■ Transportation
THSRC tickets in focus
Bureau of High Speed Rail Director-General Pang Chia-hua (龐家驊) said yesterday the bureau was authorized to regularly examine the performance of ticket sales at high speed rail stations. "This is a build-operate-transfer [BOT] project," Pang said, "and the government is obligated to oversee the financial situation of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp [THSRC] through both the company's quarterly reports and inspections." Pang said that the bureau would examine the company's performance next month and determine whether the ticketing system had improved. Meanwhile, Pang confirmed yesterday that the THSRC had not submitted an application for another inspection on the Taipei-Banciao section, in which the inspectors will personally review six major problems they had identified earlier and determine whether they have been addressed.
■ Society
Eden Foundation sells art
The Eden Social Welfare Foundation held an "Eden Day" yesterday, to enhance the well-being of mentally challenged individuals, saying that said "Eden Days" would now be held regularly. In June, Eden opened a small cafe in Taipei funded by a private enterprise. The cafe provides stable jobs for mentally challenged persons, the foundation said. At yesterday's Eden Day, local artist Liu Hsing-chin (劉興欽) donated 10 of his works for auction to raise funds for Eden. "We hope to hold an Eden Day event every two months to encourage businesses to share their resources with us," said Carol Lu (呂惠萱), the charity's public relations director. The goal of the days is to give businesses and individuals a chance to contribute to the charity's work.
■ Politics
KMT shows faith in Ma
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday that the party believed KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would be found innocent in the "mayoral special fund" case currently being investigated by prosecutors. "Ma has been a man of integrity and has run the Taipei City Government in accordance with laws and regulations. The public should be sure of his innocence," Wu said. Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) suggested that the party enact a regulation to ensure Ma could run in next year's presidential election. Ma was accused of pocketing half of his mayoral "special allowance fund" during his eight years as Taipei mayor from 1998 to last year. KMT regulations state that party members are barred from running in the party's primary election if indicted on charges of corruption.
■ Agriculture
Orchid DNA sequenced
Taiwanese agricultural researchers have completed the DNA sequencing of 56 out of 60 non-hybrid butterfly orchid species worldwide, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday. The council's Kaohsiung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has spent three years and some NT$2 million (USD$60,500) on the project. The findings have been published by the science journal Plant Systematics and Evolution and the DNA datasets have also been added to the database at the US National Institute of Health. An associate research fellow at the station explained that each butterfly orchid carries a unique DNA sequence and that even after several generations of hybridization, the extraction of the "descendants" can still be recognized by its genetic expressions. Researchers can use the information to identify an orchid and where it comes from, he added.
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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