WEATHER
Banciao hits fall record high
New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) yesterday experienced the hottest day since the beginning of autumn, the Central Weather Bureau said. Even though Saturday is Qiufen, the autumnal equinox in East Asian calendars, temperatures throughout the nation remained high. The temperature reached 37°C at 2:17pm in Banciao, making it the hottest recorded temperature this month nationwide and the second-hottest recorded temperature for September in Banciao since the installation of temperature sensors in the district in 1972. In Taipei, a high of 36.9°C was recorded at 12:23pm, making it the fourth-hottest September temperature since records began. The heat is primarily due to southeasterly winds that are circulating around the nation, which are to remain until Thursday, when a weak front and seasonal northeasterly wind is to move in, bureau forecaster Chu Mei-lin (朱美霖) said.
TOURISM
Peach launches flights
Japan-based budget airline Peach Aviation yesterday said it is to launch its inaugural Taoyuan-Sapporo flight service today and Taoyuan-Sendai flights tomorrow, amid efforts to increase its market presence in Taiwan. Round-trip flights to Sapporo are to occur every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while those to Sendai will be available on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, the airline said. The schedule will apply to flights from today to Oct. 28, which is peak season for travel to Japan, the airline said. Starting next summer, the carrier is to also offer daily flights between Kaohsiung and Okinawa, CEO Shinichi Inoue said earlier this month. “Taiwan is central to Peach’s goal of becoming a ‘bridge in the sky’ in Asia,” Inoue said, adding that the company plans to double the size of its fleet of 19 by 2020.
SOCIETY
Kansas inks license MOU
Taiwan and the US state of Kansas on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on driver’s license reciprocity that allows license-holders from either side to obtain a local license without having to take local tests, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Denver said. The MOU, which went into effect immediately, makes Kansas the 24th state with which Taiwan has signed a driver’s license reciprocity agreement, the office said in a statement. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it would continue to work with other US states to provide the same convenience to their residents.
LOTTERY
Receipt prizes unclaimed
Four NT$10 million (US$331,225) uniform invoice lottery prizes remain unclaimed, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday, urging invoice holders to claim their prizes. The four outstanding sales invoices issued in the May to June period have the number 99768846. The receipts were issued at the Hankyu Uni-President Mall in Taipei for a NT$690 purchase; at a National Petroleum Co gas station on Roosevelt Road in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) for NT$1,000; at a FamilyMart on New Taipei City’s Jingping Road for a NT$148 purchase of cold noodles and tea eggs; and at a Wellcome supermarket in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe (中和) for a NT$15 coffee. The ministry said there are also four outstanding receipts for the NT$2 million prize. The outstanding receipts bear the number 83660478. People who have winning receipts have until Nov. 6 to claim their prizes.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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