CRIME
Alleged drug ring arrested
A group has been arrested for allegedly smuggling 7kg of heroin, valued at more than NT$100 million (US$3.33 million), from Thailand to Taiwan through the mail, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. Members of the group allegedly purchased the drugs in Thailand, concealed them in decorative wall hangings and sent them overland to Yunnan and Guangdong provinces in China with the aim of eventually shipping them to Taiwan, a CIB official said. An investigation into the case began in May last year after the CIB received a tip-off, the bureau said. Police arrested three members of the group at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Thursday. The three suspects were interrogated yesterday and police said they confessed to having used the same method to ship heroin to Taiwan three times in the past. The ringleader of the group was still at large, police said.
HEALTH
Fetus screening ban mulled
Health authorities yesterday said a ban on doctors performing gender screening of fetuses in a bid to curb sex-selective abortions is being considered. The bureau of health promotion said it was reviewing the issue after up to 3,000 female babies were presumed to have been aborted last year. A government probe found that 10 out of every 11 babies delivered at a clinic in New Taipei City (新北市) last year were boys, while nine out of 10 babies born in another hospital during the same period were also male. Government officials suspected that doctors at the two medical institutions had carried out abortions at the request of parents who had viewed ultrasound scans which allowed them to predict the sex of their baby.
TOURISM
Taiwan to woo US tourists
The Tourism Bureau is preparing to take part in two major travel shows in the US, where it will tout Taiwan’s scenery, culinary diversity and wealth of cultural sites in a bid to attract more US tourists. The bureau will be one of the major exhibitors at the seventh annual Los Angeles Travel and Adventure Show in Long Beach on Jan. 14 and Jan. 15 and a sponsor of the 14th annual Los Angeles Times Travel Show, scheduled for Jan. 27 to Jan. 29. At the Long Beach show, the bureau will focus on Taiwan as a destination for outdoors enthusiasts, such as cyclists and surfers. At the Los Angeles Times fair, the target groups will be jet-setters and luxury travelers..
HEALTH
Compensation plan to begin
The government will soon launch a trial program with the aim of providing compensation for serious injury or wrongful death during childbirth, said Bureau of Medical Affairs director Shih Chung-liang (石崇良). Starting in February, patients who suffer serious injury during childbirth or families of patients who die during labor are eligible to claim compensation of up to NT$2 million (US$66,000), said Shih, adding that families are eligible to claim a maximum of NT$300,000 if their babies die during labor. In an attempt to minimize medical disputes and pricey litigation, the government has set aside a NT$300 million fund to support the program out of concern for the public’s health, he said. A total of 800 obstetric and gynecology clinics and 500 hospitals are in the program, under which the patients still have the right to file a lawsuit, but will not be able to apply for compensation from the program at the same time, Shih said.
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