SOCIETY
Abuse reports increasing
The number of suspected child abuse cases reported to authorities rose dramatically in the first half of this year compared with a year earlier, indicating increased awareness in society on the issue, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. A total of 13,130 cases were reported from January to June, 40.4 percent more than during the same period last year, and 9,039 of those cases, an increase of 39.77 percent, were confirmed, according to ministry statistics. Those aged six to 11 accounted for 3,305, or 36.56 percent, of the victims, and those aged one to five accounted for 2,262, or 25.03 percent. On the background of the abusers, 6,512, or 75.02 percent, were the victims’ parents or foster parents. The number of abusers who were live-in partners of one of the parents was up 49.3 percent from last year to 212, while the number of abusers who were relatives of the victims but not their parents jumped 42.11 percent to 459.
HISTORY
Sun family friend arrives
A descendant of a close friend of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), the Republic of China’s founding father, will arrive in Taiwan today for a four-day visit, sources from the East Asia Relations Commission said. Sources said Ayano Kosaka, the great-granddaughter of Umeya Shokichi (1868-1934), who forged close relations with Sun and provided generous funding for the latter’s attempted revolts against the Qing Dynasty in the early 20th century, will visit historic places related to Sun. She will visit the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial House, the Presidential Office, the Taipei Guest House, the National Palace Museum and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
CRIME
Former medalist bailed
Tsai Pai-sheng (蔡白生), a former Asian Games shooting silver medalist, was released on bail on Friday night after being detained on suspicion of embezzling funds from the Taipei City Government’s Shooting Association. Tsai, currently a vice president of the Republic of China Shooting Association, is suspected of embezzling NT$60 million (US$2 million) during his term as director of the association. He was released on NT$100,000 bail, with his wife also released on the same bail amount on suspicion of involvement in the embezzlement allegations. Tsai, 75, won the 1958 Tokyo Asian Games shooting silver medal. Taipei prosecutors said they suspected that Tsai, during his stint at the city’s shooting association between 2003 and 2007, forged accounts and embezzled public funds. When Tsai left the city’s shooting association and established a private shooting association in 2007, he left only NT$9 in the account of the city association, prosecutors said.
ECONOMY
Graduates not finding work
Despite a recent drop in the unemployment rate, a high percentage of new graduates have not found their first full-time jobs, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by an online employment broker. The survey by 1111 Job Bank found that 33.8 percent of university graduates last summer remained jobless six month after graduation. The ratio was higher than the 23.5 percent recorded at the same time last year, but lower than the 45 percent in 2008 — when the global financial crisis erupted. This indicates that this year’s graduates have not benefited from the employment promotion measures launched by the government last year, the employment broker said.
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