POLICING
NPA head to retire
National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Chen Ja-chin (陳家欽) has applied for early retirement effective on Thursday next week, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday. While Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) “fully supports” Chen’s leadership of the agency since 2017 and is sorry to see him retire, Su “respected” his reasons for doing so, Lo said. Chen’s decision to step down ahead of his scheduled retirement in July next year was based in part on his desire to leave important personnel decisions to his successor, Lo said. More than 20 high-ranking police officials are to reach retirement age next month and in January next year, including the deputy director of the NPA, as well as police chiefs and deputies in the six special municipalities, Lo said. Chen also wanted to give his successor adequate time to prepare for security around the January 2024 presidential elections, rather than handing over the reins just six months before they took place, Lo said.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Kinmen Bridge to open
A bridge being built in Kinmen County linking the main island to Lieyu Island is on track to be finished by September and open to traffic in October, the government engineering office in charge of the project said on Wednesday. The 4.8km Kinmen Bridge, which is Taiwan’s first sea bridge, runs east-west from Hupu Road in Lieyu Township (烈嶼) to Cihu Road in Jinning Township (金寧). As of Friday last week, work was 97.46 percent completed, the office said. Construction, which began in 2012, has been plagued by problems such as inexperienced contractors and work crews, resulting in contracts being terminated twice, the Freeway Bureau said. In 2016, a new contract was undertaken and construction restarted in December that year, the bureau said.
TRAFFIC
Road to allow motorcycles
The section of Zhongxiao W Road in front of Taipei Railway Station would open to motorcycles this year for the first time in more than four decades, the Taipei Department of Transportation said on Wednesday. Department Commissioner Chen Shyue-tair (陳學台) told city councilors that the decision to allow motorcycles on the section was “certain” and would begin on a trial basis by the end of the year. The city had restricted that section to motorcycles because of heavy bus traffic and a lack of designated bus lanes, Chen said. Zhongxiao W Road is one of five major surface roads in Taipei with parts closed to motorcycle traffic, the others being Nanjing E Road’s Section 6, Tiding Boulevard’s Section 1, Huanhe N Road and an off-ramp toward Mingshui Road off Zhongshan Road as it crosses Dazhi Bridge.
MEDICINE
Tablets recall ordered
About 980,000 tablets of a prescription medicine to treat high blood pressure have been ordered off pharmacy shelves, with a full recall to be completed by early August after they were found to contain an insufficient amount of a key ingredient, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday. “Rixia Tablets 0.5mg MACRO (Metolazone)” produced by Macro Global Corp in two batches — A1Y65 and U3Y96 — must be recalled by Aug. 9 because one of their major ingredients is below the required dosage, the FDA said in an advisory. Tablets in the A1Y65 batch contain only 80 percent of the ingredient, falling short of the required 90 to 110 percent, while those in the U3Y96 batch contain only 91.5 percent, FDA official Fu Shu-ching (傅淑卿) said.
‘HIDDEN GEM’: The city earned plaudits for its low crime rate, world-class healthcare system, cheap cost of living and easy public transportation Taipei has been named the 10th best city in the world for quality of living in an annual survey by the editors of Monocle, a UK-based global affairs and lifestyle magazine. The survey, which is to be published in the magazine’s July/August issue, selected the world’s top 25 cities based on factors including cost of living, retail, hospitality, culture and access to green spaces, as well as feedback from Monocle correspondents. Taipei’s 10th place finish was one place down from a year earlier. The survey ranked Copenhagen as the world’s best city, with Zurich, Lisbon, Helsinki and Stockholm rounding out the top five.
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
NO COMORBIDITIES: The girl died of encephalitis, the sixth COVID-19-related death of the disease this year and 19th death of a child from the virus, the center said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 52,213 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and 171 deaths from the virus, including a four-year-old girl, who had been diagnosed with encephalitis, and a 19-year-old man, who had underlying health conditions. “The caseloads are usually higher on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but they [yesterday] fell 7.3 percent from the day before,” Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. Chuang, who is the CECC’s spokesman, said that most cities and counties reported a drop in new cases, and the CECC expects fewer than 50,000 new cases today. The center said that 150 of
LIMIT: The CECC has capped the number of weekly arrivals to 25,000, which critics said has limited the number of available flights and caused ticket prices to soar The government is not likely to raise the cap on the number of inbound travelers before the end of this month, despite the apparent effect on the number of inbound flights, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday last week eased quarantine rules for inbound travelers, who must undergo three days of home quarantine upon arrival and spend another four days in self-initiated disease prevention. It also capped the number of inbound travelers to 25,000 per week. The weekly limit has drawn criticism that it has limited the number of flights
RSS