■ ENVIRONMENT
Cup reduction required: EPA
Retail beverage chains will be required to offer discounts to clients who bring reusable containers from Jan. 1 next year, or to offer refunds of NT$1 to consumers who return two used disposable cups, an official said yesterday. “The new regulation is part of our efforts to reduce the consumption of single-use beverage cups over environmental concerns,” said Wang Chun-yuan (王俊淵), director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) Solid Waste Management Bureau. “Coffee, beverages, convenience and fast food chain stores must submit disposable drinking cup reduction plans to the EPA before the end of this year detailing their discount or incentive programs for consumers who bring reusable containers,” Wang said. “The new requirement has become necessary because huge consumption of disposable cups has not only squeezed our natural resources but also polluted our rivers and living environment,” Wang said. EPA estimates show chain stores in Taiwan consume about 1.5 billion single-use cups a year.
■ HEALTH
NTUH marks anniversary
National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) yeserday marked the 15th anniversary of its first lung transplant operation. Over the past 15 years, the hospital has performed lung transplants for 66 patients. The success rate for the last four years stands at 93 percent, with the two-year survival rate reaching 80 percent, NTUH said. Some of the survivors were invited by the hospital to share their stories at a news conference held to mark the anniversary. Among them was 48-year-old Chen Fou-yang (陳浮陽), whose lungs were severely damaged 14 years ago as a result of poisoning from sweet leaf, a tropical plant believed to be helpful for losing weight. Chen said she was later diagnosed with bronchial obstruction and had to receive a lung transplant. She is the longest-surviving lung transplant patient in the country. Hsu Shao-hsun, a surgeon at the hospital, said that lungs suitable for transplants were not easy to find. Of all organ donors, only 10 to 12 percent provide viable lungs, he said.
■ TRANSPORTATION
THSRC reaches milestone
Three-and-a-half years after commencing services, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced yesterday morning that it had transported its 100 millionth passenger. The passenger will receive a free ticket for use over a one-year period. THSRC is still trying to contact the 100,000,001st passenger, who purchased a ticket nine seconds after the first-prize winner. He or she will receive a free one-month ticket, THSRC said.
■ CRIME
Man gets 1,139 years
A man was sentenced yesterday to a total of 1,139 years in prison by Taoyuan District Court for sexually assaulting his teenage daughters. The man, surnamed Liao (廖), was arrested after his wife found out in September last year that he had been raping their two daughters for more than two years. The district court ruling said Liao committed over 200 sex crimes against his daughters, which accumulated into the long prison term. In practice, he will only be jailed for 30 years — the maximum prison term stipulated by the law with the exception of a life sentence. The ruling said Liao committed the crimes when his wife worked late at night by pulling the girls into his room and sexually assaulting them. Liao beat the girls if they resisted, the ruling said. Liao’s wife found out after she saw him and their older daughter walk out of the bathroom together one day, the ruling 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
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