Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe BEIJING, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Chinese officials have acknowledged they have a toilet problem, and pledged major investment in upgrades at the fourth World Toilet Summit in Beijing. The three-day summit opened Wednesday with about 400 international delegates, including World Toilet Organization founder Jack Sim, who said in the opening ceremony having a proper toilet is a human right. Advertisement "A toilet is a basic human right and this basic human right has been neglected," he said. After the ceremony, Chinese officials admitted 60 percent of foreign visitors complain about the country's smelly toilets, and vowed to take the financial plunge to flush the problem before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in 2008, the BBC said. Sim said the problem is seated in the papering-over of a taboo topic. "In the past, there was women's liberation, leprosy, AIDS, the sexual revolution -- all these are taboos that have been broken," he said. "The toilet problem is probably the last one."
