ENVIRONMENT
City to charge for utensils
The Taipei City Government is to begin charging take-out customers for disposable utensils and containers at 66 city-operated facilities, starting with Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital yesterday, the Department of Environmental Protection said yesterday. Lin Yutang House, Grass Mountain Chateau and food stalls operating in the No. 3 Area of the Taipei Arena MRT Station are to follow suit by the end of the year, while other outlets will adopt the rule by July 5 next year, the department said. The charges are NT$2 for a meal container and NT$1 each for a bowl, a pair of chopsticks or a spoon, it said. The measure is expected to reduce the number of single-use disposable utensils annually by up to 5 million, it added.
SOCIETY
MRT flower shops open
With flower exports declining 20 to 30 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is working with Taipei Metro to operate a series of flower shops inside MRT stations to sell locally produced blooms. The second of the stores had its official opening on Wednesday at the Songjiang Nanjing Station following a two-month trial run during which it averaged sales of NT$4,000 to NT$5,000 per day, and hit a daily high of NT$12,000, said Evelyn Lu (呂瀅瀅), chairwoman of Taipei Flower Auction, which buys the flowers from local growers and sells them through the stores. Ghost Month, which started this year on Wednesday, generally gives a boost to flower sales, as many people purchase them to appease the spirits, Lu said. Sales are also expected to surge in the runup to Qixi Festival, which falls on Tuesday next week. The metro flower shops sell everything from orchids to roses, balloon flowers and lilies. The first store opened at Zhongshan MRT Station on July 25.
DIPLOMACY
AIT names Kaohsiung head
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Wednesday named Mason Yu (禹道瑞) as the head of its Kaohsiung branch, saying he had taken office following the departure of his predecessor. Yu, a former deputy chief at the branch office, replaced Matthew O’Connor, who recently completed his three-year tenure and has left Taiwan. Yu joined the US Department of State in 2001 and most recently served as special assistant to the assistant secretary of the Bureau of Administration, an AIT news release said. He has also served in several posts overseas, including in Singapore, Saudi Arabia and China, the AIT said. A native of Seattle, Washington, Yu graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Mass Communications and earned a Master of Military Studies from the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College, it said.
CULTURE
Movie funding pulls NT$24m
A crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to produce a movie series based on Taiwan’s history has raised more than NT$24 million (US$813,229) from more than 6,000 people, according to the campaign’s Web site. The first phase of the campaign, which runs until Oct. 10, is aimed at raising NT$100 million. Taiwanese filmmaker Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), who directed the popular two-part epic film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊), based on the 1930 Wushe Incident in central Taiwan, aims to release a trilogy — Siraya, Teyouan and Formosa in 2024, 2025 and 2026 respectively. More information on the film series can be found at the Taiwan Trilogy Film Fundraising Project-Phase 1 Web site.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
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