Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) thanked Indonesian workers for their contributions to Taiwan and wished them a happy new year during the Id al-Fitr celebrations at the Taipei Grand Mosque yesterday.
The event marked the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan as well as the start of the new year in Indonesia.
More than 50,000 Muslims celebrated the end of the month-long Ramadan in mosques in Taipei, Chungli, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
PHOTO: CHU PEI-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Indonesian workers made up the majority of the hundreds of Muslims gathering at the Taipei Grand Mosque to celebrate the new year.
The popular mayor, though not a Muslim himself, donned a jannah cap to greet Indonesian workers and spoke a bit of Indonesian -- drawing cheers from the crowd.
Ma pointed out that there are 36,000 foreign workers in Taipei and among them, 20,000 are Indonesian workers who contribute much to the construction and household assistance of Taipei City.
He also said that if all of them took the same day off, one-quarter of Taipei City would be paralyzed.
Ma also said that foreign workers as well as their local counterparts will benefit from a NT$300 million (US$8.69 million) labor foundation established by the Taipei City Government.
If foreign workers are improperly treated by their employers, Ma said they will be able to hire attorneys through assistance from the foundation.
Ma added that foreign workers should receive the same treatment as local workers.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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