■ TRAVEL
Taitung-Japan flights set
Direct round-trip charter flights from Taitung to Japan are scheduled to start in May to boost tourism in eastern Taiwan. From May 1, travelers will be able to fly direct from Hokkaido to Taitung and vice versa on five-day package tours, which will cost less and offer shorter travel time than other routes, Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-Chen (鄺麗貞) said. In addition to Green Island and Orchid Island, the county's cultural heritage and festivals are major attractions for Japanese tourists, Kuang said. He also vowed to promote visits to Taitung in other countries and territories in the region, including Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asian nations.
■ SCIENCE
FAO okays screening tests
Screening techniques for foot-and-mouth disease that were developed by researchers at a laboratory run by the Council of Agriculture have won the approval of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and have proven to be capable of determining infection within a short time, council officials said yesterday. The techniques, which were developed and refined by the council's Animal Health Research Institute, employ state-of-the-art gene chips to provide accurate and timely screening services, the officials said. Gene chips, which are also known as DNA microarray, are a miniaturized device designed to analyze DNA sequences. They are used in drug development and quarantine screening. The method was certificated by the UK-based Pirbright Laboratory last year as part of the FAO's quality reviews for screening techniques used in some 40 labs worldwide.
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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