CITIES
Taipei 22nd-safest city
Taipei has been ranked the 22nd-safest city in a survey of 60 cities around the world, according to the 2019 Safe Cities Index released yesterday by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The report looked at 57 qualitative and quantitative indicators spread across four categories in terms of security: digital, infrastructure, health and personal. With an overall index of 82.50, Taipei’s ranking was unchanged from the previous survey. Tokyo continued to top the poll, followed by Singapore and Osaka. Other notable Asian cities such as Seoul, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai ranked 8th, 20th, 31st and 32nd respectively. By category, Taipei ranked 10th in terms of health security, 23rd in digital security, 24th in infrastructure security and 20th in personal security.
TRANSPORTATION
Holiday traffic announced
Transport officials yesterday announced freeway traffic control measures to be implemented during the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival weekend to prevent congestion. The measures will be in force from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15, with tolls suspended from midnight to 5am, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said. A unified rate of NT$0.9 per kilometer will be adopted for the duration of the holiday, a 25 percent discount from the standard rate. Motorists traveling between Kaohsiung’s Yanchao (燕巢) and Hsinchu interchanges on the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3) will receive an additional 20 percent discount, it said. However, the standard toll-free first 20km of travel on all freeways will be suspended during the holiday, it added. For real-time traffic information, see 1968.freeway.gov.tw/?lang=en or download the mobile app 1968.freeway.gov.tw/app.
LABOR
MOL releases pay figures
The starting salary for full-time workers with tertiary education averaged NT$34,278 per month last year, data released by the Ministry of Labor (MOL) on Wednesday showed. Ph.D. graduates received the highest average monthly pay of NT$67,495, followed by master’s degree holders with NT$49,017. Junior college graduates received NT$31,331, which was NT$909 more than the average for those with bachelor’s degrees, the data showed. Graduates working in the financial and insurance industry earned the highest wages, averaging NT$43,508 per month, while their counterparts in the electricity and gas businesses made NT$39,947, and those in manufacturing received NT$37,325.
LABOR
Filipina dies of acid burn
A Filipina worker died on Wednesday after suffering severe hydrofluoric acid burns in a chemical accident at an optoelectronics factory in Miaoli County, the Fire Bureau said on Thursday. The 29-year-old woman, who was not identified, was rushed to a Taipei hospital for emergency treatment, but did not survive, bureau official Tsao Chun-feng (曹春風) said. Hydrofluoric acid is a colorless solution that is highly corrosive and capable of dissolving many types of materials. It is frequently used in the electronics industry, including for metal cleaning and glass etching. The company, based in the Jhunan Science Park, said the Filipina was wearing a protective apron to clean circuit boards using hydrofluoric acid, but accidentally knocked over the substance as she turned around. The acid got splattered onto her exposed thighs, causing severe burns, the company said. The woman’s coworkers said she had been working at the factory for at least two years and was planning to return to the Philippines next month.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift