SOCIETY
Nepal visitors safe: ministry
All of the 13 Taiwanese the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been asked to help locate after the May 12 earthquake in Nepal have been confirmed safe, the ministry said on Monday. After the magnitude 7.3 tremor rattled the South Asian country, the ministry received requests to help locate 13 Taiwanese who were there, and all of them had been confirmed safe by 3:30pm on Monday, it said. Before the May 12 quake, the ministry had been asked to locate another four Taiwanese, but had failed to determine their safety, until Saturday and Sunday, when all of them were found to be safe in India, the ministry said. The May 12 tremor was the latest of a series of aftershocks that followed a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that jolted the Himalayan nation on April 25, killing more than 8,000 people and injuring more than 19,000.
SOCIETY
Newborn stipends altered
Parents with newborn children are now eligible to receive government stipends at the beginning of each month instead of the end, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday. In addition to eight weeks of paid maternity leave, Taiwan grants parents with newborn children six months of childcare stipends during unpaid parental leave. Funded through a government labor insurance program, working parents in Taiwan can apply for parental stipends equal to 60 percent of their monthly wages; parents are also eligible to apply for a maximum of two years of unpaid parental leave before their child reaches the age of three. An estimated 68,000 parents with newborn children are expected to benefit from the new measure, according to ministry statistics. The reforms are intended to provide relief to cash-strapped parents on unpaid parental leave, the ministry said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost