LABOR
CLA explains holiday rules
Employees who work on any of the days from today until Tuesday during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday period are entitled to double pay, the Council of Labor Affairs said. The Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) stipulates that Lunar New Year’s Eve and the first three days of the Lunar New Year are national holidays, the council said. Employers should obtain the permission of employees asked to work during those four days and must pay double the regular wage, it said. Alternatively, employees may be given compensatory days off, but only if they agree to such an arrangement, the council said. The regulations apply to monthly and hourly paid workers, the council said, adding that the hourly minimum wage is NT$109.
DIPLOMACY
Minister to visit France, UK
Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) is to visit France and the UK from Feb. 17 to inspect Taiwan’s cultural centers there and to meet with French and British officials to discuss opportunities for deepening cultural ties. Lung is to meet with British Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey and former French culture minister Jack Lang during her 10-day trip to the two countries. Lung said she will exchange views with Vaizey on popular music and cultural and creative industry policies. According to the ministry, Lung will also host the 17th French-Taiwanese Cultural Foundation Award in France on Feb. 18 and visit cultural facilities in Paris, as well as the National Library of France, London’s Roundhouse and Franco-German TV network Arte. She is to give a speech at the University of London on Feb. 22 and another titled: “Civil Society in the Making” at the University of Cambridge on Feb. 26, the ministry added.
WEATHER
Unstable weather forecast
The nation could see unstable weather patterns during the coming week as the country takes a break to celebrate the Lunar New Year, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Starting today, seasonal winds will keep the daily low at 15°C in most parts of the country, with rainfall likely in northern areas, the bureau predicted. The cool weather should persist until early Tuesday, when it will be replaced by higher temperatures and clearer skies, the bureau said. However, the respite will be short-lived, as another cold front should push the mercury lower again on Wednesday, with temperatures ranging from 14°C to 18°C in the north and 16°C to 26°C in the south. Temperatures will recover on Thursday, with daily highs increasing by about 5°C to 23°C in the north. While cloudy to sunny skies are expected for most of the holiday in central and southern Taiwan, northern Taiwan will likely see some sunshine on Tuesday and Thursday, the bureau said.
RELIGION
King attends US ceremony
Representative to the US King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) attended a national prayer gathering in Washington for the first time on Thursday and described participating in the activity as “very meaningful.” King said the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of US religious and political heavyweights, helped him realize that the spirit of tolerating diversity is what makes a country great. He said that while he does not hold any religious beliefs, it is evident that faith is a source of strength and support that helps people get through ups and downs, and especially low points, in their lives. King also said he was inspired by US President Barack Obama’s speech at the event. Obama spoke of the humbleness of great US leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr, calling the virtue a core value of leadership.
CHARITY
Company aids refugees
A Taiwanese company in Jordan on Thursday donated 10,000 jackets to help Syrian refugees keep warm during the winter. Representative to Jordan Andrew Chang (張雲屏) and executives of the company, called Atlanta, completed the donation procedure with Ayman al-Mufleh, secretary-general of the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization. The company delivered the 10,000 fleece jackets to the charity’s warehouse in Mafraq in northern Jordan, where the jackets will be sorted and distributed to two camps housing refugees from the unrest in neighboring Syria. The company transported the clothes, which have a map of Taiwan embroidered on them, in a truck emblazoned with the flags of Taiwan and Jordan and bearing the slogan “Friendship from Taiwan.”
EXHIBITION
Comics fair starts Feb. 14
The first Taipei International Comics and Animation Festival, which starts on Thursday, will invite 33 graphic artists, animation directors and voice actors from Japan and Taiwan to interact with fans at the show, event organizers said. The festival, which will run until Feb. 18 at the Taipei World Trade Center, will feature 300 booths by 35 local and foreign exhibitors, as well as close to 30 book-signing and other publicity events, the Chinese Animation and Comic Publishers Association said. Among the invited guests are Taiwanese graphic artists Ponjea (彭傑) and Japanese film director and animator Mamoru Hosoda, whose 2006 film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.
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