WEATHER
Cold front to hit Taiwan
The mercury is expected to drop nationwide from today as a cold front accompanied by seasonal winds is to pass over Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The air movement may bring a cool and wet weather pattern across the nation with the effects most likely to be felt in the northern and northeastern regions, it said. The trend might continue for a week, the bureau said, with daily temperatures forecast to range between 22°C and 30°C in northern Taiwan, between 24°C and 31°C in central Taiwan, and between 25°C and 31°C in southern Taiwan. Meanwhile, more rain is expected starting next Friday caused by the outer rim of an approaching tropical storm, the bureau said. As of 8am yesterday, Tropical Strom Jelawat was centered 1,470km southeast of the southernmost tip of Taiwan, moving slowly in a westerly direction.
SOCIETY
Poverty levels increase
There were 137,000 low-income households in the country as of the end of June, an increase of 20.2 percent from the same period last year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The number of low-income individuals for the same period stood at 338,000 people, up 22.4 percent, and increased to 1.5 percent of the total population as a result of the easing of regulations governing public assistance introduced last year, the ministry said. The implementation of an amendment to the Social Assistance Act (社會救助法) in July last year allowed 71,000 households or 228,000 individuals, considered to be “lower middle income” earners to receive government subsidies as of this June. Currently, 2.6 percent of families in Taiwan and 2.4 percent of the total population are receiving help from the government, the ministry said.
EDUCATION
Global role for academics
Five members of Academia Sinica, the nation’s top academic research institute, have been elected to the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), headquartered in Italy, the institute said in a statement on Friday. Chang Tzu-ching (張慈錦), an assistant research fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, was elected a 2012 TWAS Young Affiliate — an honor awarded annually to exceptional scientists aged under 40. The five academicians elected as TWAS fellows were Wang Kuan (王寬), director of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Chemistry; Wang Lu-hai (王陸海), acting president and distinguished investigator of the National Health Research Institutes’ Division of Molecular and Genomic Medicine; Liang Kung-yee (梁賡義), president of National Yang-Ming University; Chu Shih-i (朱時宜), director of the Kansas Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Hu Chenming (胡正明), a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley.
AVIATION
Airline looks for new recruits
Over 4,000 people were interviewed yesterday in the first stage of a selection process to hire 126 flight attendants for China Airlines (CAL), the nation’s largest carrier. CAL’s recruitment drive, its second this year, is being conducted in two stages as part of its business expansion plan. The airline said it hopes to find flight attendants with excellent communication skills. An independent panel of representatives from the government, academic and industrial sectors would be interviewing more than 4,000 applicants over the weekend, CAL said.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS