ENTERTAINMENT
Taipei 101 deck to close
The outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor of Taipei 101 is to be closed to visitors for just over a week in preparation for the skyscraper’s annual New Year’s Day countdown fireworks show. The observation deck will be closed from Monday next week through Jan. 2, an executive with the building’s management said yesterday. During this period, visitors would still be able to access the indoor observation decks on the 88th and 89th floors. Since Oct. 10, Taipei 101 has offered discount admission to the observation decks on the 88th, 89th and 91st floors for Taiwanese and foreign residents. It has charged NT$101 for tickets to the observation decks for visits before noon and offered a buy-one-get-one-free deal for visits between noon and 5pm based on the standard NT$600 admission price. The policy, effective until Dec. 30, is aimed at attracting more local visitors to make up for a decline in Chinese tourist numbers after China in August banned independent Chinese travelers from visiting Taiwan, a member of the building’s management said.
SOCIETY
Vietnamese killed in crash
One migrant worker from Vietnam was killed and another injured when they were hit by a truck in Nantou County while riding an electric scooter yesterday, local police said. The incident occurred when their scooter collided with a truck on a road in Caotun Township (草屯), police said. They did not provide details about the exact circumstances of the collision or who might have been at fault. The 23-year-old woman who was driving the scooter sustained a fatal head wound, while the 22-year-old passenger’s injuries were not life-threatening, police said. The two women were rushed to hospital after the crash, but the 23-year-old was pronounced dead after doctors examined her. An initial investigation found that the two women worked at a local electronics company and were out shopping on their day off, police said, adding that investigators had seized the truck’s dashboard camera to better determine the cause of the crash.
TRANSPORT
New subsidy for old scooters
From Jan. 1, people who retire their old four-stroke scooters with carburetors and buy a new scooter would receive a subsidy of NT$5,000 from the government. The subsidy would apply only to those with scooters that were manufactured before June 30, 2007, in particular those that have carburetors and meet only the older Phase 1 to Phase 4 emissions standards, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said. The agency said this is because many four-stroke scooters that are more than 12 years old typically use carburetors instead of a fuel-injection system, which is commonly found in newer scooters that meet Phase 6 or Phase 7 emissions standards. The objective is to help reduce air pollution, and to encourage people to use “cleaner” two-wheeled transport, including electric scooters, it said. Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Director-General Tsai Meng-yu (蔡孟裕) said last week that an estimated 96,000 old scooters could be phased out next year through the subsidy program. This could reduce emissions of 96 tonnes of nitrogen oxide, 1,052 tonnes of carbon monoxide and 378 tonnes of volatile organic compounds each year in Taiwan, he said.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT