■ Transportation
TRTC celebrates 10 years
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Taipei
Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) yesterday opened a 24-hour customer service line on 2181-2345 and installed two high-resolution, 6m-diameter electronic displays at Zhongxiao Fuxing Station's No. 2 exit for screening passenger information and commercials. The TRTC was set up to manage the MRT system in 1994, with the Muzha line the first to carry passengers in 1996. Over
the following four years, the Tamsui, Zhonghe, Xindian and Banqiao-Nangang lines opened for business. The MRT system has carried more than 1.6 billion passengers and will reach 2 billion passengers next year, TRTC chairman Richard Chen (陳樁亮) said at an anniversary function yesterday. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday praised the TRTC for helping make the MRT indispensable to the city
and encouraged the TRTC to provide even better service to customers in the next decade.
■ Hakka Affairs
Web site launched
The Council of Hakka Affairs launched a new online community for Hakka groups and communities yesterday. According to council representatives, the Web
site, Hakka Culture Club (www.land.ihakka.net),
will host free Web pages
for Hakka-related groups.
The council hopes that the
Web site will encourage interaction between Hakka communities and groups
and increase Hakka cultural pride. In addition to free Web page hosting services, the site features cultural news and event listings. The council plans to begin a series of promotional events for the Web site soon, including discussions on culture and Web page signup activities.
■ Tourism
Chiayi farm changes hands
The Veterans Affairs Commission's Chiayi Farm will be transferred to the private Janfushan Fancy World Group tomorrow to begin commercial operations under a refurbish-operate-transfer (ROT) formula. The farm in Tapu township is
the first of the commission's farms to be transformed into an eco-tourism park under the ROT formula, which allows private business groups to invest in renovating and operating government-owned facilities for a specified period of time before returning
them to the government, a spokesman said yesterday. The European-style Chiayi Farm, located near the Tsengwen Reservoir, was built in 1952. Both late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)
have stayed at the farm's presidential villa. The farm was gradually transformed into a recreational center
for civil servants and public school teachers in the 1990s. The February transfer was
in line with the government's policy of making better
use of state properties, the commission said.
■ Diplomacy
New post for MAC official
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Liu
Te-shun (劉德勳) was named Straits Exchange Foundation secretary-general and vice chairman by the foundation's board yesterday afternoon. Liu will be the first appointee since 1991 to serve in both organizations simultaneously. "Cross-strait negotiations should be resumed without conditions attached to
any topic and without any presumptions," Liu said. He said that his position at both organizations would allow them to function with greater coordination than before. Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) also pointed to the closer links between the organizations that
would result from Liu's appointment.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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
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