A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker yesterday accused the management of the nation's premier airport of allowing illegal food vendors to turn the nation's gateway into a “night market.”
“In the morning, there are breakfast vendors, at noon, there are people selling mealboxes, and in the afternoon, there are even people selling clothes — is this really the most important airport in the country, or is it a night market?” KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said at a press conference, while showing pictures that her assistants took at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
In one picture, a van is shown parked in the loading-unloading area of a terminal with the trunk open, and boxes of goods inside. In another picture, people had moved the boxes onto meal carts and were selling the lunchboxes to passers-by in the terminal.
Other pictures showed people consuming the boxed meals purchased from the vendors inside the terminals — some of the “customers” appeared to be airport employees.
“President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] has just announced a plan to revamp Taoyuan airport by renovating the buildings, creating a business center, a shopping mall and a food court to turn it into a first-class airport,” Lo said.
“Ironically, airport employees are the most frequent customers of these illegal vendors,” Lo said.
Many official stores and restaurants at the airport have forwarded their complaints to Lo, saying they are required to pay high rent and taxes, while illegal vendors are exempt from both, she said.
“There must be something wrong with how you manage the airport,” Lo told airport director Shiau Deng-ke (蕭登科) and Civil Aeronautics Administration deputy director-general Wang Te-ho (王德和), who were also at the press conference.
Shiau and Wang said they did not know of the illegal practice and promised to look into the matter.
“We will dispatch more people to patrol every corner of the terminals and will give them tickets if we encounter violators,” Shiau said.
Wang said the airport administration should be held responsible for failing to prevent the illegal practice, but added that he could understand why.
“The terminals are quite huge: Terminal 1 is more than 166,500m², while Terminal 2 is 308,000m², so of course they could have easily missed it,” Wang said. “Still, it's a mistake and I’ll keep an eye on [the airport administration] to make sure that they catch illegal vendors.”
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS