CRIME
Former minister sentenced
Former minister of transportation and communications Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪) was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Taiwan High Court yesterday in a corruption case. Kuo was acquitted on both her first and second hearings, but prosecutors appealed the second verdict to the Supreme Court, which then sent the case back to the Taiwan High Court for a retrial. Kuo may appeal the case to the Supreme Court again, yesterday’s ruling said. Kuo was indicted in September 2007 for allegedly accepting US$20,000 from the Nan Ren Hu Group, which owns stakes in resorts, aquariums and freeway rest areas nationwide, in return for helping the company win a tender for renovations at Taipei Railway Station. The ruling said although Nan Ren Hu never placed a bid for the project, Kuo had asked the station to help the firm and she received the money for her help.
LABOR
Illegal workers escape
A mass breakout was reported at a detention center for illegal foreign workers in the north of the country early on Tuesday. The Taoyuan County Specialized Operation Brigade under the National Immigration Agency said the escapees — 15 Vietnamese and an Indonesian — were among 139 illegal foreign workers being held in a temporary shelter in Lujhu Township (蘆竹), Taoyuan County. Officials said they escaped by climbing down from the fourth floor in the early hours of the morning, making use of scaffolding erected as part of ongoing renovation work on the building. Brigade officials said they were tracking down the workers.
ECONOMICS
Canada office hosts event
Several top academics from Canada, Taiwan and other Asian countries will gather in Taiwan next month to examine the phenomenon of global economic rebalancing in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. At the international conference that will be convened by Canada, the academics will also discuss the opportunities and threats arising from China’s current economic cycle and likely economic reforms in the next decade, said the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (CTOT), which is celebrating its 25th year in Taiwan. Also at the conference, a panel dedicated to non-traditional global risks will seek solutions to climate change, health issues such as pandemics, and challenges associated with widespread human migration. The conference will be held on May 5 and May 6 at National Chengchi University. The CTOC said it is holding the conference with the aim of harnessing the unique perspectives of Canadian and East Asian academics in the hope of offering new approaches to policy making in Canada and East Asia.
LAW
Academic passes away
Chiu Hungdah (丘宏達), a noted international academic and professor emeritus of law at the University of Maryland, died on Tuesday at his Maryland home. He was 75. Chiu graduated from National Taiwan University and received his master and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. He served as minister without portfolio in the Executive Yuan from 1993 to 1994. In July 2009, the Republic of China’s representative to the US, Jason Yuan (袁健生), presented Chiu with the Order of the Brilliant Star, one of the country’s highest honors, in recognition of his contributions to the nation. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) considered Chiu one of his mentors. A memorial service for Chiu will be held in Maryland on April 24.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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