ASTRONOMY
Year’s biggest moon coming
The biggest and brightest full moon of the year will appear early tomorrow morning, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. The moon is to reach its closest proximity to Earth this year at 1:43am, when it will be 357,000km away, the museum said. If there are good weather conditions, stargazers will be able to see the moon easily at any point between 5:59pm today and 5:41am tomorrow, it said. Compared with other full moons this year, today’s moon will be about 30 percent brighter than usual, museum researcher Chang Kuei-lan (張桂蘭) said. However, it will be difficult to notice this moon’s difference in size compared with other full moons in just one observation, Chang said. She suggested that to to get a better sense of the difference, astronomy buffs should look at images of other full moons throughout the year as a basis for comparison.
BUSINESS
Starbucks opens in Kinmen
Starbucks opened its first store in Kinmen yesterday, in a bid to establish its franchise on the nation’s outlying islands after two failed previous attempts. The outlet is the US coffeeshop chain’s only store on the islands, but its 317th outlet nationwide. To mark the opening of the store at the Wind Lion Plaza next to Kinmen Airport, Starbucks unveiled three commemorative mugs and take-away cups displaying the county’s architecture, including the Guningtou Battle Museum and swallow-tail roofs that are a unique Fujianese architectural feature. The new outlet is also selling a limited number of Kinmen Wind Lion postcards. Starbucks previously operated two stores in Penghu, but they closed shortly after opening. A day earlier in Kinmen, President Chain Store Corp, which operates the nation’s 7-Eleven convenience stores, inaugurated its 17th outlet in the county.
POLITICS
Shen exits Taipei race
Less than two months after announcing his decision to run in the Nov. 29 Taipei mayoral election, former legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) on Friday announced that he is dropping out of the race. Shen broke the news in a mass message broadcast on the social networking app Line. The independent candidate said he is “terminating my campaign with immediate effect” due to a knee injury and a lack of momentum for his mayoral bid. Although he is well-liked in some circles for his reputation as an outspoken and fair-minded politician, opinion polls have consistently shown the 74-year-old commanding support rates of just 8 percent to 15 percent, trailing the two main contenders, independent Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Sean Lien (連勝文).
TOURISM
Thailand waives visa fees
Taiwanese visitors to Thailand will not have to pay for tourist visas starting from yesterday until Nov. 8, the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei announced on Friday. The normal price of a tourist visa for Thailand is NT$1,200 for Taiwanese passport-holders. Thailand is a top travel destination for Taiwanese and the fee waiver is expected to benefit more than 30,000 travelers per month during the three-month period, according to the Thai Tourism Authority. The authority advised Taiwanese travelers that they will still need to apply for visas at the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei during the fee-waiver period, adding that fees for business visas and temporary residence permits are still in place.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
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