Legislation on a 40-hour work week and several other new government measures are scheduled to take effect today as the nation celebrates the arrival of the new year.
Starting today, workers will be under no obligation to work for more than 40 hours per week or eight hours a day.
Legislation concerning new food safety regulations requires that restructured meat products, such as meatballs or pork jerky, be labeled as such on their packages. The packages must also inform consumers whether they should cook the meat before they eat it or if the meat is cooked.
In addition, food manufacturers are obligated to inform customers if they are using ingredients from genetically modified organisms (GMO). The rule applies to prepackaged or unpackaged food, food additives and food sold in restaurants or cafeterias.
Packaging of nutritional tablets or capsules containing vitamins and minerals must inform consumers the proper portion to take per day if they also contain other nutritional additives. The packaging should tell consumers that excessive intake of these products does not increase the products’ health benefits.
Based on the definitions offered by the Food and Drug Administration, food containing excessive fat means that the calories contributed by the fat in the food account for more than 30 percent of the food’s total calories. A food item is to be considered as containing excessive saturated fats if the calories generated by the saturated fats account for more than 10 percent of the total. The 10 percent rule also applies to the calories produced by sugar. Food containing excessive amount calcium is defined as each serving containing more than 400mg of calcium.
In changes to the health insurance system, people are not obligated to pay supplementary premiums if their revenue from dividends, interest or other incomes is below NT$20,000, up from the previous NT$5,000.
People planning to take the licence test for 50cc scooters must now pass practical test as well as the written test, the Directorate-General of Highways said.
No road test is required for 50cc scooters, and people holding a license to drive a small passenger car are automatically qualified to ride a 50cc scooter without having to get a separate license.
The highway authority yesterday said that it decided to implement the policy six months earlier than the previously announced date, because it has completed all the preparatory work.
Starting in June, small passenger car drivers who want to ride 50cc scooters must also be licensed to do so.
From today, railway commuters are to be able to use their EasyCards or other electronic ticket cards at additional railway stations of the Taiwan Railways Administration.
With the exception of the post offices at the National Palace Museum and Alishan that open on Sunday to serve tourists, all post offices nationwide are to be closed on Sunday.
From today, people who are under 18 can apply to get passports without the consent of their legal guardians.
People who apply for new passports because their passports were damaged or lost are to have their passports extended for 10 and five years respectively, up from the previous three years. They can also transliterate their names into English using their mother tongue, such as Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka or Aborignal languages, instead of Mandarin Chinese.
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 pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is
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