SPORT
Yang statement removed
A statement by the president of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) expressing support for a referee’s decision to disqualify a Taiwanese taekwondo athlete at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, was removed from the OCA Web site yesterday. Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) used “unfair technology ... it was a very fair suspension,” OCA chief Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah said on Saturday at a press conference. The OCA removed the statement from its official Web site after the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee expressed concern. Yang was accused of wearing illegal sensors in her socks in a match on Nov. 17. She was disqualified on the grounds that she was trying to cheat. Video footage revealed that Yang was not wearing the sensors during the bout.
CULTURE
Exhibition showcases Yilan
An exhibition featuring a total of 117 of Yilan County’s most symbolic and significant people and events opened yesterday, the Institute of Yilan County History said. Inspired by a previous exhibition called “Taiwan No. 1” that highlighted Taiwan’s numerous economic and international achievements, the institute is using the exhibition to showcase the county through historical photos and picture captions. Yang Yen-li (楊廷理), the county’s first tong pan — the county official in charge of administering lawsuits in ancient China, and Yu Shyi-kun, the first Yilan-born premier of Taiwan, were selected along with 33 other people as the most significant to the county. A total of 22 significant events, including an anti-pollution movement launched from 1987 to 1991, the first Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival in 1996, and the opening of the Hsuehshan Tunnel in 2006, are highlighted at the exhibition, which will run until April.
SOCIETY
Guide dog arrives in Taiwan
The first guide dog to take a flight between Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan) arrived in Taiwan on Friday as part of a foundation’s campaign to bring more guide dogs to Taiwan. The four-month-old female Labrador, named Dior, will first be sent to a family in Yilan County to start its socialization until it is able to receive more training, said William Chen (陳長青), general manager of the Taiwan Guide Dog Association. After that, an instructor will be in charge of client training and will introduce the dog to its owner. Taiwan hopes to gain training experience from countries like Japan, which has worked with guide dogs for more than 70 years.
TRANSPORT
System targets jams
The Automotive Research and Testing Center (ARTC), a non-profit research center established by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said it has developed a driving management system for electric vehicles that can advise drivers about traffic jams. The system, integrated with prizewinning Electric Power Steering System and Driver Status Monitor System software, is able to analyze location, engine speed and other information to allow the driver to know the condition of both his car and the road, said Liao Ching-chiu (廖慶秋), an assistant manager with the ARTC’s research and development department. The system is able to detect road conditions and warn the driver of danger, Liao said. It can also warn the driver when his batteries are low and advise where to go for a recharge, he said, adding the system can also inform the driver about a mechanical breakdown before it even occurs.
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
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
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