TRAVEL
Busy day for Keelung Port
Asia’s biggest luxury cruise ship, Voyager of the Seas, is scheduled to dock at Keelung Port today along with several other cruise ships, which will set a record for daily cruise ship traffic in Taiwan’s seaports, according to a transport official. The ship, operated by the US-based Royal Caribbean Cruises, will bring 1,600 passengers to Keelung from Shanghai, Keelung Port vice manager Wei Shuo-liang (魏碩良) said. The 140,000-tonne ship will later take 3,800 local tourists to Fukuoka, Japan, and Jeju Island, South Korea, Wei said. Since the port will also host other cruise liners today, including the SuperStar Aquarius, about 10,000 tourists will arrive in the country through the port, making it Keelung’s busiest day, he said. Keelung Port, which handles the heaviest cruise ship traffic among all ports in the nation, recorded more than 461,000 cruise ship passengers last year, a 2.6 percent increase from the previous year.
TRANSPORTATION
Bike program expanded
The Taipei City Government yesterday launched an expanded public bicycle rental program that will provide 30 more rental stops and 960 more bicycles around Taipei, as well as a free 30-minute offer that will last until next year. The 30 rental stops were set up around stations along the MRT’s Blue line, Wenhu line and Luzhou line, as well as in the Nangang (南港) and Gongguan (公館) areas. The rental will be free for the first 30 minutes for people who registered their EasyCards with the program, Taipei City’s Department of Transportation said. The registration is available at YouBike service centers at the MRT’s Taipei City Hall Station, Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station or online at www.youbike.com.tw. To boost the use of the system as a green transportation tool, the department said it would set up a further 60 stops in Zhongshan (中山) and Wanhua (萬華) districts and an additional 72 stops in Shilin (士林) and Dazhi (大直) districts, as well as around Neihu Science Park, over the next three years. The department has budgeted NT$14 million (US$470,000) a year to manage the program, which has incurred a loss of more than NT$10 million since its launch in 2009.
LABOR
Firm fined over tattoos
New Taipei City’s (新北市) Department of Labor has fined a company NT$300,000 for firing an employee because of his tattoos. Dismissing an employee on such grounds is discriminatory, the department said. The worker filed a complaint with the department after he was laid off and given a severance pay in May, one month after he was hired as driver by a cleaning product manufacturer, the department said. The man said he was sacked because of his tattoos, which the company claimed were harmful to its business image, the department said. The man said he wore a sleeveless T-shirt to work one day because it was very hot and that was when his boss saw the tattoos for the first time. The driver said he was laid off after his boss expressed dissatisfaction, not with his performance, but with the fact that he had tattoos. The labor department ruled a few days ago that the company had discriminated against the worker on the basis of appearance and fined the owner NT$300,000. The fine for discrimination on the basis of appearance ranges from NT$300,000 to NT$1.5 million, the department said.
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