SOCIETY
PET bottles collected
About 2,000 Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation volunteers collected more than 390,000 plastic bottles from the Taipei Summer Universiade Athletes’ Village in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) for recycling, volunteer leader Liu Chuan-dung (劉傳棟) said yesterday. The recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles can be used to make textiles and other products, which could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 25 tonnes, Liu said. During the Universiade, the about 10,000 athletes and workers at the village used an average of about 17,000 plastic bottles, Liu said. The volunteers collected the discarded bottles every day and took them to recycling facilities in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, Liu said. When the athletes departed on Saturday, about 390,000 plastic bottles had been collected from the village, Liu said.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Delegation to attend APPU
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) is to lead a delegation of lawmakers to Japan to attend the annual meeting of the Asian-Pacific Parliamentarians’ Union (APPU), Legislative Deputy Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said yesterday. Tsai said that favorable and improved relations with Japan were evidenced by Su last year heading the largest-ever Taiwanese legislative delegation to visit Japan. More than 100 of the legislature’s 113 members have participated in the Taiwan-Japan Parliamentary Friendship Association, he said. Taiwan is keen to work with Japan to preserve peace and stability in East Asia, Tsai said, thanking the Japanese government for its continued benevolence toward Taiwan. Su’s team is to leave on Sept. 17 for the annual meeting, which is to be held from Sept. 18 to Sept. 20 in Oita Prefecture.
RESEARCH
TIER inks MOU in India
The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) and India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to promote research and academic exchanges. The agreement was signed by ORF director Sunjoy Joshi and TIER president Jeff Lin (林建甫), who is on a visit to New Delhi until Sunday. The two think tanks have agreed to collaborate on projects such as exchanges of resources and faculty for research purposes, and to come up with joint research projects. Lin said the aim is to promote academic cooperation between the two institutions and to help push for investments and trade between the two nations. Joshi said that this was the first time the ORF has signed an MOU with a Taiwanese think tank and that he looked forward to strengthening the academic ties between the two institutions. The ORF is the largest independent think tank in India.
DIPLOMACY
Envoy visits Bath, England
Representative to the UK David Lin (林永樂) visited Bath, England, on Tuesday last week to promote “smart” city, urban development and tourism exchanges between Taiwan and the UK. Lin met with Bath Mayor Ian Gilchrist, UK House of Lords member Peter Turscott and city councilors Andrew Furse and Mark Shelford, the representative office said. Noting that developing smart cities is a mutually beneficial for bilateral cooperation, Lin welcomed Bath to collaborate with Taiwan in the development of smart cities. Gilchrist expressed his support for promoting smart city development and said he was looking forward to working with Taiwan.
AGRICULTURE
Delegation to visit Japan
The Council of Agriculture is to send a delegation to Japan next month on a fact-finding mission to learn more about the nation’s fruit distribution and marketing system, as part of an effort to modernize the export of Taiwanese fruit, Council of Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) said. With a comprehensive market-oriented model already in place for the export of green soybeans, with a 47 percent share of the Japanese market, the council is planning to develop a similar model for bananas, pineapples and mangoes, Lin said. For example, Taiwanese bananas need to adopt a high-price strategy to differentiate them from bananas grown in the Philippines, as well as central and south America, he said. This means that Taiwan needs to formulate a standardized system to ensure the quality of bananas, including transporting the fruit directly from farms to ports for export, he said.
CULTURE
Chen inks Busan agreement
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) on Monday signed a letter of intent with Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo to promote artistic and cultural exchange between the two cities. Chen greeted Suh and 17 officials from the South Korean city, which has been Kaoshiung’s sister city for 51 years, at Kaohsiung City Hall with a dance performance by kindergarteners. The two mayors signed a letter of intent to promote exchanges between artists, cultural centers and libraries to enhance the artistic development of both cities. In a speech to welcome Suh, Chen commented on the long relationship Kaohsiung and Busan share, which has included exchanges in culture, education and tourism. Chen visited Busan last year and praised the urban development of the city.
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