INDUSTRY
Two Nan Ya plants stop
Two chemical factories in Yunlin County owned by Nan Ya Plastics Corp, which is part of Formosa Plastics Group, stopped operations yesterday, bringing the total number of Nan Ya plants shut down by the government to four, county officials said. The shutdowns were ordered on May 27 by the Yunlin County Government so that safety checks could be conducted and improvements made after fires broke out at the complex on May 12 and May 18. According to a memorandum signed by Nan Ya and the county government, a total of five plants began shutting down on June 1. The first suspended operations on June 5 and the second did so on Sunday, and the fifth plant is scheduled to shut down by June 20. The plants will be allowed to resume operations only after they have passed safety inspections.
FOOD SAFETY
Certain teas declared safe
Tea produced by local farmers’ associations and agricultural cooperatives have been certified plasticizer-free, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday. Wu Chia-Chang (巫嘉昌), director of the Tunding branch of the Tea Research and Extension Station (TRES) in Nantou County, said the council authorized the TRES’ Agricultural Chemical Research Center to carry out inspections for banned toxic plasticizers in teas produced by associations and cooperatives in the nation’s major tea production areas of Nantou and Chiayi counties. Wu said all the teas tested were found to be free of six plasticizers banned for food use — DEHP, DINP, DBP, DNOP, BBP and DIDP. He pointed out that tainted tea drinks recently removed from store shelves are processed tea beverages and said it would have been unlikely for whole-leaf tea to be contaminated.
CULTURE
Chiayi to host big band fair
The Chiayi City International Band Festival promises to be the biggest-ever this year, as the city will also play host to the biennial World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles Conference at the same time, Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠) said. The festival, which runs from June 30 until July 17, will feature parades, exhibitions, contests and at least 116 indoor and outdoor concerts by more than 100 local and foreign bands and groups, the organizers said. Among the 33 international bands that will be visiting Chiayi are the International Youth Wind Orchestra, the Norwegian Wind Orchestra, the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and the US Coast Guard Band. Chiayi has been hosting the annual event since 1993.
RECREATION
Yilan to hold camp festival
Yilan County will hold a camping festival starting on June 25 to encourage people to visit and enjoy the natural attractions of northeastern Taiwan, Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) said yesterday. Targeting summer vacationers, Lin said the two-month event would offer visitors information on places to camp where they could experience the natural beauty of Yilan’s mountains, rivers and coastline. Different from last year’s event, which featured just one campground, this year’s festival offers a total of 13 public and private campgrounds, including Suao’s (蘇澳) Wulaokeng Scenic Area, Nanao Farm and the Dasi Elementary School campground. The organizers encouraged campers to make good use of the surrounding facilities and activities — cold springs, surfing, biking and shrimping — instead of just staying at the campgrounds.
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