■POLITICS
Ex-GIO official impeached
The Control Yuan yesterday impeached former Presidential Office press relations director Tsai Chung-li (蔡仲禮) over graft irregularities and dishonest disclosure, referring the case to the Judicial Yuan’s Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries. Tsai was charged with collecting more in rental subsidies than he was entitled to when he was an official with the Government Information Office in its office in Washington between August 2005 and July 2008, with the amount totaling US$56,000. The Control Yuan also found that Tsai failed to include his estate property in the US in his property disclosure report when he served in the Presidential Office in August 2008. Tsai was sentenced to 10 months in prison and put on probation for three years last month after the Taipei District Court found him guilty of forgery.
■TRANSPORTATION
Circuit caused shutdown
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) yesterday said a fire on the MRT Wenhu Line on Monday was caused by a circuit malfunction, adding that it will seek compensation from the system builder and contractor as stated in the contract. Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光) said a circuit malfunction at Wende Station caused sparks and burned the rubber surrounding the cable. The incident happened at 1:38pm, interrupting service for almost 40 minutes. Service resumed at 2:16pm when back-up systems switched on. Tan said there were three trains at station platforms when the incident happened, and no passengers were trapped between stations. He said the TRTC would strengthen inspection measures for circuits and the power system to prevent a reoccurrence.
■POLITICS
Expo application approved
The Ministry of the Interior yesterday approved an application by former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) to visit China from May 10 to May 18 to preside over a lighting ceremony at the inauguration of the Taiwan pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, ministry officials said. The ministry gave the green light to Liu’s application on the grounds that the planned visit is a cross-strait cultural exchange only, and involves no national security issues, the officials said. The former premier will visit Shanghai to open the Taiwan pavilion in his capacity as chairman of the National Cultural Association, a non-profit organization set up by the government in 1966. Under the law, political appointees and high-ranking officials seeking to visit China within three years of their resignations must apply for prior government approval. Liu resigned on Sept. 10 last year over bungled rescue and relief operations after Typhoon Morakot.
■ENTERTAINMENT
Local talent Lin visits LA
Lin Yu-chun (林育群), a local talent show contestant who has been described as “Taiwan’s Susan Boyle,” is now in Los Angeles, where he will appear on two major talk shows, an entertainment source said yesterday. Lin, 24, was to be interviewed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and the Lopez Tonight show hosted by George Lopez yesterday, Lin’s agency, A-List Entertainment, said. Lin became an overnight Internet hit with his rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. The video of his performance on the talent show One Million Star went viral shortly after being posted on YouTube on April 6. The video has since had nearly 2 million hits. While in Los Angeles, Lin will tour the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the new home of the Academy Awards, among other tourist attractions.
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