■Maritime
Filipinos injured in boat fire
Five Filipino sailors were injured in a fire aboard a Philippine cargo ship off Kaohsiung, harbor authorities said yesterday. The Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau received a distress call from the local shipping agent of the Golden Eagle at around 2am saying the freight had caught fire. The bureau immediately sent ferry boats to help rescue the ship's crew members and assist in putting out the fire, harbor officials said, adding that the five injured crewmen were then rushed to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. Only one crewman was seriously injured, doctors said, adding that he may lose his eyesight. The other four crewmen received only minor injuries. The harbor officials said the fire has been extinguished, adding that they will investigate the cause of theaccident.
■ Government
Legislature amends tax laws
The legislature yesterday amended tax rules that empower local governments to levy new taxes to ease their cash-strapped coffers. In addition, the body allowed local governments to adjust upward various fees under their jurisdiction, as long as they can gain approval from respective councils for the hikes. Under the new tax revisions, city, county and township governments may impose special taxes and transitional taxes that last four years or two years to enhance their finances. Also, local administrators may add an extra amount to taxes already implemented by the central government, according to the revised legislation. However, it bars local governments from levying taxes on trades and goods that span or flow across the borders of two local jurisdictions.
■ Foreign workers
Taoyuan tops table
There are more foreign workers living in Taoyuan County than in any other county or city, the police said yesterday. Quoting government statistics, the Taoyuan Police Bureau said the nation had 307,567 legal foreign workers at the end of October. Of these, 73,270, or 23.8 percent of the total, were in Taoyuan, the bureau said. Among the foreign workers in Taoyuan, 34,667 were Thais, 18,634 were Filipinos, 10,001 were Indonesian and 5,710 were Vietnamese. More than 57,000 were employed in the manufacturing sector, with the others serving as caretakers, construction workers or maids. Police said the number of criminal cases involving foreign laborers has increased steadily since 2000, with burglary, robbery and sex offenses the most common.
■ Fast food
Chains issue nutrition facts
Fast food outlets in Taipei have started providing information about the nutritional value of the food they serve up as part of the city's drive to slim down and get healthy. McDonald's, Burger King, Mos Burger, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Yoshinoya started providing details on Monday of the calories, protein, fat and sugar contained in their food, Taipei City health director Chiu Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said. Some 181 outlets, including 91 from McDonald's, 29 from Mos Burger, 28 from Yoshinoya, 19 from Kentucky and 14 from Burger King, have started giving out the information. The Taipei City Government has been urging residents, especially children, to follow a healthy diet. It has also launched a 15-month campaign to encourage the city's more than 2.5 million residents to lose a combined 100 tonnes of weight between March 1 this year and June 30 next year.
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
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
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
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