HEALTH
‘Miracle’ triplets conceived
A woman in Kaohsiung was recently found to be pregnant with identical triplets despite using a contraceptive device. The odds of naturally conceiving identical triplets are one in 200 million, even lower than the chances of winning the lottery, said Kuo Hung-chang (郭鴻璋), who runs the clinic in the southern city where the woman went for a checkup. The woman, in her 30s, was found to be nine weeks pregnant with identical triplets when she first visited the clinic five weeks ago, the doctor said. Kuo described the triplets as being in good shape so far and said they remained separate from one another, but he said he was surprised by what he saw. The low odds of naturally conceiving triplets and the 5 percent failure rate for the contraceptive device used by the woman made the outcome hard to believe, the doctor said.
CRIME
Clinic raided over drugs
Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) officials yesterday raided the Kang-ning Clinic in Neihu (內湖), Taipei, and summoned its owner, Lee Chia-hung (李佳竑) for questioning, on suspicion that the clinic has been forging prescriptions and acquiring controlled drugs for resale to drug users. Investigators seized more than 200 documents and about 7,500 pills in the raid. The MJIB said the clinic was suspected of acquiring 230,000 Stilnox pills and 20,000 Rohypnol pills selling them illegally. Investigators also arrested Chen Ting-kuo (陳定國) on suspicions of buying the pills from the clinic and selling them to drug addicts.
TOURISM
Young tourists up 16%
The number of young travelers visiting Taiwan this year grew 16 percent from a year earlier, according to a report released yesterday by the National Youth Commission. Citing data from the National Immigration Agency, the report said Taiwan had 1.23 million foreign nationals aged 15 to 30 arrive in the country last year, up from 1.06 million in 2009. Digital Tour Buddy, a travel service system that allows travelers to rent cellphones for free, reflects the trend of increasing travelers, the commission said. Other features attracting overseas travelers are volunteers who serve as local tour guides for foreign travelers. The commission said the majority of young travelers were female, accounting for 57 percent of total arrivals. Of them, 51 percent were from Asia, mostly from Japan and with a strong contingency from Malaysia.
CULTURE
Women’s exhibit opens
An exhibition focusing on Taiwan’s historic female figures opened on Monday in Washington as part of the celebration of the Republic of China’s (ROC) centennial year. The exhibition, organized by Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), highlights the dedication of women’s and feminist movements in Taiwan over the past 100 years, TECRO said. It depicts the evolution of women’s roles over that time and emphasizes the importance of women’s rights and education, TECRO added. Among the women featured is Minnie Mackay, who set up the first girls’ school in Taiwan in 1884 and opened education to women in Taiwan, TECRO said. The contributions made by Soong Meiling (宋美齡), the wife of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), during World War II are also showcased in the exhibition, which runs through Aug. 14. Soong successfully convinced the US to help the ROC with her public address to both houses of the US Congress on Feb. 18, 1943, TECRO 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
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