TRANSPORTATION
Plastic cloth disrupts trains
About 2,000 high-speed rail passengers were delayed by a brief suspension in services caused by a long strip of plastic cloth that got tangled in the train system’s electric cables, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp said yesterday. The company decided to suspend two-way services on the tracks between Greater Tainan and Zuoying Station (左營) in Greater Kaohsiung at 11:54am after the cloth was found wrapped around cables at the 336.6km milestone, near Dashe (大社) in Greater Kaohsiung. Maintenance workers managed to remove the plastic by 1:12pm and normal operations resumed at 1:30pm. The company said that passengers on 15 trains were affected by the suspension, with delays ranging from five to 42 minutes. It said it was collecting evidence and would seek compensation from the owner of the cloth. Passengers were not eligible for a refund because the delay was not the company’s fault, it added.
INTERNET
Taiwanese big YouTube fans
Taiwan’s rate of viewing YouTube videos on mobile devices is higher than the global average because of the nearly 100 percent penetration rate of smartphones and tablets in the country, Google Taiwan said yesterday. Mobile devices make up about 25 percent of YouTube’s global viewership, with Taiwanese being among the biggest users, the company said. It did not disclose the actual figure for Taiwan. It said it is conducting a survey on Taiwanese users viewing videos on YouTube on mobile devices and expects to release the results in one or two months. YouTube statistics show that more than 1 billion users visit the Web site each month, with more than 6 billion hours of video being watched each month.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all