HEALTH
No Chinese drugs coming
Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) said on Monday Taiwan would not open its doors to generic drugs from China anytime soon even though the two sides last week concluded a medical and healthcare cooperation agreement. “Generic drugs developed and manufactured in Taiwan are of better quality than those from China,” Yaung said after attending an award ceremony for exceptional pharmaceutical and biotechnology products. In Taiwan, qualified pharmaceutical companies can produce and market generic products once the patent protection afforded to the original developer has expired. Yaung said the medical and healthcare pact was aimed mainly at establishing cross-strait mechanisms on pharmaceutical and medication management.
CULTURE
Prof tops at Music Nova
An electronic music composer from Taiwan has won one of the top prizes at an international competition with digitized variations of the timbre and tone of the pipa, a four-stringed traditional Chinese music instrument. Tseng Yu-chung (曾毓忠), a professor at National Chiao Tung University’s (NCTU) Institute of Music, won the top prize in the A-category of Music Nova, an electroacoustic music competition held in the Czech Republic, with a composition titled Points of Departure with 17 Variations. Tseng performed his composition, which he said was inspired by the sounds of the pipa, at a news conference held at an NCTU studio on Monday. Through a compositional technique similar to developing variations employed by Brahms and other composers, Tseng said he created 17 variations, with each one departing on its own sound journey with a punctuated percussive sound similar to that of the pipa’s plucked sound.
TRANSPORTATION
KMRT to run late Saturday
The Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (KMRT) system will provide late night services through 3am on Saturday to accommodate the crowd attending New Year celebrations, the Greater Kao-hsiung City Government said yesterday. The KMRT will shorten train intervals to 2.5 minutes during peak hours as a total of 500,000 people are expected to participate in the overnight celebrations in front of Dream Mall. Flow controls will be implemented at Kaisyuan Station on the Red Line, the city said, adding that the Bus Service Administration would provide two free shuttle buses — one to and from the Singuang Parking Lot and Dream Mall between 6pm on Friday and 2:30am on Saturday, and the other between KMRT Cultural Center Station and the Southern Training Center during the same period. The city’s 24 KMRT shuttle bus lines will also extend services through 3:30am.
TOURISM
Arts park planned in Hualien
A planned theater featuring natural scenery will be built along the east coast to boost tourism in the area, Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) said on Monday. The proposed site for the arts and culture park is near the coast where the Liwu River (立霧溪) empties into the Pacific Ocean, Fu said, as he unveiled the project with playwright and director Stan Lai (賴聲川) and architect Kris Yao (姚仁喜). The proposed park will feature a theater whose rear wall can open for the audience sitting on 800 rotating seats, enabling them to enjoy the mountain and sea views surrounding the venue. Lai said the spectacular dual view inspired him to come up with the idea of adding rotating seats to the proposed design.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
Taiwan next year plans to launch its first nationwide census on elderly people living independently to identify the estimated 700,000 seniors to strengthen community-based healthcare and long-term care services, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) said yesterday. Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said on the sidelines of a healthcare seminar that the nation’s rapidly aging population and declining birthrate have made the issue of elderly people living alone increasingly pressing. The survey, to be jointly conducted by the MOHW and the Ministry of the Interior, aims to establish baseline data and better allocate care resources, he
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