The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday lifted an alert for the sandstorm from China that has sent air pollution levels soaring in the last three days.
The EPA assured the public that acceptable air quality would return in the near future.
A second wave of the storm had been predicted to affect Taiwan's air yesterday, but turbulent currents moved the storm further eastward, officials said.
According to the EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Data Processing Bureau, several air-monitoring stations in northern Taiwan yesterday recorded pollution standards index (PSI) values of less than 50, a level defined as "good."
At Wanli in northern Taipei County, the PSI value had fallen from 169 on Sunday to 34 yesterday. At Kuanyin in northern Taoyuan County, the PSI measurement fell from 199 on Sunday to 40 yesterday.
"Based on the latest data, we can assure people that they will be able to breathe much easier in the near future," bureau section chief Shieh Ping-fei (
Recent research into Chinese sandstorms sponsored by the EPA suggests that different kinds of fungi, originating from Mongolia, were being carried in sandstorms, Shieh said.
However, the research team from Taipei Medical University has not established a correlation between the presence of fungi in sandstorms and the transmission of human disease.
Shieh said funding would continue to be available to learn more about the potential biological impact of sandstorms both on humans and the environment as a whole.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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