TRANSPORTATION
‘Road smoking’ fines start
People who smoke while driving or riding a motorcycle may be fined NT$600 beginning today, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The fine is to be applied when a complaint is filed against a motorist for smoking and potentially endangering public safety. Smoking while driving or riding a motorcycle endangers the safety of other road users because cigarette butts or ashes can fly in the wind and burn or affect other road users, and smoke can also affect motorists’ ability to see, the ministry said. In principle, the law has set the range of the potentially dangerous effects of cigarette smoking at 3.5m, but if people who file complaints can prove they were affected beyond this distance, the smoking motorists would be fined, it said.
TRANSPORTATION
THSRC details new service
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THRSC) yesterday said that the introduction of three new stations on its transportation route later this year will not slow down train services, since a new service is to be added. At a stockholders’ meeting, THSRC chief executive Jeng Kuang-yeun (鄭光遠) said that when the stations in Miaoli, Changhua and Yunlin counties are opened on Dec. 1, the company would start a new service between Taipei and Kaohsiung, with stops at all stations on the route, including the new ones. That route would take 138 minutes, while existing express and regular trains would continue to operate, taking 96 and 120 minutes respectively between Taipei and Kaohsiung, he said. The express usually makes two stops along the way, in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) and Taichung, while the regular service stops at all six stations. With the introduction of a third service operating at least one train per hour, trains would stop at all nine stations, Jeng said.
TRANSPORTATION
NCKU touts eco two-seater
National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) yesterday unveiled the nation’s first home-grown electric vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells and lithium batteries. The university said it has applied for patent protection and is prepared to transfer the technology to a vehicle manufacturer and bring the product to the market. According to Lai Wei-hsiang (賴維祥), director of NCKU’s Advanced Propulsion and Power System Research Center, lithium batteries can provide high power output, while hydrogen-powered fuel cells can supplement power and supply stable electricity. He said the vehicle has a range of 150km and does not generate any carbon emissions. Europe, the US and Japan have launched fuel cell electric vehicles on the market, but while those are four-seat models, NCKU’s offering is a two-seater.
SOCIETY
Equality march on Saturday
The Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights on Monday said that it would hold a protest march on Saturday to fight for marriage equality. The alliance decided to hold the march after the US Supreme Court on Friday ruled that same-sex marriage was legal. On Saturday, the protesters plan to march to the headquarters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei to demand that the parties include a marriage equality bill in the final session of this legislature, the alliance said. The alliance said it would not rule out taking more drastic action if the move fails.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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