TRANSPORTATION
Lai denies TRA price hike
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) has no plans to increase ticket prices, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said when questioned on the matter at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday. Lai denied media reports cited by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) that ticket prices for the Tze-Chiang Ltd Express would be increased by 20 percent in April next year. Huang called such a price increase, which would raise the cost of a single trip from Taipei to Kaohsiung to more than NT$1,000, unreasonable. The premier said the TRA, Cabinet and Ministry of Transportation and Communications have no plans to increase fares, but the reports were not entirely baseless as Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) noted during the same session that the rumored price increase came from an internal TRA proposal, but that it does not have a time frame for its implementation and it has not been approved by the ministry.
DIPLOMACY
Tsai greets Guam governor
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) welcomed Guam Governor Eddie Calvo and his delegation at the Presidential Office yesterday and thanked them for Guam’s backing of Taiwan in the international community. Tsai thanked Guam for its support over the years for Taiwan’s involvement in international organizations, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. At the meeting, Tsai invited residents of Guam to take advantage of the 90-day visa free privilege they have to visit Taiwan to encourage more people-to-people exchanges between the two sides. About 50,000 Taiwanese visit Guam annually, making the nation the third-largest source of visitors to the US territory behind Japan and South Korea.
DIPLOMACY
Tsai trip starts today
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to embark on a visit to three of the nation’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific today, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement issued yesterday. Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said the trip demonstrates the nation’s determination to strengthen its relationships with allies in distant corners of the globe. Tsai and her delegation are to visit the Marshall Islands on Monday afternoon and Tuvalu on Wednesday morning, while spending the night in the Solomon Islands. Tsai is scheduled to meet with Marshallese President Hilda Heine, Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to discuss bilateral relations and global issues. Tsai and her delegation are transiting in Hawaii on Saturday, where she is to meet with local Taiwanese businesspeople and students. She stops in Guam on Friday before returning home the next day.
AGRICULTURE
Legislators eye global stage
The Legislative Yuan created an international exchange association yesterday to promote the nation’s agricultural and fishery expertise on the global stage. The “Inter-parliamentary Friendship Association on Agricultural, Forestry and Animal Husbandry Industries” named Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) as its president. It has also invited DPP Legislator Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) to serve as honorary president, while 102 lawmakers have agreed to join. The association is aiming to form collaborations and exchanges with lawmakers from other nations.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS