JUSTICE
Ex-KMT lawmaker indicted
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和) was indicted yesterday on charges of taking bribes from a trading company during his term in office, allegedly in exchange for helping the company seek government permission for oil-transfer operations off the southern port of Kaohsiung. According to an indictment issued by the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, Chung had written to the Environmental Protection Administration about the issue and had met with environmental, transportation and economics officials in his office to discuss related details. On April 15 last year, the trading company’s owner, surnamed Tung (董), allegedly paid NT$3 million (US$100,000) to Chung as a reward for his efforts, the indictment said, adding that Tung allegedly offered to pay Chung an additional NT$4 million on May 27 after Chung held a second meeting with officials. However, Chung declined to accept the payment because of a lack of progress on the matter, it said. Denying the bribery charges, Chung said the NT$3 million was intended to contribute to expenditures at his constituent-services office, while the NT$4 million was intended as a campaign donation for his re-election bid this year.
COMMUNICATIONS
Cables link Taiwan, China
The first undersea telecommunications cables linking Taiwanese and Chinese territories have been completed, an official with Chunghwa Telecom said yesterday. The two fiber-optic cables link the city of Xiamen in southern China with the Kinmen island group, which lies just off the coast of China, the official said. The cables are due to go into operation on Tuesday next week, he added. The official, who asked not to be named, said the company had invested about NT$100 million (US$3.3 million) in the joint venture involving three Chinese telecoms operators. In 1958, the Chinese army fired more than 470,000 shells at Kinmen and several other islets in a 44-day bombardment, killing a total of 618 servicemen and civilians and wounding more than 2,600. China was still bombarding the island as late as the 1970s, although by then the shells were stuffed with propaganda leaflets. Kinmen now has become a popular attraction for tourists from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
OLYMPICS
Athletes to get cash
Cash rewards distributed to the nation’s medal winners and other athletes who performed well at the recently concluded 2012 Olympic Games amount to more than NT$30 million (US$1 million), the Sports Affairs Council said yesterday. Cash awards totaling NT$32.7 million will be paid to 16 athletes. According to the Regulations Governing the Issuance of Guo Guang Athletic Medals and Scholarships (國光體育獎章及獎助學金頒發辦法), Hsu Shu-ching (許淑淨), the silver medalist in the women’s under-53kg weightlifting event, is eligible to receive a one-time reward of NT$7 million or a lifetime monthly pension of NT$38,000 for winning a silver medal for the country. Tseng Li-cheng (曾櫟騁), the bronze medal winner in the women’s under-57kg taekwondo category, is eligible to receive NT$5 million or a lifetime monthly pension of NT$24,000. Table tennis player Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵), who finished fourth in the men’s singles event — the best-ever finish by a male Taiwanese table tennis player at the Games — will be given NT$3 million. Athletes who finished fifth or sixth will receive NT$1.5 million, while those who came in seventh or eighth will get NT$0.9 million.
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:
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