LEISURE
Ferris wheel strands pair
Two college students visiting Kaohsiung’s Dream Mall were stranded on a Ferris wheel late on Saturday night and had to dial 119 to be let off. The incident occurred after the ride’s operators clocked out for the night without checking to see that all passengers had exited. After calling 119, the students used the LEDs on their smartphones to show firefighters where they were. Because power was shut off for the night, mall staff had to manually rotate the wheel until the cabin carrying the two students reached the ground. Mall officials acknowledged that the Ferris wheel operators had failed to vacate all patrons before shutting the attraction down, and pledged that training would be improved. To compensate the students, the mall gave them a late-night meal, cab fare to their hotel room and five free movie tickets each.
CHARITY
Foundation sets fund goal
The Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation has set a fundraising goal of NT$28.5 million (US$904,000) this year to help burn survivors and people with facial disfigurement who need financial support, the Taipei-based charity said. The foundation said it hoped to help 1,450 families this year, which would require NT$28.5 million to provide the necessary home rehabilitation services, financial subsidies, job training and employment opportunities. Founded in 1981, the foundation helps burn survivors and people with facial disfigurement with their physical, psychological and social rehabilitation. Last year, it aided 1,398 families, more than half of whom experienced financial hardship after their main income earners lost jobs because of facial disfigurement. About 70 percent of disfigured people cannot find work because of their appearance, the foundation said.
WEATHER
Cold expected till Friday
The cold air chilling most of the nation is likely to last into Friday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold air sent temperatures into the single digits from the north of the country down south to Chiayi County yesterday and is likely to do so again today, the bureau said. Minimum temperatures elsewhere are likely to range between 11?C and 13?C. Snow fell early yesterday on Taipingshan (太平山) in Yilan County and Lalashan (拉拉山) in Taoyuan, as well as on higher mountains such as Hehuanshan (合歡山) in the Central Mountain Range.
DIPLOMACY
Ministry honors Asustek
Asustek Computer has been named a Friend of the Foreign Service by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recognition of the Taiwanese PC maker’s efforts to narrow the digital divide in developing economies. As of the end of last year, the firm’s Asus Foundation has donated 2,331 computers to 12 Latin American and Caribbean nations through Taiwan’s representative offices, building five to 10 computer classrooms each year in these nations’ remote areas and developing e-learning courses, the ministry said. The foundation has also devoted its efforts to the second phase of the APEC Digital Opportunity Center project between 2009 and 2011, helping APEC members develop digital capabilities and prioritizing women and children as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. Under the initiative, the foundation donated 671 computers to APEC economies and established 30 computerized learning centers in six nations, the ministry said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Hackers win second prize
A Taiwanese team captured second place at SECCON2014, Japan’s largest hackathon competition, Japanese media reports on Sunday said. The two-day event, which concluded on Sunday, was held at Tokyo Denki University, and drew 4,186 contestants from 58 countries. South Korea’s team “TOEFL Beginner” took first place, followed by Taiwan’s “HITCON” and “Plaid Parliament of Pwning” from the US. The US team is a two-time champion of the Defcon CTF, regarded as one of the world’s top hacking events. Poland’s “Dragon Sector,” which is ranked first in the world in capture-the-flag hacking, took part in the event for the first time. As the winner of SECCON 2014, TOEFL Beginner will compete in the Defcon CTF 2015 finals scheduled for August in Las Vegas. The Tokyo hackathon tested the teams’ hacking ability in breaching and maintaining cyber security and other competitive events. It was organized by the Japan Network Security Association and a number of Japanese government departments to promote international exchanges in information systems security.
LABOR
Survey shows training pays
Strong demand for pilots has made them the envy of many job seekers because they average monthly starting salaries of more than NT$100,000, 1111 Job Bank said yesterday. According to a recent survey by the firm, the average starting salary of pilots is the highest of all jobs in Taiwan at NT$102,540, ahead of doctors at NT$82,438 and dentists at NT$80,824. 1111 Job Bank public relations director Daniel Lee (李大華) said demand for pilots is strong because the carriers are expanding their networks or launching budget airlines. Lee said the positions with the highest salaries are generally those demanding a high degree of professional expertise that can only come from extended periods of training.
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