■ Crime
Suspect pork confiscated
Law enforcement agents in Yunlin County seized 30 tonnes of tainted pork believed to be from dead and diseased hogs during a late-night raid on five illegal slaughterhouses yesterday. The agents arrested a suspect at one of the locations in Yuanchang Township (元長) and were still trying to catch the ringleader and his accomplices, who fled before the agents arrived. The Public Prosecutor's Office in the county ordered the raid after receiving tip-offs that the illegal ring was operating out of a shack in a village in the township. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said that in addition to 1,000kg of hog carcasses that were being butchered in the shack, law enforcement agents found 6,000kg of frozen pork in a walk-in freezer. More than 23,000kg of frozen pork -- - believed to be from dead and sick hogs -- was seized at four other locations.
■ Health
DOH warns over labeling
Department of Health officials yesterday said that food and agricultural products with misleading or fraudulent labels would be destroyed and the producers fined. Chen Chih-lang (陳志朗), an official with the Bureau of Food Sanitation, made the remarks at a press conference hosted by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lee Chen-nan (李鎮楠). The lawmaker said that 10 so-called "organic" vegetable soup packages sold on the market carried fake certifications describing them as coming from Japan. A number of producers even claimed that their products could cure cancer, Lee said. Local health authorities can order companies to withdraw illegal products or amend the labeling, Chen said, adding that the products would be destroyed if the companies failed to do so. Food with labels falsely claiming medical effects could cost companies fines ranging from NT$200,000 to NT$1 million, Chen said.
■ Environment
Green project a success
Some 290,500m2 of land around factories and construction sites, the equivalent of 700 basketball courts, has been turned into parkland around the country under a government-initiated project to green inner cities and suburban areas, the Environment Protection Administration reported yesterday. Since the greening project was launched in August last year, 561 factories and construction sites have signed up to take part -- turning land in their vicinity into parks or green land -- as of the end of December, agency officials said. Meanwhile, the 561 factories and construction sites have also sponsored the clean-up and maintenance of 1,724km of roads around the country during the same period, the officials said.
■ Tourism
Free maps available
One million copies of a tourist map illustrating scenic spots and the road systems leading to them are being distributed free at more than 100 locations throughout the country, starting yesterday. The map, in the form of a folding brochure, was produced by the Tourism Bureau. In addition to showing the road systems linking the nation's most famous scenic spots, the map also provides information on the distance between locations and rest areas on freeways. The maps can be obtained at major airports, railway stations, information centers at freeway rest areas, the passenger service centers along Taipei's mass rapid transit rail system and information centers at 13 national scenic areas.
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