LABOR
Female managers increase
The number of women taking up management jobs in Taiwan reached 98,000 last year, an increase of 58 percent from the 62,000 in such positions a decade ago, according to a survey released yesterday by the Council of Labor Affairs. The survey on gender differences in the labor market found that 23.2 percent of managers, lawmakers or local council members are now women, an increase from 16.3 percent 10 years ago. Last year, there were more female managers in Taiwan than in Japan (11.1 percent) and South Korea (11 percent), while Singapore had 35.8 percent and the US had 43.7 percent. More than 47 percent of the nation’s professional and technical workers were women last year, slightly higher than in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, but lower than in the US, the council said. It attributed the increasing number of female managers to improvements in education among women and the promotion of the Gender Equality in Employment Act (性別工作平等法), which was modified in 2011.
SOCIETY
Zoo to showcase elephants
Taipei Zoo said it will showcase elephants next month and ask senior citizens to help spread information about the need for elephant conservation. The month-long campaign will include an event on Oct. 12 in which 200 people aged 60 or older will be asked to interact with the zoo’s four elephants, zoo spokesman Chao Ming-chieh (趙明杰) said. Chao said the event was timed to coincide with the Double Nine Festival on the following day — the ninth day of the ninth month on the lunar calendar — when the public is encouraged to pay respects to the elderly. “Elephants are generally long-lived, which makes them kind of like the senior members in our own homes,” Chao said. During the event, participants will be given guided tours featuring elephants, Chao said.
SOCIETY
Kaohsiung to pick winner
The Greater Kaohsiung Government is reviewing the 10 finalists in a fashion design competition to select a garment representative of the municipality that will be featured during the 2013 Asia-Pacific Cities Summit (APCS) next week. The winner of the “Kaohsiung clothes” competition will be announced tomorrow. Copies of the winning design will be given to the summit’s participants to wear at the event’s closing ceremony. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said the city government hopes to use the summit as an opportunity to support local designers and promote the city’s cultural and creative industries. The summit opens on Monday and runs through Wednesday, with mayors and civic leaders from more than 100 cities around the world expected to attend. The theme of the summit is “Reshaping the Urbanomics of Cities — City Challenges and City Solutions.”
EDUCATION
Fourth Indian center opened
The government is seeking to expand higher education exchanges with India though the establishment of a fourth Taiwan Education Center that was opened on Wednesday in the city of Chennai. The new center, established by National Tsing Hua University with the backing of the Ministry of Education, is located at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. A teacher is expected to arrive in Chennai by the end of the month to start giving Chinese language lessons. Seven other language teachers are already stationed at the three other centers, which are located at O.P. Jindal Global University in Haryana State, Amity University in Uttar Pradesh state and Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods