TRANSPORTATION
Tolls suspended for holidays
The National Freeway Bureau announced that it would suspend freeway tolls at night for the Tomb Sweeping Festival holiday weekend. From April 2 to April 5, freeways will be toll-free between the hours of midnight and 7am to provide an incentive for travelers to drive during off-peak hours. The bureau said it was still considering other freeway control policies in its comprehensive traffic plan for the holiday weekend, but said that volume should be less than what was experienced between the Feb. 26 to Feb. 28 three-day weekend. The bureau attributed the severe traffic jams between Feb. 26 and Feb. 28 to the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Miaoli County. According to the bureau, freeway traffic volume for each day of the three-day Tomb Sweeping weekend last year reached 2.27 million, 2.3 million and 2.25 million respectively.
CULTURE
Taipei choir touring US
The Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir will perform in Boston, New York and Chicago from today until next Friday, a choir spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman also said that first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) has been invited to serve as the group’s honorary leader during the tour. The group has been invited by the American Choral Directors Association to perform in this year’s Biennial National Conference in Chicago, he said. The choir will kick off the tour with a performance at John Knowles Paine Concert Hall at Harvard University today, before taking the stage at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Sunday. It will give two recitals at Roosevelt University and the Chicago Symphony Hall on Wednesday and will round off its trip with a performance at Metea Valley High School, also in Chicago, next Friday.
E-COMMERCE
Snacks popular in China
Taiwan’s pineapple cakes, “iron eggs” and brown-sugar lollipops are listed as the three best-selling snacks on a leading shopping Web site in China, a local e-commerce company said yesterday. “The e-commerce environment is becoming more and more convenient, and online stock trading has become very common between China and Taiwan,” according to e-Dynamics, a Taiwanese company that cooperates with Taobao, a top Chinese shopping site, to sell Taiwanese products. “Taiwanese products are appealing to Chinese buyers,” the company said. “As long as the prices are reasonable, shoppers are usually willing to try new products.”
AGRICULTURE
Overseas crops planned
Taiwan is planning to follow in the footsteps of other countries by growing crops overseas to meet domestic demand amid soaring prices of raw materials, the agriculture agency said yesterday. The Council of Agriculture (COA) said it is considering countries in the region with which it could cooperate, citing Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam as possible candidates for growing crops such as corn, rice, soy beans and wheat. The overseas production plan, which will be implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is likely to be finalized within two months, according to the COA. Taiwan will also learn from the experiences of China, Japan and South Korea in growing crops overseas, it added. On the possible forms of cooperation, the COA said, the government could encourage Taiwanese companies to engage in overseas crop production by offering subsidies or asking state-run companies to work with private companies to produce the crops.
SOCIETY
Counseling available
Medication is not the only way to cure depression that is affecting a marriage, a health worker said yesterday ahead of International Women’s Day on Tuesday. A social worker surnamed Tung (董) at the psychiatric department of Taipei City Hospital’s Songde branch urged the public to make full use of government-reimbursed marriage and family counseling services. Learning how to cope with pressure and improve relationships between family members are also part of an effective treatment regimen for depression, Tung said. Therapeutic counseling, as opposed to prescription drugs, can help sufferers understand more about their own condition and help them find the root of the condition, she said. “Not many people know that counseling services are available under the national health insurance program. We want to send out the message that there are alternatives to drugs when it comes to battling depression,” she said.
SOCIETY
Bureau to host families
In celebration of the Children’s Day on April 4, the Ministry of the Interior’s Child Welfare Bureau will treat 100 families with at least three children — at least two of which must be under the age of 12 — to a free tour of the Taipei International Flora Expo on April 2, with not only the admission, but also transportation and lunch covered by the bureau, the bureau’s director-general Chang Hsiu-yuan (張秀鴛) announced at a press conference yesterday. She said that as the nation’s birthrate continues to drop, the event is part of the ministry’s plan to encourage people to have more children. Those who would like to sign up for the event should submit a 300-character essay on raising children and family values, Chang said, For details, visit www.cbi.gov.tw.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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