Christmas light displays around Taiwan are not putting a burden on the country’s electricity supply because many use energy--saving LED lights and are operating at a time when demand for power is not at its peak, state-run Taiwan Power Co said yesterday.
“Christmas light bulbs are consuming relatively small amounts of power. There is no problem with the electricity supply,” Taipower spokeswoman Tu Yueh-yuan (杜悅元) said.
Christmas light decorations have come under fire from environmentalists, with groups in Hong Kong saying that such decorations on buildings in the Victoria Harbor area consumed enough electricity to run 330 four-person households for a year.
Tu dismissed such concerns. She said Taiwan had seen record electricity use over the summer because of a surge in the use of air conditioners to combat the heat, but that was not an issue during the winter.
Many shopping malls and local governments in Taiwan have put up colored lights on streets or on Christmas trees to mark the arrival of the Christmas season.
Citibank Taiwan, for example, worked with the Taipei City Government and the Finland Trade Center, a Taipei-based foreign trade office, to install lights on trees and on overpasses in the Xinyi (信義) shopping district in Taipei on Saturday.
The Tainan County Government also put Christmas lights in the square in front of the county government office building.
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