Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday panned the Taiwan High Speed Rail Co (THSRC) over the reduced number of discounted tickets available for college students during the Nov. 29 election weekend, asking if it was a politically motivated effort to block young students from returning home to vote.
“I have received many complaints from young students about the number of college discount tickets around Nov. 29,” Kuan told a news conference at the legislature. “This is no different from penalizing those college students who would like to return to their hometowns and cast their votes.”
Kuan said that in a democracy, increasing voter turnout is a positive thing, and young students should be encouraged to voice their opinions on public issues through voting.
“It is therefore the responsibility of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to come up with a set of measures to make it easier for people to go home and vote,” Kuan said.
Greater Kaohsiung resident Lin Chia-yi (林佳儀), who is a student at National Cheng Chi University in Taipei, agreed.
“The high speed rail fare from Taipei to Kaohsiung, costing NT$2,140, is about one-third of an ordinary college student’s monthly budget. Therefore, most students would rather not go home to vote in order to save money,” Lin said.
Another student from the same school, Chen Si-yin (陳思吟), who is from Hualien, and National Taiwan University student Lin Wei-chiang (林偉強), who is from Greater Taichung, complained that additional regular train services have not been made available around the time of the election, making it very difficult for them to go home to vote.
THSRC executive director Cheng Kuang-yuan (鄭光遠) told the news conference that the company did not have a political agenda, and that fare decisions were made on purely business concerns.
However, the company would be willing to discuss all options, Cheng said.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
The New Taipei Metro's Sanyin Line and the eastern extension of the Taipei Metro's Tamsui-Xinyi Line (Red Line) are scheduled to begin operations in June, the National Development Council said today. The Red Line, which terminates at Xiangshan Station, would be connected by the 1.4km extension to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, while the Sanyin Line would link New Taipei City's Tucheng and Yingge stations via Sanxia District (三峽). The council gave the updates at a council meeting reviewing progress on public construction projects for this year. Taiwan's annual public infrastructure budget would remain at NT$800 billion (US$25.08 billion), with NT$97.3
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
RSS