■ PFP accused of `nonsense'
A civic group campaigning to end the construction of the nation's fourth nuclear power plant and to downsize the Legislative Yuan yesterday dismissed as "nonsense" People First Party (PFP) opposition to a proposal to reduce the number of seats in the Legislative Yuan through an amendment to the Constitution. Yeh Poh-wen (葉博文), a leader of the group, said the proposal has been discussed by political parties for more than three years and had been agreed to by all of them before the March 20 presidential election, contradicting the PFP's claim that passing the measure in the upcoming extraordinary session of the Legislative Yuan would be "hasty." Yeh said that his group, founded by former Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), will visit Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) today to seek his support for putting the issue on the agenda of the Legislative Yuan's extra-ordinary session, which is to begin later this month. After that, Yeh said, Lin and his followers would begin walking around the Legis-lative Yuan complex or staging a sit-in until the issue is put on the agenda.
■ Medicine
Pray you don't need surgery
Deaths caused by compli-cations from anesthesia during surgery occurred at a rate of 178 deaths in a million last year -- a rate 17 times higher than in Japan and eight times greater than in the US, local media reported yesterday. A survey by Taiwan's Anesthetics Society found that of 570,000 people who were anesthe-tized in Taiwanese hospitals last year, 103 died and five became mentally incapa-citated, a Chinese-language newspaper reported. The society attributed the problem to a shortage of anesthesiologists, the report said. There are only 594 licensed anesthesiologists in Taiwan and each handles about 1,700 cases a year, according to the survey. The newspaper quoted Chu Kuang-hsin as saying that graduates from medical schools are reluctant to take up the profession. Another Chinese-language newspaper quoted anesthesiologist Lu Pin-rong as saying that some anesthesiologists will rush off after injecting a patient, leaving an unlicensed assistant to gauge how the patient reacts to the dose.
■ Education
Exam results to be posted
The College Entrance Examination Center today will post on its Web site -- www.uac.edu.tw -- the names of all students who passed the Joint College Entrance Examination. This is the first year that the center will not post a paper copy of the exam results on the doors of National Taiwan University -- a tradition that ran for more than 30 years. According to center esti-mates, this year's record-high 75.6 percent admission rate will allow 89,047 high school graduates to attend college.
■ Sports
Taiwan vanquishes Italy
Taiwan's national baseball team, playing as Chinese Taipei, defeated Italy 2-0 yesterday on the second day of a five-nation baseball tournament being held in Rome. Taiwan used three amateur pitchers and yielded one hit and no runs to Italy. Taiwan scored its first run in the bottom of the second inning with two consecutive hits. The team got its second run with two hits in the sixth inning. Taiwan's manager, Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明), said the team was off form in terms of batting, but it was still able to prevail against host Italy. Taiwan was beaten by Cuba 4-0 in its first game in the tournament.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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