An Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) proposal that would require car and motorbike owners entering Taipei County and Taipei and Kaohsiung cities to pay a "congestion charge" met strong opposition from two candidates running for Kaohsiung mayor. The EPA is considering introducing the charge to help relieve traffic congestion and reduce air pollution in the three administrative areas, based on a system used in London. Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英), a former Kaohsiung deputy mayor nominated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to run for city mayor in the Dec. 9 election, strongly opposed the proposal. "The EPA should consider the matter from the standpoint of local residents and respect their rights," Huang said, adding that the EPA should not carry out the plan without communicating with the public in Kaohsiung first. Chen Chu (陳菊), a former Council of Labor chairwoman also running in the race as the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate, criticized the proposed congestion charge as "unfair" to commuters and less-privileged groups who must enter Kaohsiung daily to make a living.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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