EMPLOYMENT
Fewer on unpaid leave
The number of workers on unpaid leave in the second half of last month fell to its lowest level for 23 months, according to statistics released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Labor. From Feb. 16 to Tuesday, the number of workers on furlough was 215, down from 223 in the first two weeks of the month, the ministry said. In addition, the number of employers implementing unpaid leave also fell, dropping from 10 in the first two weeks of last month to eight, ministry data showed. The number of workers on unpaid leave is now the lowest since the end of March 2015, when 192 furloughed workers were recorded. Most of the companies that have employees on unpaid leave are small enterprises with a workforce of fewer than 50, according to the ministry, which releases the data every two weeks.
HEALTH
H7N9 death ‘isolated case’
Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) said on Wednesday that the Taiwanese businessman who died on Monday of H7N9 avian influenza was an isolated case. Addressing the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee, Lin said there have been no H7N9 infections in the nation’s poultry farms, DPP spokesman Yang Chia-liang (楊家俍) said. The businessman who died had contracted the virus during a visit to China last month, Lin was cited as saying. “It definitely was an imported case” and no others have been identified in Taiwan, Lin said. Meanwhile, as of 6pm on Wednesday, another four Taiwanese poultry farms were confirmed to be infected with H5 avian influenza viruses, bringing the total number to 61, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine data showed.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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