As a result of a Taipei City Government program to create friendly spaces for animals, Taiwan Taxi Co has begun offering services for pets and their owners if they book in advance, while a hotel has designated a special room in which owners and their pets can stay together.
Since the city started to promote the initiative in August, 423 companies have joined the program, Taipei Department of Economic Development Commissioner Lin Chung-chieh (林崇傑) said, adding that 760 stickers have been distributed for 2,460 pet-friendly spaces.
Taiwan Taxi Co marketing official Lai Cheng-hsiang (賴正翔) said the firm has 1,500 taxis in the program, although the service is mainly for people with small to medium-sized dogs, adding that for larger dogs, passengers need to explain the requirement beforehand so that a suitable taxi can be sent.
Photo: CNA
Huang Min-tai (黃閔泰), a taxi driver who owns two sheepdogs, said that before he became a taxi driver, taxis used to refuse to transport his dogs, which meant that he would have to carry them on his back 4km if they needed treatment from a vet.
Grand Hyatt Taipei marketing official Lee Wei-tai (李偉台) said that the hotel has designated special rooms for patrons and their pets.
There are two kinds of stickers to signify pet-friendly spaces, Taipei Animal Protection Office Director Yen Yi-feng (嚴一峰) said.
An orange sticker indicates businesses related to the pet sector, while a blue sticker indicates businesses not directly related to pets, including taxis, coffee shops, convenience stores and hotels, Yen added.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift