The Taipei City Government this week began the reading of a bill that if passed will guarantee women the right to breastfeed in public places.
The act governing public breastfeeding, which passed its first reading in the Taipei City Council on Wednesday, stipulates that any behavior that interferes with breastfeeding in public could result in a fine of NT$5,000 to NT$30,000.
The act further enforces concepts concerning breastfeeding rights included in the Gender Equality In Employment Act (兩性工作平等法).
The main supporter of the act is Democratic Progressive Party City Councilor Chou Po-ya (周柏雅), who indicated that the purpose of the act is to protect the basic rights of babies as well as mothers, since cases where breastfeeding women have been driven out of public places have occurred in the past.
Furthermore, government establishments with more than 100 employees, schools, hospitals with more than 20 beds, train and bus transit stations, airport terminals, metro transit stations, malls with an area of more than 1,000m² and other locations where a breastfeeding room is deemed necessary by the Taipei City Department of Health, may face fines of between NT$1,000 to NT$5,000 if breastfeeding facilities are lacking.
Chiu Wen-hsiang (邱文祥), head of the Taipei City Department of Health, said that the passage of the act would set a national precedent and would hopefully encourage the rest of the country to realize the importance of the right to breastfeed.
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A KFC branch in Kaohsiung may be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,907 and US$6.37 million), after a customer yesterday found an entire AAA battery inside an egg tart, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said today. The customer was about to microwave a box of egg tarts they had bought at the fast-food restaurant’s Nanzih (楠梓) branch when they checked the bottom and saw a dark shadow inside one of them, they said in a Threads post. The customer filmed themself taking the egg tart apart to reveal an entire AAA battery inside, which apparently showed signs of damage. Surveillance footage showed
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