POLITICS
Protest amendment finalized
The Cabinet finalized a draft amendment yesterday that exempts outdoor rallies of an urgent or incidental nature from requiring advance permission from the authorities. The draft amendment to the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) is now to be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for approval. The change was proposed based on a ruling issued by the Council of Grand Justices in March, which said that the current requirement violated the constitutionally protected freedom of assembly and would therefore be struck down on Jan. 1 next year. According to the draft, the organizers of urgent rallies will only need to notify police of their plan in advance, while incidental cases, which are initiated spontaneously by protesters and do not have a specific organizer, will not need to do that. The draft stipulates that urgent or incidental rallies cannot be held on main thoroughfares, except when such assemblies do not disrupt traffic. There cannot be more than one such rally at any one site or at the same time as other rallies, it states.
SOCIETY
Train strikes, kills man
A man who was struck and killed by a Puyuma Express train in Keelung yesterday afternoon had apparently trespassed onto the tracks, the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) said. The incident occurred near Nuannuan Station at 2:41pm. Police said they were still trying to identify the man. Regular railway operations resumed by 3:39 pm, but the delay already affected 10 trains and 3,015 passengers, the railway agency said. It said the driver had not been able to stop in time. Passengers on the northbound No. 417 were transferred to a commuter train. Just two days earlier, another Puyuma Express heading to Taipei from eastern Taiwan had one of its windows shattered on the same stretch of track by construction equipment.
ENTERTAINMENT
‘The Heirs’ star to visit
Fans of the popular South Korean TV drama The Heirs might get a chance to see costar Park Shin-hye next month as she is expected to visit Taipei on the second leg of her Asian tour, her agency said. Park is scheduled to meet fans on Sept. 14 in Taipei’s Xinyi District, where she is expected to perform songs from the drama and offer fans some customized surprises, S.A.L.T. Entertainment said. She will visit Thailand later in September and Singapore in October on a tour dubbed 2014 Story of Angel. The tour began in China, where the 24-year-old actress met with fans in Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Changsha and Beijing. Park has 6.5 million followers on Sina Weibo.
COMMUNICATIONS
No. 1 in smartphone use
The use of smartphones for Internet connections is more extensive in Taiwan than in any other nation, consumer survey released by Yahoo on Wednesday found. The survey of 32 countries, conducted by Yahoo and the research agency Millward Brown, showed that Taiwanese spend an average 197 minutes per day online on their smartphones, while the global average is 142 minutes. According to Yahoo, 50 percent of people in Taiwan own a smart handheld device that is used to check e-mail, read news, share photographs and search for information. It said this trend indicates great potential for development of and business opportunities in the nation’s mobile market. About 9 million people in Taiwan connected to Yahoo’s services via a mobile device in June, nearly double the number in January last year, the company’s data shows.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
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