A sexual harassment prevention and consultation hotline for Taipei would be launched later this month, the Taipei Department of Social Welfare said on Saturday.
Independent Taipei City Councilor Lin Liang-chun (林亮君) on Friday evening wrote on Facebook that as rock singer and producer Bobby Chen (陳昇) had been accused by a female record designer of sexual harassment, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) had on Friday said the city government would be taking a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment.
She questioned why Chiang had been so quick to suspend Chen’s performance at the Tianmu Beer Festival on Saturday, as the six improvement measures for dealing with sexual harassment created previously by the city government had not yet been implemented.
The improvement measures include a “MeToo sexual harassment appeal and consultation hotline,” which was scheduled to be launched this month, Lin said, adding that when she had asked the city’s social welfare department about it, the department had said it could not promise when it would be launched.
Lin said she recognizes front-line city government officials’ sexual harassment prevention efforts, but she is questioning the efficiency of the Chiang-led city government and the mayor’s determination regarding the zero-tolerance approach.
The department on Saturday issued a news release stating that Chiang in the middle of last month had instructed the department to set up the sexual harassment appeal and consultation hotline.
The department said it has already subsidized the Modern Women’s Foundation — the group commissioned to operate the hotline, which would be late this month.
The current laws dealing with sexual harassment include the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法), the Gender Equality in Employment Act (性別工作平等法) and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法), so the department hopes the commissioned civic group would be capable of responding to questions regarding the three laws, and provide counseling and legal advice to people who phone in.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on