■ Civic groups
MOI to revise rules
The Ministry of the Interior is planning to ease the requirements to charter national civic groups. The ministry will revise the Regulations for Registration of Social Entities (社會團體許可立案作業規定) with regard to the management of civic groups. The overhaul is expected to delete the requirement of including cities with the status of a special municipality. The stipulations covering founding members' household registration will be changed from 11 different areas to seven, and those seven locations could just be the counties and cities where the members work. Another regulation, which stipulates that a group that wishes to apply as a city or county-wide civic group needs the household registrations of its founding members to be located in more than half of a city or a county's villages and townships, is also expected to be dropped.
■ Culture
Nobel winner in Taoyuan
West Indian dramatist and poet Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature, was scheduled to appear at a colloquium at Yuan Ze University in Taoyuan yesterday afternoon. Walcott, who is also a painter and a professor at a number of prestigious universities in the US, was expected to have a "transcultural dialogue" with Far East Group Chairman Tony Hsu and several renowned writers in Taiwan, including Chen Juo-hsi, at the colloquium. Walcott's writings are rich in cultural nuance, employing such topics as racial issues, identity and alienation of cultures, as well as the position of languages. Walcott, who skillfully fuses folk island culture with the classical and avant-garde in his poems, could be an encouragement to Taiwan's literary circles at a time when Taiwan is enthusiastically promoting maritime culture, said a spokesman for the Kaohsiung City Government, which invited Walcott to Taiwan to take part in the 2005 World Poetry Festival in Kaohsiung.
■ Transit
MRT contract awarded
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp yesterday announced it had contracted Continental Engineering Corp (大陸工程) to construct a 2.7km-long section of the MRT's Hsinyi Line (信義線) Construction will be launched next month, at the earliest. The MRT company said that if they can contract out another section on the Hsinyi line by March this year, the 6.4km-long Hsinyi line will be completed by 2011. Once complete, the west-east line will cut the traveling time between Taipei Main Station and Taipei 101 or the World Trade Center to 11 minutes. Continental Engineering Corp, which won the NT$8.74 billion contract, said that the section starts at the Hsinyi-Yungkang intersection and ends at Hsinyi-Anhe intersection. The section will run through Daan Station on the Muzha Line while another station will be established at Ta-an Forest Park.
■ Health
Officials receive awards
At the Department of Health's 34th anniversary yesterday, Minister of Health Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂) presented the Minister Award to former minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and former director-general of the Center for Disease Control, Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁), for their dedication to health promotion during their term. Hou lauded Chen for launching the reform of the National Health Insurance, saying that Chen has helped enhance the quality of medical service by establishing family doctor and referral systems. Su, meanwhile, was honored for establishing a hospital reporting network to fight SARS, thereby laying the groundwork for flu prevention.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
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