SOCIETY
Taipei to help man’s family
The Taipei Public Works Department said it would help the family of a motorcyclist who was struck and killed by a falling tree on Wednesday make a compensation claim under a city insurance policy. The 67-year-old man, surnamed Lin (林), was seriously injured when a roadside tree fell on top of him as he rode along Zhongshan N Road on Wednesday morning. He was found without vital signs and later pronounced dead at Mackay Memorial Hospital. The department said late on Wednesday that it had sent officials to the hospital to console the man’s family and to offer its help in applying for compensation. Under a roadside tree insurance policy taken out by the city, it said, the man’s family is eligible to receive NT$15,000 (US$471) as consolation and, following relevant authorizations, compensation of NT$6 million.
POLITICS
Parris Chang dies at 86
Former National Security Council (NSC) deputy secretary-general Parris Chang (張旭成), who also served as a four-term legislator of the Democratic Progressive Party, has died at the age of 86. His wife, Lin Hsiu-chu (林秀菊), said on Wednesday that Chang passed away on Saturday last week after being hospitalized in April due to complications related to COVID-19. Born in Chiayi County in 1936, Chang left Taiwan in the 1960s to pursue graduate education in the US, later obtaining a doctorate in political science from Columbia University and settling in the country as a dual citizen. After returning to Taiwan in the 1990s, he served in the Legislative Yuan representing overseas citizens from 1993 to 2004 and as NSC deputy secretary-general from 2004 to 2006. Lin said that his legacy would be honored at a ceremony in Taipei on Sept. 23.
TRANSPORTATION
Taipei MRT launches feature
The mobile app for the Taipei MRT has added a new feature that makes it easier for passengers to locate each other when traveling on MRT trains, Taipei Rapid Transit Co said. The “train meet-ups (相約列車)” feature on the Taipei MRT Go app, which is only available in Mandarin, allows passengers to share their train information with friends via social media, the company said in a press release last month. Passengers are required to enter the car number and door number which are located near the door inside each car before sharing a message, which allows the app to locate the train on a real-time MRT map for message recipients.
SOCIETY
Police clarify ‘bat’ case
The Taitung Police Bureau on Thursday defended its handling of a recent incident in which a bat-wielding man confronted a foreign motorcyclist in an apparent road rage incident. In a Reddit post earlier this week, a user going by the name Aggro_Hamham shared a video and described a motorcycle trip from Taitung to Hualien, in which, after he honked at a truck that tried to move into his lane, the driver “brake checked” him and threatened him with a baseball bat. Chang Kuan-hao (張冠?) from Taitung Police Bureau’s Taitung Precinct on Thursday pushed back at online criticism of the department. He said both parties were brought to an area police station, where the driver of the truck apologized for his actions, which the motorcyclist accepted. Chang said police only learned the driver had brandished a baseball bat on Monday — the day after it happened — when the video was posted online. The investigation into the case remains open, Chang said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
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