TRAVEL
ROC passports rank 28th
Republic of China (ROC) passports have a power ranking of 28, indicating a relatively high level of travel freedom for its citizens, according to the recent passport index created by financial advisory firm Arton Capital. The index scores country’s passports based on the number of countries their holders can visit without a visa or by simply obtaining a visa on arrival. Taiwanese passport holders can visit 109 countries without having to obtain a visa in advance, earning the passport a power ranking of 28. However, because individual power rankings can include more than one country, the 109 countries accessible to Taiwanese passport holders without a visa ranked 60th among the countries in the survey. The passports of the US and Britain had the highest power rankings, giving their holders visa-free access to 147 countries.
ENTERTAINMENT
Ang Lee movie due out
TriStar Pictures has slated Taiwan-born director Ang Lee’s (李安) wartime drama Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk for release on Nov. 11 next year, Veterans’ Day. The film is an adaptation of Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel of the same name. It is the story of 19-year-old private Billy Lynn and members of his squad who survived a battle in Iraq. Lynn and his squad are brought back to the US by the government to join a tour to rally support for the war, knowing that they will soon be sent back to the battlefield. Lee is expected to cast newcomer Joe Alwyn as the title character. Vin Diesel, Chris Tucker, Kristen Stewart and Steve Martin are also expected to star in the film. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is Lee’s first film since the 2012 adventure drama Life of Pi, for which he won his second Oscar for best director.
CRIME
Eight arrested over attacks
Six men and two women were arrested on Saturday for assaulting Vietnamese workers with eggs in Tainan, local police said yesterday. The attackers, two of them under the age of 18, said they were just pulling a prank, according to the police. Separate assaults on Vietnamese workers were reported two days in a row in Tainan, raising concerns from their employers. A Vietnamese worker was struck by eggs on Wednesday, while another three were assaulted in a similar fashion the following day, the police said. Surveillance camera footage showed that the attackers rode motorcycles to follow the victims into alleys late at night.
AVIATION
Scoot to fly to Kaohsiung
Singaporean budget carrier Scoot has announced that it will launch non-stop flights to Kaohsiung three times per week beginning on July 9. Kaohsiung is to be the airline’s second Taiwanese destination, as Scoot currently provides 10 flights per week to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the main gateway to Taiwan, which is about 45km from downtown Taipei. “Singaporeans simply love Taiwan, but there’s so much more to Taiwan than just Taipei,” Scoot CEO Campbell Wilson said in a statement. The upcoming flights are to depart from Singapore in the morning and arrive in Kaohsiung around noon, and then fly from the southern city in the evening back to the Southeast Asian city-state in the early hours the following day every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The flights will operate the airline’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, featuring streaming movies and in-flight Wi-Fi.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERs IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
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