ENVIRONMENT
Taiwan observes Earth Hour
Several of Taiwan’s major landmarks, including the Presidential Office Building and Taipei 101, joined cities around the globe to observe Earth Hour by turning off their lights from 8:30pm to 9:30pm yesterday. The observance of Earth Hour in Taiwan last year saved about 120,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the equivalent of 60 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, which equates to planting nearly 5,800 trees, Taiwan Power Co said in a press release. A total of 900,000kWh of electricity has been saved since Taiwan began observing Earth Hour in 2010, it added. The annual global event encourages individuals, communities and businesses to turn off non-essential lights for one hour as a symbol of their commitment to help the planet.
WEATHER
Temperatures to rise
With easterly winds bringing warm air, temperatures in central and southern Taiwan were as high as 32°C yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. Daniel Wu (吳德榮), a former director of the bureau’s Weather Forecast Center who is now an adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University, said that temperatures across Taiwan are expected to rise further over the next few days. Wu said that a front is expected to arrive in Taiwan on Sunday next week, but it could be mild, so temperatures would only drop slightly. The weather system is also unlikely to bring heavy rains, he added. Meanwhile, due to a lack of wind, air quality in west Taiwan was poor yesterday, the Environmental Protection Administration said. Air quality could deteriorate early this morning, triggering a “red” alert — which signals unhealthy air quality — in some parts of Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan counties, it said.
TRANSPORTATION
Green Line ‘improved’
People in Taichung have expressed satisfaction with the city’s new MRT Green Line, which resumed trial runs on Thursday after a four-month suspension due to mechanical problems. Some passengers said that the stability of the ride has improved, and the overall service is better than when the first trial runs were launched in November last year. The Green Line, the first line on Taichung’s MRT system to be completed, was forced to halt its initial test run six days after it began on Nov. 16 last year. The city government said that couplings between the cars had not been assembled properly. A new date, April 25, has now been set for the start of commercial services, and free rides are being offered from 6am to midnight daily until April 23, the city government said.
TOURISM
Flight offers views of Japan
EVA Airways conducted a one-off flight over Japan yesterday, offering passengers a view of Emihe Prefecture in partnership with the local government, the carrier said. Before the flight departed Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), the prefecture’s mascot, Mikyan, performed at a ceremony to welcome the 180 passengers before they boarded an Airbus A321-200 for the five-hour round trip. Passengers viewed Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, including several volcanoes, such as Mount Aso and Sakurajima, before flying over Emihe on Shikoku Island, EVA Airways spokesman David Chen (陳耀銘) said. They saw the bridges that connect Shikoku and Honshu islands, as well as Matsuyama Castle, he said. The tour also included a view of the Itsukushima Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, EVA said. It was EVA’s second such flight over Japan.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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