POLITICS
Taipei mayor on ‘Time’
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) has been named on Time magazine’s 2023 TIME100 Next list, among the “emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership.” “Elected in 2022 as Taipei’s youngest-ever mayor, Chiang has pledged to bring new blood to Taiwan’s Kuomintang [Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT]” the Time write-up says. “Reputedly Asia’s oldest and richest political party, it’s recently struggled to attract youth support because of its Beijing-friendly reputation.” The magazine said Chiang has taken a moderate view while emphasizing his commitment to Taiwan’s democracy. “Although Chiang maintains he’s focused on ambitious urban-development plans, he’s increasingly tipped as a future presidential candidate,” Time said.
LABOR
Minimum wage increased
The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal put forward by the Ministry of Labor to raise the monthly minimum salary by 4.05 percent to NT$27,470, and the minimum hourly wage by NT$7 to NT$183. The revisions to the current NT$26,400 monthly and NT$176 hourly minimum wage are to take effect on Jan. 1, the Cabinet said. The increases, which ministry statistics show would affect about 1.79 million employees and 600,000 hourly workers, would not apply to live-in migrant caregivers and domestic helpers, who are not covered by the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).
CRIME
Former teacher convicted
A former elementary-school teacher has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for sexually assaulting two female students, the Tainan District Court said on Wednesday. The court in a statement said that the former teacher, a man in his 70s surnamed Shang (尚), committed the offenses from 2002 to 2004 while working at two elementary schools in Tainan. An investigation was only launched into Shang, who retired in 2004, in 2020, after a former student reported being sexually assaulted by Shang to the Humanistic Education Foundation, the court said. A subsequent probe by the Tainan City Government determined that Shang had sexually abused two other students when they were in the fifth and sixth grade at the time, the court said. The ruling can be appealed.
ENVIRONMENT
Sperm whales seen
More than 20 sperm whales were seen off the coast of Hualien County at 11am on Wednesday, the biggest pod of the whale species spotted this year, experts said. Liao Hung-chi (廖鴻基), head of a Hualien-based marine conservation organization, said there have been sightings of sperm whales off the Hualien coast since May, but the pod on Wednesday was the largest seen in the area this year. Liao said his organization is investigating why so many whales have recently been seen off the Hualien coast after a rare run of sightings for five months. Meanwhile, Lu Shih-ming (呂世明), manager of whale watching company Turumoan, said that a whale watching boat set sail at 10:30am on Wednesday and discovered a pod of sperm whales 6 to 8 nautical miles (11.1km to 14.8km) from the Port of Hualien. In the past, the most sperm whales offshore tour groups from Hualien had seen was five, therefore seeing 20 was a huge surprise for everyone, Lu said. The sperm whales could have gathered off the coast of Hualien due to the current after the recent typhoon, Lu said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its