President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is considering a policy that would require male staff at the Presidential Office to stop wearing suits and ties to cut down on air conditioning costs.
Ma, who along with Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) spent yesterday morning visiting staff at the Presidential Office building, told reporters his office would make his decision on the matter public at an appropriate time.
Ma made the remark in response to reporters’ who asked why he was just in a shirt and tie in the press room.
The Ma administration has been promoting energy conservation and carbon-emission reduction. Presidential Office officials have set an example by swapping their big limos for smaller cars.
The Cabinet has said it would follow suit.
Setting another example, Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川) is riding his bicycle to work every morning.
During a presidential debate, Ma pledged to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions to meet the emissions target set by the Kyoto Protocol, as well as plant 60,000 hectares of new forest to help sustainable development.
He also promised to draw up an energy-saving and emission-reduction plan and demand that heavily polluting companies meet energy-saving regulations to maintain a balance between development and environmental protection.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan issued four directives to government agencies on energy saving and carbon-emission reduction with a view to encouraging officials to carry out energy conservation at work and in their daily lives, government spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) said yesterday.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) hoped that public servants would reduce oil and electricity consumption when at work, avoid engaging in unnecessary social activities and implement the states’ policies on energy saving and emissions reduction at all times, Shih said.
The vehicle allocated to the premier is a Cadillac DTS 4600cc, but Liu has used a Toyota Camry 3000cc instead when he was not on ceremonial duties, Shih said.
Liu came up with the four principles after talking with Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) and the Executive Yuan Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) on how to implement Ma’s recent energy conservation pledge.
Minister without Portfolio Tsai Hsun-hsiung (蔡勳雄) was assigned by Liu yesterday to work with the Environment Protection Administration and the Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs to map out concrete measures to save energy consumption, Shih 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