A jetliner with Premier Yu Shyi-kun on board was diverted to Okinawa yesterday to avoid Typhoon Aere.
The China Airlines flight was due to arrive at CKS International Airport yesterday morning but was diverted to Japan to avoid the typhoon, the carrier said.
"The pilots had tried to fly back as scheduled, but then they found the winds around the airport were too severe to land," China Airlines spokesman Roger Han (
After a five-hour stopover at Naha airport, Yu Shyi-kun returned to Taipei from a 13-day diplomatic tour that took him to the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Yu telephoned Vice Premier Yeh Chu-lan (
In related news, Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (
"Those who fail to cooperate with the government's evacuation plans and insist on staying in zones that are on mudslide alert may face fines; similarly, chiefs of city and county governments who do not execute proper preventive measures will also have to face consequences," Su said.
According to the Disaster Prevention Law (
After flooding on July 2 from Tropical Storm Mindulle, some Aboriginal representatives criti-cized the central government's inaction regarding disaster relief.
Therefore, Su yesterday told his ministry's social affairs unit as well as the Council of Indigenous Peoples and the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau to help Aboriginal communities in central Taiwan.
"So far, evacuations during this typhoon have been carried out quite smoothly ... Those who have been hurt are mostly drivers or people who happened to be walking outdoors and were hit by flying debris," Su said.
Much of the country declared two typhoon days for the storm. The Council of Labor Affairs yesterday stated that employees who missed work due to the typhoon are not required to work extra hours to make up the missing days.
Employers also are not required to pay employees for the two days, although if they did work, whether or not they will be paid depends on the contract or agreement between the employer and the employee.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai