SOCIETY
Smoking ban announced
Taipei is to ban smoking in public areas in front of several convenience store and coffee shop chains with effect from September, the Taipei Department of Health said on Thursday, following a similar announcement by New Taipei City in late April. The department said that seating areas in front of 7-Eleven, FamilyMart, OK Mart, Simple Mart and Hi-Life stores would be designated non-smoking areas, as would public spaces in front of Starbucks, 85°C Cafe and Louisa Coffee shops in the city. Department of Health Commissioner Huang Shier-chieg (黃世傑) said that the authorities are talking to another seven coffee shop chains and it is likely that they would also help enforce the new rules. New Taipei City on April 25 announced that smoking would be forbidden in front of several convenience store and coffee shop chains with effect from Sept. 1. Those who breach the rules would be subject to a fine of NT$10,000 (US$318), the New Taipei City Government said.
SOCIETY
Lin Chi-ling marries
Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), one of Taiwan’s top models and actresses, on Thursday married Akira, a member of Japanese boy band Exile. Akira, 37, made the announcement on the official Facebook fan page of Exile. According to Akira, whose real name is Ryohei Kurosawa, he and the 44-year-old Lin have been friends for eight years. They met when performing in a play in Japan in 2011 and began dating late last year, he said. Lin issued a statement that said their feelings for each other have grown over the years. Akira’s management company announced that the couple registered their marriage in Tokyo after doing the same in Taiwan on June 6. Lin is not pregnant, the company said.
CRIME
Suspects arrive in China
Ninety-four people from Taiwan landed in Beijing yesterday after being deported from Spain as part of a joint operation against telecom fraud launched three years ago, the Chinese police ministry said in a statement. Spain’s handling of the case and approval of the extradition in early 2017 drew criticism from Taipei. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs “expressed deep concern and strong regret” over the deportation of the suspects to China. It called on the Spanish government to “uphold the spirit of humaneness and the principles of human rights,” and to work with Taiwan in the fight against cross-border crime and to properly handle this type of case.
EMPLOYMENT
Work hour fines issued
The Taipei Department of Labor on Thursday announced a list of 119 establishments that are to be fined for their sixth consecutive breach of the Labor Standards Act (勞工基準法). The top three on the list are Carrefour, China Television Co and Compal Electronics, fined NT$1.4 million, NT$1.1 million and NT$900,000 respectively, the department said. Carrefour has allowed employees to work from 10pm to 6am without the agreement of a union or a meeting with workers to inform them of the extended hours, it said. Carrefour is appealing the fine. China Television breached the act by not paying employees for overtime, while its overtime work period also contravened the law, the department said. Compal Electronics failed to provide a daily record of employees’ hourly work schedules and failed to compensate employees for overtime and long work hours, 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