TRANSPORTATION
Big bikes face usage hurdle
Heavy motorcycles with engines over 550cc will not be allowed on freeways unless local governments agree to the traffic regulations passed by the Legislature last year, Ministry of Transportation and Communications Deputy Minister Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said yesterday. The majority of local governments were opposed to the regulations because of safety concerns, and the transportation ministry is still in discussions with them on issues such as road sections and time slots for heavy bikes, Yeh said. The new regulations were expected to be implemented next month, after the Legislature amended the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) in November last year to allow bikes of 550cc and over on Taiwan’s highways. In 2007, the government revised its regulations, permitting motorcycles of 550cc and bigger to travel on 26 expressways throughout the country.
ENTERTAINMENT
Balloon festival begins
A festival featuring hot-air balloons was launched on Saturday in Taitung County’s Luye Township (鹿野), showcasing 21 hot-air balloons from 13 countries, including the US, Canada, Switzerland, France, Spain and Brazil. The festival, to run until Sept. 2, also includes a hot-air balloon exhibition, light and sound shows featuring hot-air balloons, music concerts, kite-flying and paragliding demonstrations, and lectures and courses on balloons. The best time to watch the balloons displays is from 6am to 9am and 4pm to 7pm, according to the Taitung County Government, which organized the festival. Among the 47 balloon pilots invited to participate in the second annual festival is Wu Chin-yeh (吳金曄), Taiwan’s first female hot-air balloon pilot and one of the first five Taiwanese trained by the county government as a hot-air balloon pilot.
CULTURE
U-Theatre travels abroad
U-Theatre, a renowned Taiwanese arts group, has been invited to take part in a summer festival in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, and will give five performances there from Wednesday to Sunday, a spokeswoman for the troupe said yesterday. It will be the first performance by a professional Taiwanese arts group in the Middle Eastern country, U-Theatre said. U-Theatre, renowned for its unique combination of drumming, Zen meditation and martial arts, will perform its well-known production Sound of the Ocean, as requested by the organizers. However, due to time constraints and cultural customs, the 85-minute production will be shortened to 55 minutes and all the parts will be performed by men for the first time in the troupe’s history, it said. In addition, they will all wear long-sleeved tops and pants instead of the usual traditional costumes, Artistic Director Liu Ruo-yu (劉若瑀) said.
MILITARY
Twenty ships put to rest
Taiwan Sunday decommissioned the last 20 of a fleet of ageing missile boats as part of ongoing efforts to modernize its military forces, officials said. The navy bid farewell to the 50 tonne Seagull-class missile boats during a ceremony held in the southern Zuoying (左營) naval base, more than three decades after they had been put into service. The Taiwanese navy first built the missile boats, reportedly an imitation of Israel’s Dvora-class patrol boats, in the late 1970s and later mass produced them in the early 1980s. The navy had thought the fleet, numbering about 50, would act as “hit and run” boats should a conflict break out in the Taiwan Strait.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS