SOCIETY
Please flush loo paper: EPA
A new campaign to urge people to flush used toilet paper is to begin next month and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday urged local governments to put up signs to encourage the practice. Local governments should post signs in public bathrooms before the end of next month instructing people to flush used toilet paper, Department of Environmental Sanitation and Toxic Substance Management Director Yuan Shao-ying (袁紹英) said. Beginning in July, EPA authorities are to inspect the facilities to see if the signs have been put up, but local governments would be given more time to comply with the request if they have failed to do so, Yuan said. Putting used toilet paper in trash cans became common practice because toilet paper sold in the nation was once made from materials that do not dissolve in water. Authorities have tried to change the practice to improve bathroom hygiene.
TRANSPORT
Rockslide closes highway
Suhua Highway (Highway No. 9), which links Yilan and Hualien counties, was to be closed until at least yesterday evening as a result of multiple rockslides that began on Sunday, authorities said. Heavy rainfall on Sunday caused rocks to fall near the 112.6km mark of the Suhua Highway at about 5pm. The section between Suao (蘇澳) and Dongao (東澳) was subsequently closed at 7pm. The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) yesterday said that continuous rockslides have hampered efforts to clear the road and aerial shots indicate that mountainsides remain unstable. If the situation remains dangerous, the DGH said it does not rule out the possibility of postponing the reopening of the highway until later in the week.
EMPLOYMENT
Ministry to advise graduates
The Ministry of Labor said it plans to hold more than 130 events nationwide from the end of this month through September to help graduates and school-leavers find jobs. According to a survey on the employment of young people aged 15 to 29, 54 percent said that their biggest problem entering the workforce is that they do not know what they want to do. Due to this concern, the ministry is organizing activities including seminars, forums and visits to companies, in coordination with middle schools, high schools and universities, to help young job seekers find employment, it said. One of the events is to be hosted by TV personality Matilda Tao (陶晶瑩) in Kaohsiung on June 23. She is to share her experience of how to get through fear and overcome difficulties with perseverance and courage. Other courses include how to write a good resume, what the workplace experience is like and enterprise management models, the ministry said. Young job seekers can find related information on the government-sponsored Web site taiwanjobs.gov.tw.
SOCIETY
Lottery prize unclaimed
The holder of a winning ticket in the Jincai 539 lottery has just one working day left to claim the NT$8 million (US$265,587) cash prize, Taiwan Lottery Co said. The winner must claim the prize tomorrow, as banks are closed over the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the company said. If no one comes forward, the money would remain in the national treasury, it said. The winning ticket for the Feb. 28 draw was purchased in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營) and the winning numbers were 04, 12, 14, 16 and 17, it said.
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