FOOD
High additive levels found
Slightly more than one-fifth of preserved food items tested in Taipei recently were found to contain excessive levels of additives, city health authorities said yesterday. Random checks on 100 preserved food products at department stores, malls, convenience stores and traditional markets revealed that 21 preserved fruit and vegetable items were found to contain excessive levels of preservatives, colorings, bleach and saccharin, the city’s health department said. Some of the products, typically eaten over the Lunar New Year period, were found to contain saccharin levels 27 times the permitted amount, Taipei Food and Drug Division director Chen Li-chi (陳立奇) said. Chen said the department had told the relevant businesses to pull the substandard items off the shelves and has imposed fines of between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000. Among the 42 preserved vegetables inspected, 13 failed tests. Seven out of the 48 preserved fruits failed to pass the tests, while one out of 10 dried vegetables did not pass, Chen said.
TRADE
WTO head may visit
WTO director-general Pascal Lamy will be invited to visit Taiwan in June for the 10th anniversary celebration of the country’s accession to the world regulatory body, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. To mark the anniversary, the ministry’s Bureau of Foreign Trade said it is organizing a series of activities in June that will include international seminars and speeches by trade officials, experts and business leaders from around the world. Lamy will be invited to attend the celebrations and if he accepts, he would be the highest-ranking WTO official to visit Taiwan, the bureau said.
ENVIRONMENT
PSI updated twice daily
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said it has increased the frequency of its air quality forecasts from once to twice a day, starting from yesterday, so the public can check the latest air quality conditions on its Web site. The air quality forecast shows the three-day Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), which measures concentrations of PM10 (fine particles in the air smaller than 10 micrometers in size), sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone nationwide. The administration said the daily air quality was largely influenced by weather conditions and it has cooperated with the Central Weather Bureau since 2008 to gain complementary information. The air quality forecasts will be updated at 10:30am and 5pm daily.
CULTURE
Dictionary nears completion
The first stage of an online dictionary featuring the differences between the traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan and the simplified version used in China will be launched next month at the earliest, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday. The dictionary will compare traditional and simplified Chinese characters and also list different expressions used on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, as a mark of respect for such differences, Ma said. Compiled by Taiwan’s General Association of Chinese Culture (GACC) and academics from China, the dictionary has about 30,000 completed entries and people will be able to access it as soon as next month, Ma said while attending a Chinese character festival in Taipei, accompanied by GACC president Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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