HEALTH
Fruit and veggies destroyed
A total of 1.5 tonnes of fruit and vegetables found to contain an illegal amount of pesticide residue have been destroyed, the Hualien County Health Bureau said yesterday. Twelve lots of fruit and vegetables containing excessive pesticide levels that were being sold in supermarkets, restaurants, warehouse stores and other shops have been destroyed, Hualien County Health Bureau Director Hsu Hsiang-ming (徐祥明) said. Hsu said inspections of fruit and vegetables were conducted between January and last month in Hualien, following complaints made by environmental and consumer protection groups that a lot of produce being sold nationwide contains high levels of pesticides. In addition to the bureau’s checks on 202 items, Hsu said the Fruit and Vegetables Cooperative Society was also assisting in efforts to enhance inspections of pesticide levels in produce being sold at wholesale markets.
WEATHER
Heavy rains relieve drought
The torrential rainfall over the past week has relieved the strain on reservoirs in southern Taiwan caused by a months-long drought and water supplies throughout the country will remain stable until late June, according to the Water Resources Agency. Wu Yueh-hsi (吳約西), the agency’s deputy director, said that although most of the recent downpours were concentrated on coastal areas, they helped increase the water level in the Wushantou Reservoir in Greater Tainan to 88 percent of capacity. Meanwhile, capacity at the Zengwun Reservoir in Chiayi and at the Nanhua Reservoir in Greater Tainan has reached 20.7 percent and 50 percent, respectively, he added. Water supplies will remain stable until the end of June and there will be enough water for irrigation for the year’s first rice crop, Wu said.
SOCIETY
Punishment wrong: school
Chung Ho Junior High School officials in New Taipei City (新北市) yesterday acknowledged the improper handling of a student who farted in class. The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday reported that a teacher at the school last week disciplined a third-year student by making him transcribe a textbook and made public the student’s name to his classmates after he farted several times in class due to an upset stomach. To maintain order, the teacher implemented a violation-point system, in which students were made to mark down every “irregularity” committed by their peers, the report said. As the student was among the top five in points received, in particular for spinning his pen and farting, the teacher announced his name to his classmates, along with his “offenses.” School General Affairs Office director Yu Chi-jung (余啟榮) yesterday said the student was actually punished for spinning his pen and chatting in class, not farting. However, Yu said the revelation of the student’s name was improper, saying the school would demand the removal of the point system and refer the teacher to the teachers’ evaluation committee.
CRIME
Illegal loggers arrested
Police in Nantou County yesterday arrested four men suspected of illegally sawing a burl from a Taiwanese red cypress tree in Jhushan Township (竹山) in November last year. The four were detained and turned over to the Nantou District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly violating the Forestry Act (森林法). Police officers also recovered the 60cm by 100cm burl that was cut from the nearly 2,000-year-old tree. Jhushan residents noticed last November that the 1,000-year-old burl had been removed by illegal loggers and reported the case.
LABOR
Measure for raises mulled
The government would seek to encourage employers to raise worker salaries, either through legislation or an incentive program, Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said yesterday amid mounting complaints about stagnant wages and rising living costs. Wang said the government’s goal is to push businesses to fulfil their social responsibilities, including protecting the benefits of their workers. Chinese National Federation of Industries chairman Rock Hsu (許勝雄) said that the government should not “go beyond its duties” and meddle in the issue of whether businesses should adjust their payscales. Hsu said businesses have the responsibility to take care of their workers, but there should not be any compulsory measures to require them to raise pay for workers, because “every company operates differently and faces different competition.”
TRAVEL
Philippines detains man
A Taiwanese man, surnamed Shen (沈), was detained in the Philippines on suspicion of bringing drugs into the country, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration said yesterday. The bureau said Shen appeared suspicious when he arrived in Manila on Thursday last week and immigration officers found about 6g of drugs in his luggage. According to the Taiwanese representative office in Manila, the pills Shen was carrying are prescription sedatives in Taiwan, but are listed as controlled drugs in the Philippines. Shen, who said he was visiting as a tourist, would be released on bail if he obtains a certificate from a Taiwanese doctor proving the drugs are for medical use, the office said. Otherwise, he would be deported and listed as persona non grata, the office added.
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