ART
Yo-yo Ma to visit Kaohsiung
World-renowned Grammy-winning cellist Yo-yo Ma (馬友友) next month is to give a concert at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts with his longtime collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott, the concert’s promoter Management of New Arts said in a statement on Wednesday. The duo is to perform classics including the Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Cello Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck, it said. These classics are important to Ma as vehicles of dialogue and a way to communicate emotions, the promoter said. The concert is to take place on Nov. 4, it said.
SOCIETY
Plant closed after deaths
The Taoyuan Department of Labor has ordered work to be suspended at a US chemical plant that closed down recently, after two workers died on Thursday while dismantling equipment. The case is being investigated for possible contravention of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the department said. The incident happened at about 9am when three men identified by their last names Chen (陳), Liang (梁) and Liu (劉) were working to tear down an industrial furnace at Chemours, which closed its plant in Guanyin District (觀音) on Aug. 1 after laying off 259 workers. Chen and Liang were inside the furnace when debris from its inner walls fell, hitting them on the head, the department said. At the time, Liu was standing on top of a ladder and removing the insulation bricks on top of the furnace. Chen, 57, and Liang, 58, were later pronounced dead at a hospital, local authorities said. The three men were working for a local company which was contracted by Chemours to dismantle the furnace’s inner insulation.
ENVIRONMENT
Birds arrive in Tainan
The annual black-faced spoonbill season is to start on Oct. 28, as the bird species start migrating to Taiwan for the winter, the Tainan Ecological Conservation Institute said on Wednesday. A series of events would be held in Tainan’s Cigu District (七股) in the hope of raising awareness about habitat conservation, institute director Chiu Jen-wu (邱仁武) said. The migratory birds fly to Taiwan every year around September for winter and stay until April or May the following year, before they head back to their breeding areas in Northeast Asia. The first black-faced spoonbills this year arrived in Taiwan early last month at the Cigu Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation Area, and as the weather has become cooler since the Mid-Autumn Festival, the number of birds in Tainan and Chiayi has since increased rapidly, Chiu said. As of Wednesday, 235 of the endangered species had arrived in Tainan, with 147 spotted in the reserve, he added.
TRANSPORTATION
Kinmen taxi fares to rise
Taxi fares in Kinmen County are to increase from January for the first time since 2011, the local government announced on Thursday. The Kinmen County Government said it approved the increase proposed by the association of local taxi drivers due to the ballooning cost of running business. The new fee charging system would go into effect on Jan. 1 and see fares rise faster than before in two ways. Each journey is to charge an additional NT$5 for every 200m after the first kilometer and for every accumulated two minutes during which the taxi travels slower than 5kph.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry