SOCIETY
Eid al-Fitr acceptance urged
The Ministry of Labor yesterday encouraged employers to allow their Muslim workers to observe Eid al-Fitr on Sunday. The day, marking the end of Ramadan, is an important holiday for Muslims, like Lunar New Year in the Chinese-speaking community, the ministry said. It is crucial that employers respect the religious beliefs of their foreign workers to create a harmonious relationship between labor and management, it added. Meanwhile, the Taipei City Government is on Sunday to hold an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the Taipei Travel Plaza near the Taipei Railway Station, the city’s Foreign and Disabled Labor Office said. The nation is home to about 252,000 Indonesian workers, 85 percent of whom are Muslim, ministry data show.
HEALTH
Encephalitis recorded
A woman from Pingtung County has contracted Japanese encephalitis, becoming the fourth person to be infected with the mosquito-borne disease in Taiwan this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The 53-year-old on May 26 sought medical treatment at a local hospital after experiencing fever and fainting, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. Because the symptoms persisted, she was transferred to another hospital for further treatment, Chuang said, adding that the case was then reported as suspected Japanese encephalitis to the local health authority along with samples for laboratory testing. The diagnosis was confirmed on Sunday. The woman had not recently traveled overseas, Chuang quoted the CDC as saying. However, there is a pigeon and poultry farm approximately 2km from the woman’s residence, Chuang said.
WEATHER
Rain eases, mercury rises
The mercury in the north is set to rise to 35°C tomorrow as a rain front hovering over the nation for the past five days gradually moves north, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, adding that chances of heavy rain remain high nationwide today. Bureau forecaster Hus Chung-yi (徐仲毅) said the rain significantly eased yesterday as the front gradually moved north and a southwest jet stream weakened. For tomorrow, the bureau said that chances of showers and thundershowers would still be high in the center and south due to southwest winds, while sunny to cloudy skies and afternoon thundershowers are forecast for the rest of the nation. From tomorrow to Friday, the average temperature is to gradually rise to between 33°C and 34°C nationwide, while the north could see a high of 35°C.
SOCIETY
Former health minister dies
Former minister of health Shih Chun-jen (施純仁) died of a heart attack on Sunday at Taipei Veterans’ General Hospital at the age of 93. Shih, a native of Taichung, received his early education during the Japanese colonial period and graduated from National Taiwan University in 1947, majoring in medicine. He then joined the National Defense Medical Center, where he worked for 38 years. Shih did a two-year residency at the Montreal Neurological Institute in Canada from 1956 to 1958, after which he returned to Taiwan to help develop the field of neurosurgery and cofound the Taiwan Neurological Society in 1977. Shih served as the head of the general surgery department at Tri-Service General Hospital — the teaching hospital of the National Defense Medical Center — from 1975 to 1984 and headed the Department of Health (which in 2013 became the Ministry of Health and Welfare) from 1986 to 1990.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
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