■ Health
`Five a day' scheme pushed
The Department of Health and the Council of Agriculture have been working on a "Five a Day" plan to promote the eating at least five servings of fruit and vegetables per day, a department official said yesterday. Director of the Bureau of Food Sanitation Cheng Huei-wen (鄭慧文) said the two bodies were promoting the plan by introducing packs containing three types of vegetables and two pieces of fruit to supermarkets and agricultural product marketing centers around the nation to make it easier for consumers to achieve the five a day goal. An investigation by the DOH showed that 96 percent of Taiwanese realize the importance of a balanced diet, but 80 percent do not eat enough fruit and vegetables, especially those who eat out. The investigation also revealed that convenient buying channels would increase consumption.
■ Health
Hog breeders ink pledge
Local hog breeders signed a self-regulation convention yesterday as a pledge to provide consumers with pork from healthy hogs in the wake of reports of meat from sick and dead hogs being sold in local markets. Pork sales have been affected nationwide since police cracked down on illicit trading of diseased and dead hogs in central and southern Taiwan earlier this month. News reports claim that the illicit sales of substandard pork from sick and dead hogs have been going on for many years, with buyers including vendors at traditional markets, restaurant operators and food processing businesses around the nation. The signing took place at the office of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine and was witnessed by Council of Agriculture officials. The signatories also urged local hog breeders to support the practice of applying for life insurance for their livestock as part of efforts to stem illicit trading of sick and dead hogs.
■ Education
New books `unconstitutional'
Pan-blue lawmakers yesterday threatened to call for a constitutional interpretation of high school history textbook changes that present Taiwan and China as two nations. Textbook revisions and changes to the names of scores of institutions so that the word "China" is no longer in them are unconstitutional, People First Party legislator Lee Fu-tien (李復甸) said at a joint press conference with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers. "Our Constitution expressly refers to Taiwan and China as one nation, the Republic of China," Lee said, adding the changes also violated freedom of expression. "This is part of a brainwashing strategy that goes right to the heart of a people: the youth," he said. The lawmakers also threatened to nix a budget review for school textbooks in the legislature unless the education ministry agreed to stall their publication.
■ Politics
Chen Chi-mai takes post
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced several major appointments yesterday, including that of Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), a former legislator and former acting Kaohsiung mayor, who will serve as deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office. Chen Chi-mai will fill the vacancy left by Liu Shih-feng (劉世芳), who will move to the post of deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council. NSC Deputy Secretary-General Wang Hsi-tien (王西田) will serve as the council's new deputy director. The appointments will take effect on Monday.
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:
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
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