﹥POLITICS
Hu*s son to visit Taiwan?
Chinese President Hu Jintao*s (?党啈) son has been invited to visit Taiwan for an academic conference, Taipei-based Next Magazine said yesterday. Taiwan*s Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies had ※secretly invited§ Hu Haifeng (??塯) to attend an international conference in May, the magazine quoted unnamed sources as saying, adding that Hu Haifeng, deputy 〝secretary-general of 〝Tsinghua University in Beijing, expressed a strong interest in visiting Taiwan when the foundation contacted him through the school earlier this year. The foundation has confirmed it would co-host an international political seminar in May, but denied it had invited Hu Haifeng for a visit. The foundation has close ties with the National Security Bureau. ※We welcome any academic and civil exchanges between Taiwan and China,§ Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Chairman Chao Chien-min (謯呤硠) said.
﹥CRIME
Council speaker detained
Chaiyi City Council Speaker Lin Cheng-hsun (釱蒟?) was held in custody yesterday on suspicion of vote-〝buying. At press time, Lin was being interrogated by Chaiyi prosecutors. Independent councilor Lin defeated former Chaiyi City Council speaker Tsai Kuei-szu (齍窀碅) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by one ballot in the speakership elections on March 1. Prosecutors suspect Lin of engaging in vote-buying during the election. As he had failed to heed prosecutors* summons on three occasions, prosecutors put him on the wanted list and took him into custody after Lin adjourned a council meeting. Lin denies bribing any councilors in the election. KMT Councilor Chang Ming-chi (翴睌悎) was detained last week on suspicion of receiving money from Lin. Fu Ta-wei (媸豇糗), another KMT councilor, was released on bail over alleged involvement in the vote-buying affair. Police say some councilors complained of being threatened by gangsters before the election and 19 applied for police escorts before the vote.
﹥CRIME
Alleged rape investigated
The Taipei City Police Department is investigating an alleged rape involving a Japanese student from National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). The Japanese student, a Chinese language student at NTNU, leased an apartment with four roommates near Shida Night Market next to the NTNU campus. The rape allegedly occurred the night of March 4. The victim*s hands were tied and her eyes were covered by the aggressor or aggressors, said Lieutenant Lee Yang-biao (軝暩爦), head of the Da-an Precinct*s investigation division. A note, reading ※do not call the police§ in Chinese, was left at the scene, Lin said. While no security video footage was available because cameras were broken during the earthquake last week, Lin said police were reviewing video footage recorded by other cameras in the neighborhood.
﹥TELEVISION
TITV to share experience
The nation*s TV station devoted to Aborigines will share its experience in creating a platform for citizen reporters and continue to promote news and TV program exchanges with other members of the World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network (WITBN), the head of Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV) said yesterday. ※Taiwan is the only WITBN member that has citizen reporters,§ said Masao Aki, director of TITV.
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