■ ENVIRONMENT
Chen congratulates Gore
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) congratulated former US vice president Al Gore yesterday for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and expressed hope that the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) would help Taiwan's initiative to establish a World Environment Organization (WEO) under a UN framework. Chen, who is in the Marshall Islands for a summit with leaders of the country's six diplomatic allies in the Pacific, said the environmental abuse in the Pacific region has posed a severe threat to the sustainable existence of the six allies. "This is a serious matter, a matter of life and death," Chen said, urging the leaders of the six allies to write to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other UN member countries to jointly push for the establishment of the WEO.
■ HEALTH
Make-up lead levels okay
The lead content of cosmetics and skin care products on the local market fall within permissible levels and should not cause panic among consumers, Department of Health (DOH) officials said yesterday. The officials made the remarks in response to the results of tests on 33 brand-name lipsticks released recently by the US-based Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which found that 61 percent contained lead levels of 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm). Liao Chi-chou (廖繼洲), head of the Bureau of Pharmaceutical Affairs, said that many cosmetics and skin care products such as lipstick and toner contain very small amounts of lead -- less than 20ppm. DOH officials said consumers should not overreact to the test results, as people normally only apply lipstick to their skin rather than ingest it.
■ COMPETITIONS
Taiwan first at Olympiad
Taiwan took home the lion's share of medals with three gold and one silver at the first International Earth Science Olympiad in Seoul, South Korea. The second place went to South Korea while the US came third. The gold medalists were juniors from the Kaohsiung Municipal Senior High School, National Taichung Girls' Senior High School and Taipei Municipal First Girls High School. The silver medalist was a sophomore from National Tainan First Senior High School. Team leader Chang Chun-yen (張俊彥), an earth science professor at National Normal Taiwan University, said they had expected to compete with 11 countries, but only 24 contenders from seven countries showed up. He expects at least 20 participating countries in next year's event, which will be held in the Philippines. Chang said he told the organizers he would like Taiwan to host the third Olympiad in 2009, adding that he hoped the Ministry of Education would back the proposal.
■ HEALTH
Dengue cases break record
The Tainan City Government reported that as of Friday, the number of confirmed cases of dengue fever had broken the 500 mark and reached 511, making it the city's worst ever outbreak of the disease. City officials said they discovered clusters of dengue fever infection in households in both northern and eastern parts of the city and urged the public to be on guard. With the National Athletic Meet scheduled to open in Tainan City this week, the city government has pulled out all the stops to eradicate mosquitos and ensure the safety of participating athletes. Health officials also urged the public to remove any containers of standing water that could serve as breeding ground for the disease-bearing mosquitos.
■ POLITICS
DPP supports quick review
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus will push for the review of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) nominees for grand justices before the legislature goes into recess in December ahead of the legislative elections on Jan. 12, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said yesterday. Ker made the comments in response to Chen's remarks on Thursday that he would nominate four grand justice candidates and 29 Control Yuan members after he returns from a summit with the nation's Pacific allies on the Marshall Islands. On Sept. 27, the legislature approved four grand justices, as well as the president and vice president of the Judicial Yuan, from a list of 10 nominees proposed by Chen in August. Four nominees were rejected after pan-blue lawmakers questioned the four nominees' ties to the DPP.
■ TRADE
Organic produce touted
Hualien County Commissioner Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) will lead a delegation to Canada today to promote the county's organic produce. Tu Li-hua (杜麗華), director of the Hualien County Government's Department of Agriculture, said this will be the first time a government agency has presided over a project to export agricultural produce to Canada. Tu said that Hualien's farmers have just received export orders from Canada for agricultural produce worth NT$10 million (US$309,000). Although exports might not be as high as originally expected, Canada still represents a good outlet for Hualien's high-quality organic agricultural products, especially after passing Canada's strict produce testing, Tu said.
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
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
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