Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) thanked Indonesian workers for their contributions to Taiwan and wished them a happy new year during the Id al-Fitr celebrations at the Taipei Grand Mosque yesterday.
The event marked the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan as well as the start of the new year in Indonesia.
More than 50,000 Muslims celebrated the end of the month-long Ramadan in mosques in Taipei, Chungli, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Indonesian workers made up the majority of the hundreds of Muslims gathering at the Taipei Grand Mosque to celebrate the new year.
The popular mayor, though not a Muslim himself, donned a jannah cap to greet Indonesian workers and spoke a bit of Indonesian -- drawing cheers from the crowd.
Ma pointed out that there are 36,000 foreign workers in Taipei and among them, 20,000 are Indonesian workers who contribute much to the construction and household assistance of Taipei City.
He also said that if all of them took the same day off, one-quarter of Taipei City would be paralyzed.
Ma also said that foreign workers as well as their local counterparts will benefit from a NT$300 million (US$8.69 million) labor foundation established by the Taipei City Government.
If foreign workers are improperly treated by their employers, Ma said they will be able to hire attorneys through assistance from the foundation.
Ma added that foreign workers should receive the same treatment as local workers.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS