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.
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