ARTS
Duck to return to Kaohsiung
Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s famous yellow rubber duck is set to return to Kaohsiung late this month for its first appearance in the southern port city since it floated around Glory Pier (光榮碼頭) 10 years ago, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said yesterday. The giant yellow rubber duck is to bob around Love River Bay from Jan. 27 to Feb. 25, Chen said at a press event. He said the city government had applied in September for the duck to return for this year’s Kaohsiung Lantern Festival, which began earlier last month and is to run until Feb. 28. Hofman approved the request after visiting and inspecting the bay, during which time he expressed surprise at how the city had progressed over the last decade, Chen said.
Photo: Taipei Times file
SEISMICITY
Earthquake hits Yilan
A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan at 5:57am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter of the temblor was in Yilan’s Suao Township (蘇澳), 14.2km south-southeast of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 47.4km, the agency’s Seismology Center said. The earthquake’s intensity was highest in Yilan, where it measured a three on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of two in Hualien County and New Taipei City. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. In other news, the Central Weather Administration yesterday said that today the weather would remain cool in northern and northeastern Taiwan, with highs of 17°C to 19°C predicted. It is expected to be as high as 22°C to 24°C in central and southern Taiwan. Occasional showers were forecast for Taipei and New Taipei City, the northern coast in Keelung, and eastern Taiwan, while the other areas could see cloudy or sunny skies, it said. People living south of Hsinchu and the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu have a higher chance of seeing the sunrise, while areas north of Taoyuan and the eastern half of Taiwan are expected to have a cloudy sky during the sunrise, it added.
SOCIETY
Man and son drown
A father and son drowned early on Saturday in a campground in Miaoli County’s Jhoulan Township (卓蘭), the county’s fire bureau said. The bureau said it received a report at 12:45pm from a campground owner that their surveillance camera record showed that a father in his 30s and his two-year-old son had fallen into the pond inside the campground at about 8am. A search and rescue operation later found the father and son in the water without vital signs and they were pronounced dead after being admitted to the hospital. The size of the pond was about 400m2 and three-meters deep. The campground owner said the father and son went to the area with other family members on Friday night, but right before they were about to have lunch at about noon on Saturday, they found the father and son had disappeared and asked the campground owner to check their whereabouts using the surveillance cameras. The police said that based on their initial investigation, the father, surnamed Hsieh (謝), took his son to the pond on Saturday morning and found that his son had fallen into the water when he was preparing fishing gear and jumped into the pond to rescue the child.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
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