CRIME
Jacqueline Liu returns
Jacqueline Liu (劉姍姍), former director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri, returned to Taiwan early yesterday after pleading guilty in a US federal court late last month over labor fraud. Liu was greeted by Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. A large number of immigration and police officers were mobilized to maintain order. Liu, 64, told reporters that she felt great to return home and promised to cooperate with investigations by the ministry and the US into the case. Liu was arrested at her office in Kansas City on Nov. 10 on charges of mistreating two Filipina housekeepers and was sentenced at a court on Jan. 27 to time already served and ordered to pay US$80,044 in restitution to the two Filipinas.
JUDICIARY
New chief justice tapped
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday announced the appointment of Yang Ting-chang (楊鼎章) as the new chief justice of the Supreme Court and said he expected Yang to continue carrying out judicial reform. “Some judges have called for more transparency in assigning cases to judges ... The new Supreme Court chief justice agrees with such a reform,” Ma said at the Presidential Office. Yang Ting-chang, currently president of the High Court, will take over when Yang Jen-shou (楊仁壽) steps down as chief justice tomorrow. Ma met Yang Ting-chang on Tuesday night, accompanied by Judicial Yuan President Rai Hau-min (賴浩敏), who proposed the nomination. Ma said the chief justice should not only be a role model for all judges, but also be able to take into consideration public concerns and social values when making judgements.
WEATHER
Mercury set to drop
Temperatures are forecast to plummet across the nation starting late today after a strong cold air mass moves in from China, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Although the mercury has hit highs approaching 30°C in some areas in recent days, the bureau warned that the unseasonably warm temperatures would soon give way to cold and humid weather. Daytime temperatures are expected to drop by 4°C to 6°C across the nation today during the day and then plunge to about 12°C in the north at night following the arrival of the cold front. The cold spell is likely to last until Saturday, when the lows could hover around 10°C in the north, but its effects would still be felt into Sunday, the bureau said.
CRIME
Ministry probes crime ring
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is looking into a report that claimed the existence of a large-scale Taiwanese prostitution operation in Guam, ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said yesterday. The Chinese-language Next Magazine reported yesterday that US authorities had found many Taiwanese women working as prostitutes in the US-held territory. In an effort to curb the illegal behavior, the US Department of Homeland Security has asked Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau and National Police Agency to regulate Taiwanese tourists visiting Guam, the report said. Taiwanese do not need visas to visit Guam if they are traveling on a direct round-trip flight with a stay of less than 45 days, American Institute in Taiwan spokesman Christopher Kavanagh said. Asked if the situation would hurt Taiwan’s candidacy for the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP), Kavanagh said: “Taiwan was nominated for the VWP because it satisfied the requirements incumbent on it for nomination.”
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