■ENVIRONMENT
Dust storm effects recede
Air quality across the nation has returned to normal, suggesting that the effects of a dust storm from China has lessened, the Environmental Protection Administration said yesterday. Chu Yu-chi (朱雨其), director-general of the Environmental Monitoring and Information Management unit, said observation stations nationwide have recorded safe atmospheric particle levels, thanks mainly to recent heavy rainfall. However, in Kinmen and Matsu, a higher volume of dust particles was recorded, Chu said. Particle levels also remain slightly higher than normal in several regions of northern Taiwan such as Guanyin (觀音), Wanli (萬里) and Shilin (士林), Chu said.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Premier calls for monitoring
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday ordered government agencies to step up monitoring of water management in southern Taiwan, after reports that the Kaohsiung and Tainan areas could face water shortages if the current dry spell continues. Although the situation in northern Taiwan has eased after recent rainfalls, Wu said Kaohsiung and Tainan could see problems with their water supplies starting in June. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials said normal water supplies in the two areas could be affected if the amount of rainfall fails to reach 40 percent of the annual average by the end of June. Wu also ordered authorities to take full anti-flooding precautions as the typhoon season approaches. Cultivation of rice for the first harvest in some central and southern counties has been suspended to save water.
■ SOCIETY
‘Night Market Life’ fined
The National Communications Commission recently fined Formosa Television’s (FTV) Night Market Life (夜市人生) NT$420,000 for violating television ratings regulations. An independent content review panel recommended the penalty, said Jason Ho (何吉森), director of the communication contents department. Ho said an episode that aired on Dec. 30 last year showed a boy being robbed by three other children, who also stole his pants. The boy later questioned his classmates to find out who the robbers were. “The scenario was similar to the way gangsters settle disputes,” Ho said. “The violence and terror displayed in the episode essentially infringed upon regulations on programming content for general audiences, as well as parental guidance ratings, and may serve as a bad influence for both children and young people.”
■ HEALTH
DOH reveals new premiums
Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) yesterday said that premiums for a second-generation National Health Insurance (NHI) program based on total household income would be between 2.57 percent and 3.06 percent. This was the first time the DOH had revealed details of the proposed program, which is expected to be introduced within two years. Earlier this month, Yaung said the premiums would be between 3 percent and 4 percent. At a legislative committee meeting, he presented 16 versions of plans for the program. Yaung said that under any of the versions, about 60 percent of households would enjoy lower health insurance premiums, with 40 percent of singles paying lower rates. The proposal’s lowest premium — for a total annual household income of at least NT$150,000 — is 2.57 percent. He said the rate couldn’t be lower because the government is required to pay for 30 percent of total medical expenses and no reserve fund is allocated.
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