TRAVEL
Taipei sights make top 500
The National Palace Museum and Taipei 101 have been named among the world’s top 500 sights in Ultimate Travelist, a book from travel Web site and publisher Lonely Planet. The book says there are 500 places that travelers must visit, with the museum and Taipei 101 ranked No. 397 and No. 448 respectively. Lonely Planet said the museum displays many of the best Chinese works, such as Ming Dynasty porcelain and ancient paintings that were brought from China during the Chinese Civil War. Although Taipei 101 is no longer the tallest building in the world, its observatory on the 89th floor, which provides an unobstructed view of Taipei, is the best place for visitors to enjoy the fantastic scenery, it said. Topping the list are the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, followed by the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Machu Picchu in Peru.
CULTURE
Musician to join OneBeat
Musician Tsai Hui-ya (蔡惠雅) has become the first Taiwanese to be named a fellow of a US-sponsored program described by the New York Times as the “United Nations of Music,” the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) announced last week. Tsai, who plays a traditional string instrument called the liuqin, is to join a group of 24 musicians from 16 countries and territories in the OneBeat program in the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, from Oct. 12 to Nov. 11. The musicians are to create cross-genre works, record innovative music, produce short-form videos, engage with local communities and practice music as civic engagement to promote resilient civil societies, according to an AIT Facebook post. OneBeat is a music diplomacy program initiated by the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Staff writer, with CNA
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
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