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.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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