ENTERTAINMENT
‘Instant Noodles’ a hit
A group of Taiwanese students in Los Angeles has made it into the final eight on America’s Best Dance Crew, a dance reality television series that features street dance crews. The six-member team, known as Instant Noodles, avoided being eliminated in its first appearance on the show on Thursday night in the US, performing to the song Dirty Picture by Taio Cruz. Lee Shen-yu (李深鈺), one of the team’s dancers, said the group’s members regularly practiced street dance during their spare time in Taiwan and after coming to Los Angeles, but stepped up their training to almost daily work outs prior to the competition. “We want to prove that Americans aren’t the only ones who are good at street dance. Taiwanese can perform good street dance, too,” Lee said. America’s Best Dance Crew airs once a week and will determine its winner on June 2. Viewers can vote online for their favorite acts, and Lee hoped that Taiwanese would support them.
SOCIETY
Homeless figure falls
The number of documented homeless people in Taiwan totaled about 3,000 as of Feb. 28, according to a Ministry of the Interior official. The number was down from about 3,700 at the end of last year, said Huang Pi-hsia (黃碧霞), director of the ministry’s Department of Social Affairs. However, Huang said it is difficult to tally exact figures for the homeless, as they tend to not to stay in the same place. Huang suggested that local governments emulate Taipei and New Taipei City (新北市) by calculating the number of homeless people in their jurisdictions by contracting volunteers to search for the homeless zone by zone. Huang said the ministry allocated NT$24.25 million (US$836,200) last year as subsidies for local governments to help homeless people.
TOURISM
Kaohsiung gets new cruise
The Kaohsiung City Shipping Co said it would launch a harbor cruise on Monday that offers breathtaking views as well as fine food and music. The renovated cruise ship Glory will depart from the harbor’s Love Pier at 5pm daily for a two-hour trip around the harbor area, the city government-owned company said. Company chairman Chang Ching-chuan (張清泉) said that in addition to the harbor tour, the Glory will offer other services, such as serving as a “love boat” for courting couples, and catering for engagement and wedding parties, as well as birthdays and family or class reunions. The city’s Transportation Bureau said Kaohsiung Harbor has always been a charming seaport with great tourism potential, boosted by the Love River and canal resources nearby.
CRIME
Wang admits Chen funding
Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹) admitted that he received US$400,000 in subsidies from former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when Chen was in power between 2000 and 2008, according to a Central News Agency report yesterday. The report said Wang made the admission at a Taiwan High Court session investigating Chen and his family for allegedly embezzling money from the state affairs fund. Wang told judges that he received two remittances, each worth US$200,000, from Chen. Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), were accused of stealing more than NT$100 million (US$3.45 million) from the state affairs fund when Chen was in office. Chen has argued that parts of the fund were used to finance Chinese activists, including Wang, in his effort to spread democracy to China. Wang was one of the student leaders in the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement. After serving more than five years in jail, he was exiled to the US in 1998.
TOURISM
Alert lowered for Thailand
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs lowered its travel alert for Thailand yesterday, from “orange” to “yellow,” as the southern regions of that country were gradually recovering from floods that began last month. However, travelers to Thailand are advised to exercise caution as weather conditions there are still unstable, the ministry said. The 10 affected Thai provinces are Chumphon, Surat Thani, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Phatthalung, Ranong, Phang Nga, Krabi, Trang, Satun and Songkhla, the ministry said. Taiwanese can contact the nation’s representative office in Thailand if they encounter any emergencies there, the ministry said.
POLITICS
‘Slap’ comment recanted
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) yesterday made a public apology over her previous comments that a student who remained seated while speaking to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should be slapped for showing disrespect to the president. Kuo made the initial comment when she noted that Ma had to bend from the waist to talk to a student who remained seated during a talk with students at St John’s University in Tamsui (淡水) last Sunday. Kuo said yesterday she was not aware the Presidential Office and the school administration had already agreed on how the event would proceed. “I’m willing to take back what I said about giving the student a slap in the face and extend my apologies to students who were present,” she said. Nevertheless, Kuo added she felt students should be mindful of their manners when speaking to their elders.
CROSS-STRAIT
Chinese trawler caught
A Chinese fishing boat was caught off Kinmen yesterday for trespassing and poaching in Taiwanese waters. According to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA), the 109 tonne iron-hulled trawler from Fujian Province was intercepted at 1:44am yesterday while fishing illegally in waters about 200m off Kinmen’s Jhaishan (翟山) area. Two CGA cutters stationed in Kinmen and two multifunction vessels tried to detain the trawler. When the vessel tried to flee, the CGA boats gave chase, during which a CGA cutter ran into the trawler’s sprawling net and nearly capsized. The CGA then fired two warning shots into the air before the trawler stopped. CGA officers found on the trawler about 20kg of catch that included stingrays and a protected species of horseshoe crabs.
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