About 90 percent of netizens taking part in an informal online vote supported the tearing down of the Taipei Dome after Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) administration aired its most recent security report on the facility, in which it noted five major problems and two solutions.
A Facebook page called “Professor Ko’s New Government’s Progress Bar” yesterday started an informal vote, with choices being: “Tear down the facility as soon as possible,” “Give Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) more time to improve” and “I do not trust the city government’s report.”
The poll limited votes to one per e-mail address and the page’s owner said that the vote was informal and not part of the official Taipei City Government’s i-voting program.
As of 9pm last night, from 6,606 votes, 90.01 percent voted in favor of demolishing the arena, 8.07 percent voted for giving the developer more chances and 1.92 percent voted that they did not have faith in the city government’s report.
Netizens commenting on the poll also suggested different choices, with Danny Shih and a netizen surnamed Chou saying that there should be a choice to remove the commercial sector and office sector from the project.
Ken Liu said that it would be best to listen to the suggestions of netizens, adding that he could not see where the government’s “professionalism” came in.
If the poll had not come from the government, then it is purely for fun, Liu said.
Liz Wang also said there should be more options in the poll, including removing the department store area and changing building companies.
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