ENERGY
Nuclear report expected
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) will publish a report next month on the ability of the country’s nuclear power plants to resist a strong earthquake and tsunami, the company’s chairman said yesterday. “We have no problem producing am anti-quake and anti-tsunami report by May 11,” Taipower chairman Edward Chen (陳貴明) said in response to a lawmaker query at a legislative hearing. The report will cover the three existing nuclear power plants, as well as the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently under construction. Taipower will produce another, more detailed report once Japan releases the results of its probe into the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which is expected in one year, Chen said. Addressing concerns that Taiwan’s nuclear power plants are built near fault lines, Chen said the plants were designed to withstand earthquakes.
HEALTH
Festivals most depressing
The Department of Health yesterday said that the days immediately before and after June’s Dragon Boat Festival and September’s Mid-Autumn Festival, which are traditionally occasions for family gatherings, are the times when depression hits people most severely. At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, the department briefed Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on government efforts to promote psychological health and prevent suicides. In response, Wu called on officials at all levels of government to do their part in reducing suicides. Wu said research shows that repeat attempts at suicide decrease when family members or social workers give more care. Aside from forming a task force to enhance mental health, Wu said that a department of psychological health would be set up under the Ministry of Health and Welfare during a government overhaul scheduled for next year.
ENVIRONMENT
Chiayi water levels low
The water levels in Chiayi County’s main reservoirs have fallen significantly, raising the possibility of water shortages if there is not sufficient rainfall to replenish the catchment areas by the end of June, state-owned Taiwan Water Corp (TWC) said. The outlook is gloomy as the Central Weather Bureau has forecast lower-than-average rainfall this spring, and the two reservoirs — Lantan (蘭潭) and Jenyitan (仁義潭) — are well below capacity, the TWC said. Meanwhile, the lower-than-average rainfall so far this spring has resulted in record-low levels in the main reservoirs in Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, the TWC said. The water company urged the public to conserve water, noting that it has been reducing water pressure levels during off-peak hours in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung and Changhua since last Friday.
TRAVEL
Ma hopeful for visa waiver
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he was very hopeful that the US would include Taiwan in its visa-waiver program. The president said that a significant number of countries took that step last year, bringing the total number of visa-free destinations open to Taiwanese citizens to 113. “That number is more than twice what it was in 2008 when I took office,” Ma told a delegation of the Republican National Committee at the Presidential Office. “Now, we keenly hope to receive visa-free treatment from the US,” he said, adding that more than 300,000 Taiwanese travel to the US each year.
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