POLITICS
Legislators report for duty
Several legislators reported early for the new session yesterday, with one even staying overnight at the Legislative Yuan to be the first arrival. Legislators started reporting for the eighth plenary session of the seventh legislature at 8am yesterday. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠), Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), Lin Te-fu (林德福) and Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉) attended, as well as Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Peng Shao-chin (彭紹瑾). The legislature holds two sessions each year, the first from February to the end of May, and the second from September to the end of December. Tsao said he arrived at 11:30pm on Wednesday night to get an early start, adding that he is often the first arrival for legislative sittings or committee meetings. KMT Legislator Lu Chia-chen (盧嘉辰) jogged in from Tucheng (土城) in New Taipei City (新北市). Lu said that when he was elected in 2008, he also jogged in to take his oath of office. The new session is scheduled to start on Sept. 16.
COMMUNICATIONS
HSR to upgrade WiMAX
The Bureau of High Speed Rail (HSR) said on Wednesday it would upgrade its telecommunications service by June to offer its passengers uninterrupted Internet access on mobile devices. In a NT$500 million (US$17 million) joint project, including the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Industrial Technology Research Institute and a local telecommunications company, the bureau said it would introduce the 4G (fourth-generation) WiMAX technology to overcome glitches in the current service. At present, high-speed rail passengers using 2G or 3G cellular devices often have reception problems because the high speed of the trains makes it difficult to achieve a smooth signal transition from one base station to the next. However, that obstacle should soon be overcome because hundreds of WiMAX base stations and 360km of optical fiber cable are being installed along the railway line, the bureau said.
TRANSPORT
EasyCard seeks trial testers
EasyCard Corp began accepting applicants yesterday for a trial scheme for IC EasyCards with a new function that allows users to look up their card usage record online. EasyCard was first introduced in Taipei in 2002. The company is offering 20,000 free Republic of China -centennial-themed IC EasyCards for commuters who apply to test-drive the new cards. According to the company , the chip embedded in the card allows holders to access their usage record for the past three months at home using a reader, rather than just the six most recent transactions the current EasyCard permits. The company said applications would remain open until Monday or until 20,000 applications had been accepted. EasyCard users can apply and submit their comments or suggestions at www.easycard.com.tw/newcard, the company said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Rocker Chyi Chin burned
Veteran Taiwanese rocker Chyi Chin (齊秦) was severely burned early yesterday at his home in Beijing, but was reported to be in stable condition, his agency said in a statement. The 51-year-old singer-songwriter suffered second-degree burns on his face and back while undergoing cupping therapy, the agency said, adding the therapist had accidentally spilled alcohol on Chyi. The burns covered about 8 percent of his body. Chyi was undergoing the treatment to alleviate fatigue. His agency said Chyi would cancel all public activities for the next two to three months to recuperate.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
GIO sends ‘WSJ’ clarification
The Government Information Office (GIO) said yesterday that it has sent a clarifying statement to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) regarding a recent opinion piece in the paper that suggested parts of Taiwanese society have been penetrated by Chinese intelligence. The statement, drafted by the Ministry of National Defense, is expected to be published in one or two days, Government Information Office Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) said. The statement, written in English and two pages in length, not only denies the infiltration allegation, but highlights the substantive relations between Taiwan and the US, according to ministry spokesman Colonel David Lo (羅紹和). On Wednesday, Lo told a press conference that “there is a consensus within Taiwan’s armed forces that despite the warming of cross-strait relations, China is still an enemy.”
TRAVEL
Bureau tells Family Mart ‘no’
Tourism Bureau director general Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) yesterday said the bureau has sent an official notice to Family Mart informing the convenience store chain that it cannot collect applications for Taiwan Compatriot Entry Permits from customers planning to visit China and deliver them to travel agencies. The chain announced on Aug. 23 that it was working with a courier company and a travel agency to launch the service, by which Taiwanese planning to visit China would pay a fee of NT$499 to get their single-entry Taiwan Compatriot Entry Permit to China renewed. FamilyMart said at the time it expected to handle 20,000 applications a month. Lai said the chain could violate the Act for Development of Tourism (發展觀光條例) if it went ahead with the new service. However, later in the day, FamilyMart said it would continue the service unless a formal ruling against the service was handed down.
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