SOCIETY
Fine for HIV discrimination
A Taipei company has been fined NT$300,000 (US$9,855) for rejecting an HIV-positive job applicant, the city government announced on Thursday. The fine follows a complaint from the Persons with HIV/AIDS Rights Advisory Association of Taiwan, which informed the Taipei City Department of Health that an employer discriminated against the job-seeker because of their HIV status. The municipal health department fined the company for violating regulations that safeguard the rights of people with HIV/AIDS, while the city rejected an appeal filed by the employer. The city’s Department of Legal Affairs reiterated the importance of protecting the personal and legal rights of individuals with HIV/AIDS and condemned discrimination against them.
HOUSING
Under-40 homeowners rare
A survey released yesterday suggested that about 80 percent of Taiwanese office workers aged 40 or younger do not own a home, with most choosing either to live with family members or to rent. According to the survey conducted by job Web site yes123, many in the minority of those who do own a home find the financial burden tough to handle. Within that group, 86.5 percent of respondents said that they feel “pressure” from mortgage payments. Among such respondents, the average home loan payment was NT$16,854 per month. A total of 1,692 online questionnaires were collected between Sept. 19 and Thursday, the job bank said. The margin of error was less than plus or minus-2.38 percentage points, with a 95 percent confidence level.
AGRICULTURE
Annual expo opens
The annual Taiwan Agriculture Expo opened at the Expo Dome of the Taipei Expo Park yesterday, featuring farmers’ associations, market garden operators and food industry companies from around the nation and focusing on rice and rice products. At the three-day exposition, activities have been organized to promote the use of rice flour as rice consumption continues to decline in the nation, where rice is traditionally the main staple, the Council of Agriculture said. According to council statistics, rice consumption amounted to 45kg per person last year, representing a decline of 0.7 percent from the previous year. It marks the lowest level in 10 years, the council said. In turn, the consumption of wheat flour — mostly imported — increased 0.4 percent to 36.1kg per person last year, the council said, adding that the figures indicate a drop in the nation’s self-sufficiency rate.
DESIGN
Canadian firm in event
Global Mechanic, a design company based in Vancouver, Canada, is to copresent a keynote speech at this year’s Taiwan Designers’ Week, a design conference that opened yesterday. Global Mechanic said it is honored to be the only Canadian design company invited to present at the 10-day event that runs through Sunday next week and to play a pivotal role in the international design community. Kharis O’Connell, director of experience design at Global Mechanic, is to present the keynote on Saturday with Kyle Lin (林居穎), head of IxDA Taiwan, a professional association. “This is a wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas with leaders in such respected global organizations, and [it is] a real thrill to be contributing to Taiwan Designers’ Week,” Global Mechanic chief executive Tina Ouellette said in a statement.
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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