Essays and poetry wanted
Taipei City’s Department of Labor is inviting foreign workers to take part in the 2009 Foreign Workers’ Poetry & Essay Writing Competition to share their experiences of living in Taiwan. The contest is open to all foreign workers in Taiwan, and participants can submit their entries in any language. The winners of the “Poetry” and “Essay” categories will receive NT$10,000 prizes, and award-winning entries will be published in an anthology the department said. The word limit for the “Essay” category is 1,000 words. Submissions to the competition must be postmarked no later than April 30. Those interested in entering the contest should include their full name, address, passport number, telephone number, one photo and a short biography along with their work, and mail the package to Foreign Workers Counseling Service Center, 8F, No. 21, Section 1, Dihua Street, Taipei City 103. For more information call (02)2550-7229 or 2550-2151, ext. 212-214
Kaohsiung bureau seeks jobs for locals
A total of 13,392 foreign workers remain employed in Kaohsiung City, and companies forcing local workers to take unpaid leave will be targeted by the city to help ease the rising jobless rate, the city’s Bureau of Labor Affairs said on Thursday. The local manufacturing industry has the largest number of foreign workers, 6,502, followed by the care giving sector with 5,896 employees, statistics compiled by the bureau show. The highest number of foreign workers, 5,666, are from Indonesia, followed by the Philippines with 5,003, Vietnam with 2,365, and Thailand with 1,358, the figures show. To fight a growing jobless rate brought about by the ongoing economic downturn, the city’s labor affairs bureau has demanded that companies employ more local workers to fill new job vacancies, and that they repatriate foreign workers upon expiry of their contracts, bureau officials said. Several high-tech companies repatriated their foreign workers at the beginning of the year following this order, the bureau said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home