WEATHER
Banciao hits fall record high
New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) yesterday experienced the hottest day since the beginning of autumn, the Central Weather Bureau said. Even though Saturday is Qiufen, the autumnal equinox in East Asian calendars, temperatures throughout the nation remained high. The temperature reached 37°C at 2:17pm in Banciao, making it the hottest recorded temperature this month nationwide and the second-hottest recorded temperature for September in Banciao since the installation of temperature sensors in the district in 1972. In Taipei, a high of 36.9°C was recorded at 12:23pm, making it the fourth-hottest September temperature since records began. The heat is primarily due to southeasterly winds that are circulating around the nation, which are to remain until Thursday, when a weak front and seasonal northeasterly wind is to move in, bureau forecaster Chu Mei-lin (朱美霖) said.
TOURISM
Peach launches flights
Japan-based budget airline Peach Aviation yesterday said it is to launch its inaugural Taoyuan-Sapporo flight service today and Taoyuan-Sendai flights tomorrow, amid efforts to increase its market presence in Taiwan. Round-trip flights to Sapporo are to occur every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while those to Sendai will be available on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, the airline said. The schedule will apply to flights from today to Oct. 28, which is peak season for travel to Japan, the airline said. Starting next summer, the carrier is to also offer daily flights between Kaohsiung and Okinawa, CEO Shinichi Inoue said earlier this month. “Taiwan is central to Peach’s goal of becoming a ‘bridge in the sky’ in Asia,” Inoue said, adding that the company plans to double the size of its fleet of 19 by 2020.
SOCIETY
Kansas inks license MOU
Taiwan and the US state of Kansas on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on driver’s license reciprocity that allows license-holders from either side to obtain a local license without having to take local tests, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Denver said. The MOU, which went into effect immediately, makes Kansas the 24th state with which Taiwan has signed a driver’s license reciprocity agreement, the office said in a statement. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it would continue to work with other US states to provide the same convenience to their residents.
LOTTERY
Receipt prizes unclaimed
Four NT$10 million (US$331,225) uniform invoice lottery prizes remain unclaimed, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday, urging invoice holders to claim their prizes. The four outstanding sales invoices issued in the May to June period have the number 99768846. The receipts were issued at the Hankyu Uni-President Mall in Taipei for a NT$690 purchase; at a National Petroleum Co gas station on Roosevelt Road in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) for NT$1,000; at a FamilyMart on New Taipei City’s Jingping Road for a NT$148 purchase of cold noodles and tea eggs; and at a Wellcome supermarket in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe (中和) for a NT$15 coffee. The ministry said there are also four outstanding receipts for the NT$2 million prize. The outstanding receipts bear the number 83660478. People who have winning receipts have until Nov. 6 to claim their prizes.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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