TRAFFIC
Yangmingshan access curbed
Traffic controls are in place on Taipei’s Yangde Boulevard on weekends and holidays until March 19, as heavy traffic is expected due to the Yangmingshan Flower Festival. The Taipei Police Department’s Traffic Division said entering Yangde Boulevard from Zhicheng Road, Zhishan Road, and the intersection of Fulin Road and Zhongyong Street would require a permit from 7am to 4pm. Permits would also be required to enter Yangde Boulevard from the intersections of Yangming Road and Zhongheng Street, and Gezhi Road and Kaixuan Road from 2pm to 6pm, it said. A limited number of parking spaces are available near the festival venue, it said, urging visitors to take public transportation. Parking restrictions are in place in Yangmingshan National Park, it said, adding that illegally parked vehicles would be towed. People can apply for a permit via the local police precinct or online via service.gov.taipei/Case/ApplyWay/201907180281.
HEALTH
CECC posts 18,300 cases
Taiwan yesterday reported 18,300 new COVID-19 cases and 82 deaths from the disease, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said. The people who died ranged in age from their 40s to their 90s, it said, adding that all but three of them had underlying health conditions and 40 were unvaccinated. New Taipei City recorded most new cases, with 3,500, followed by Kaohsiung with 2,245 and Taichung with 2,195. Taoyuan reported 2,015 cases, Taipei 1,649, Tainan 1,475, Changhua County 866, Pingtung County 508, Hsinchu County 493, Hsinchu City 420, Yunlin County 416, Miaoli County 379, Yilan County 376 and Keelung 332. Nantou County had 262 cases, Chiayi County 251, Hualien County 244, Chiayi City 162, Taitung County 99, Penghu County 76, Kinmen County 33 and Lienchiang County four.
TRAFFIC
Drunk driver jail term raised
A repeat drunk driver who struck and killed a pedestrian after running a red light at more than 90kph was sentenced to nine years and 10 months in prison. The Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung branch on Wednesday said it had added two years to a previous sentencing of Huang Tzu-yang (黃子洋), 38, following an appeal from prosecutors. Huang on Dec. 26, 2021, ran a red light and struck a family of four crossing an intersection on Hedong Road in Kaohsiung, killing a 37-year-old woman surnamed Fan (范) and seriously injuring her two daughters, aged 13 and 15, and the girls’ father, a 45-year-old man surnamed Lin (林). Huang at the time had a blood alcohol level of 1.24mg per liter, or about five times the legal limit. The previous sentencing, by the Kaohsiung District Court, also included compensation of NT$35.49 million (US$1.18 million) to Lin’s family.
EDUCATION
NTNU 9th in world ranking
National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) is the world’s ninth-best education and educational research institution, and the second-best in Asia, a US News & World Report ranking showed. The ranking took into account research quality, the number of articles published by faculty members and the number of citations of those articles, NTNU College of Education dean Tien Hsiu-lan (田秀蘭) said. NTNU had the six-highest normalized citation impact score among institutions listed, she said, adding that it ranked eighth in terms of the number of publications among the 10 percent most cited, and 11th in terms of overall citations.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
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