Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said yesterday that the National Palace Museum, a favorite destination for tourists visiting Taiwan, would be expanded so a greater number of exhibition halls could display the museum’s artifacts, reflecting Chinese history and culture.
The government plans to expropriate several plots of land around the museum in the Taipei City suburb of Waishuangxi (外雙溪) that are currently occupied by the military, Siew said during a Rotary Club function.
He said a lack of exhibition space means that many of the museum’s finest collections have been warehoused for years.
“With the number of tourists going to the National Palace Museum surging over the last year after Taiwan started allowing a greater numbers of tourists from China to visit, the need for more exhibition space has become even more pressing,” Siew added.
Meanwhile, Siew, who chairs the Centenary Celebration Preparation Committee on celebrations to mark the Republic of China’s (ROC) 100th anniversary next year, said most centennial celebrations have been finalized, including 15 theme events, seven international functions and various programs and celebrations sponsored by local governments nationwide.
Among the seven international functions that Taiwan will host next year are the International Design Alliance Congress, the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles Conference, the International Flora Expo and an LPGA tournament.
One of the programs will involve inviting 100 “foreign friends” from overseas for homestays in Taiwan, with Taiwanese Rotarians hosting them, Siew said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
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IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
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