SOCIETY
Taiwan top for workaholics
Taiwan has the highest number of workaholics among Asia-Pacific countries, according to the results of a survey on holiday working habits by Regus PLC, an international corporation that provides office solutions, released yesterday. The survey, which questioned 16,000 working people in more than 80 countries, showed that 61 percent of working Taiwanese continue to handle work affairs while on holiday for at least three hours a day. The percentage is the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, topping China’s 44 percent, 38 percent in Malaysia and 33 percent in South Korea. The survey found that, on average, more than 20 percent of working people around the world work on holidays for at least 3 hours a day.
TELECOMS
Cables to link Kinmen
Two undersea cables between Taiwan’s Kinmen and China’s Xiamen are expected to enter service by the end of this year, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Co said yesterday. The Taiwanese telecoms company made the remark following the completion of construction on the Taiwanese side earlier this month. The two fiber-optic cables have been connected to local exchange facilities from their two locations off the northwestern coast of Kinmen, Chunghwa Telecom said. The cables are a joint venture between Chunghwa Telecom and China’s three main telecoms operators — China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, the Taiwanese company said, adding that construction on the Chinese side is still ongoing.
AGRICULTURE
Ma pledges rice farm help
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday his government will do its utmost to help lessen the losses that rice farmers sustained after their rice paddies were devastated by heavy rain and Tropical Storm Talim over the past few weeks. Council of Agriculture statistics showed heavy rain damaged 13,000 hectares of first-crop rice paddies that are pending harvest around Taiwan. Most of the damaged paddies lie in the Yunlin, Chiayi, Taichung, Changhua and Nantou areas, the council said. The agricultural losses caused by heavy rain across Taiwan this month have escalated to nearly NT$900 million (US$30.06 million), with farmers in Greater Taichung and Taoyuan, Chiayi, Yunlin and Pingtung counties recording the worst damage, according to official statistics. The council announced yesterday that disaster-affected farmers in these areas are entitled to low-interest loans at 1.25 percent a year to assist them in post-disaster rehabilitation.
FLOOD PREVENTION
Ministry promotes stilts
The Ministry of the Interior said it will promote the construction of houses on stilts in the nation’s flood-prone areas in an effort to prevent flood damage to property. SOCIETYTaiwan top for workaholics
Taiwan has the highest number of workaholics among Asia-Pacific countries, according to the results of a survey on holiday working habits by Regus PLC, an international corporation that provides office solutions, released yesterday. The survey, which questioned 16,000 working people in more than 80 countries, showed that 61 percent of working Taiwanese continue to handle work affairs while on holiday for at least three hours a day. The percentage is the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, topping China’s 44 percent, 38 percent in Malaysia and 33 percent in South Korea. The survey found that, on average, more than 20 percent of working people around the world work on holidays for at least 3 hours a day.
TELECOMS
Cables to link Kinmen
Two undersea cables between Taiwan’s Kinmen and China’s Xiamen are expected to enter service by the end of this year, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Co said yesterday. The Taiwanese telecoms company made the remark following the completion of construction on the Taiwanese side earlier this month. The two fiber-optic cables have been connected to local exchange facilities from their two locations off the northwestern coast of Kinmen, Chunghwa Telecom said. The cables are a joint venture between Chunghwa Telecom and China’s three main telecoms operators — China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, the Taiwanese company said, adding that construction on the Chinese side is still ongoing.
AGRICULTURE
Ma pledges rice farm help
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday his government will do its utmost to help lessen the losses that rice farmers sustained after their rice paddies were devastated by heavy rain and Tropical Storm Talim over the past few weeks. Council of Agriculture statistics showed heavy rain damaged 13,000 hectares of first-crop rice paddies that are pending harvest around Taiwan. Most of the damaged paddies lie in the Yunlin, Chiayi, Taichung, Changhua and Nantou areas, the council said. The agricultural losses caused by heavy rain across Taiwan this month have escalated to nearly NT$900 million (US$30.06 million), with farmers in Greater Taichung and Taoyuan, Chiayi, Yunlin and Pingtung counties recording the worst damage, according to official statistics. The council announced yesterday that disaster-affected farmers in these areas are entitled to low-interest loans at 1.25 percent a year to assist them in post-disaster rehabilitation.
FLOOD PREVENTION
Ministry promotes stilts
The Ministry of the Interior said it will promote the construction of houses on stilts in the nation’s flood-prone areas in an effort to prevent flood damage to property. According to Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源), stilt houses are an option worth considering and the Construction and Planning Agency is considering the possibility, adding that they are particularly necessary in coastal areas where land is subsiding. Lee on Friday said his agency would establish a set of measures to regulate the construction of such houses — commonly seen in flood-prone Southeast Asian countries — and to determine where they may be built. According to Lee, leaving the first floor of houses open can lessen losses from flooding, which has become a growing problem in Taiwan as storms grow more severe.
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