The day of Feb. 28 will remain a public holiday this year and government employees will not be required to put in an extra work day to "make up" for it, according to the Cabinet's Central Personnel Administration (CPA).
CPA chief Lee Yi-yang (
The government made Feb. 28 a public holiday in 1998 to commemorate the 1947 massacre of Taiwanese people by KMT troops.
Including Feb. 28, government employees will have a total of 112 days off this year -- still one day fewer than the 113 days promised by industrialists, according to the Chinese-language media.
Under pressure from industrialists, the DPP government sent draft amendments to the Legislative Yuan in October 2000 to cut the 228 Memorial Day from the list of public holidays. But the legislature failed to review and approve the bill in time, because it came up at the same time as the KMT-led drive to recall President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for halting construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
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