■ 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.
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
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘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
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