to be completed in 2013, failed to pass an initial environmental impact assessment carried out in early this month by the Environmental Protection Administration because of problems regarding industrial waste water.
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