Double Ten National Day celebrations would this year have fewer participants than last year and the general public might be excluded, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥) told a news event on Wednesday to unveil the logo for the celebrations.
The number of participants in parades and other activities that are to be held in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on Oct. 10 would be limited to 4,000, compared with 7,500 last year, said Chen, who is secretary-general of the National Day organizing committee.
“We are still considering whether members of the public should be included,” he said.
Photo: CNA
The plans for the celebrations take into consideration COVID-19 regulations and might be adjusted in case the Central Epidemic Command Center updates the rules, he said.
If necessary, a military parade and cultural performances — two of the main parts of the celebrations — would be canceled, Chen said.
Moreover, the number of participants in a National Day evening banquet in Hsinchu City on Oct. 9 would be limited, he said, without giving a specific figure.
People attending the National Day fireworks in Kaohsiung on Oct. 10 would have to remain in designated areas, Chen said.
The logo, created by graphic designer Feng Yu (馮宇), features two intertwined Chinese characters for the number “10,” which Chen said symbolizes the value of democracy.
The logo also bears the words “Taiwan National Day 2021,” which has drawn criticism from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the omission of the country’s formal name, the Republic of China.
Chen said that the formal name would be included in invitations to the event in Taipei, as well as on roadside flags and decorations at venues.
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
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS