France celebrates Bastille Day in Taipei
The Association of French in Taiwan (AFT) is inviting the public to participate in its upcoming Bastille Day Grand Ball on Saturday to celebrate the 320th anniversary of the national holiday.
“Bastille Day is France’s most celebrated national holiday, a moment of popular fever where everybody gathers in the streets,” AFT chairman Dominique Levy said.
Bastille Day commemorates the Fete de la Federation, held in 1790 on the first anniversary of the July 14, 1789, storming of the Bastille prison that marked the beginning of the French Revolution.
The Bastille Day Grand Ball event will take place at the Huashan Cultural Creative Park in Taipei City. There will be plenty of food and drinks along with live music, dancing and magic performances to entertain a culturally diverse crowd.
The Bastille Day celebration, which will run from 6:30pm until midnight, will conclude with a lucky draw with many attractive prizes, the AFT said.
Admission is NT$400 for adults and free for children under 12. Registration can be made by sending an e-mail to comiteaft@gmail.com. Additional information is available at www.taiwanaccueil.com.
Foreign labor force drops
The number of foreign laborers in Taiwan has fallen by nearly 10 percent since late last year after Taiwan was hit hard by the global economic downturn, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said on Saturday.
There were 341,000 foreign laborers in Taiwan in May, down from a peak of 374,000 in July last year and 373,000 in November, CLA figures showed.
Much of the diminution has occurred in the manufacturing sector.
“The number of foreign laborers in the manufacturing and construction sectors has always been larger than that of foreign workers in the social welfare sector,” a CLA official said, adding that this was no longer the case since April.
In July last year, industrial migrant workers outnumbered foreign workers in the service sector by 208,000 to 168,000. But by April, only 171,000 foreign laborers were employed in the manufacturing and construction sectors, while the number of foreign workers in the service sector — including caregivers and housemaids — increased to 172,000.
Indonesia was the top source of foreign laborers in May, with 134,000, followed by 77,000 from Vietnam, 67,000 from the Philippines and 62,000 from Thailand.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
Taiwan next year plans to launch its first nationwide census on elderly people living independently to identify the estimated 700,000 seniors to strengthen community-based healthcare and long-term care services, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said on the sidelines of a healthcare seminar that the nation’s rapidly aging population and declining birthrate have made the issue of elderly people living alone increasingly pressing. The survey, to be jointly conducted by the MOHW and the Ministry of the Interior, aims to establish baseline data and better allocate care resources, he
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