■ Traffic
Police tame betel nut girls
Taichung police have ordered the city's scantily-clad betel-nut saleswomen to dress more conservatively to help reduce traffic accidents, it was reported yesterday. Under the new dress code, women peddling betel nuts at roadside stands are barred from wearing revealing outfits or soliciting business on the streets, a local TV station reported. A policeman promoting the new dress code suggested that saleswomen rather don white navy tops, tight short pants and the same type of hats worn by singer Feng Fei-fei (鳳飛飛), a local diva in the 1980s. Taichung police consider the "betel nut beauties" a likely cause of traffic accidents in the central city as drivers are often distracted by saleswomen in revealing clothes, the report said. A young sales girl told reporters the tighter dress code sounded reasonable. "But it's really not my business, it's my boss's problem," she said. A Health Department study two years ago reported one-tenth of the population regularly chew the indigenous nut, the seed of a palm tree, as a stimulant.
■ Trade
Mission goes to Seoul
A trade mission to Northeast Asia, headed by Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬), held a trade workshop in Seoul yesterday to promote Taiwanese products. Representatives of over 300 South Korean manufacturers and trade companies attended the event. Huang told South Korean reporters on the sidelines of the workshop that the market share of Taiwanese products in South Korea amounted to 3.3 percent last year, a figure reflecting the fact that there is ample space for Taiwan to improve trade relations. He said now is the best time for Taiwanese businesses to make inroads into the market since Seoul has lifted many of its foreign trade barriers in recent years. Since last year, Taiwan has extended visa-free privileges for South Korean visitors, while Taiwanese enjoy the same privilege from the South Korea government. In addition, regular direct flights between Seoul and Taipei resumed this month after being cut following the severance of diplomatic links in 1992. Given the friendlier environment, Huang said, Taiwan plans to set up a new economic and trade association in Seoul on Oct. 8 to enhance cooperation with the Seoul-based Korea Importers Association.
■ Development
Ministry promotes design
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday unveiled a "Designed in Taiwan" project aimed at boosting the local design sector to develop the nation into a creativity and design center in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of the project, which was announced at the National Conference on Service Industry Development, the ministry will take steps to increase sales in the sector by 70 percent to NT$37 billion (US$1.08 billion) by 2008 while increasing the total work force in the sector from 11,000 to 17,000 people. The ministry will also help 15 domestic design teams to build up international reputations and assist 25 corporations in establishing their own brands. To achieve the targets, the ministry will hold a series of design competitions, push for the establishment of an accreditation system for designers, set up a database of Taiwanese-style design elements and organize large-scale promotional events.
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
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