POLITICS
Taipei mayor to visit US
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) plans to visit New York, Boston and Philadelphia on an official 11-day trip to the US, which starts on Wednesday. The visit would focus on municipal exchanges, a source in the Taipei City Government said. Chiang is to stay in New York for three days, during which he plans to visit Times Square to learn about pedestrian-friendly policies and Citi Field baseball stadium to gather information that could help improve Taipei Dome operations. He is to travel to Boston on Sunday, and meet local city officials at the Massachusetts State House on Monday during the day and deliver a speech titled “Global Taipei: Bridging Tradition and Innovation” at the John F. Kennedy Jr Forum at Harvard University in the evening. Chiang is to visit the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the following day, before taking a train to Philadelphia for additional municipal-related activities. He is scheduled to fly back to Taiwan on Saturday next week.
SOCIETY
Crane falls in Kaohsiung
One Vietnamese worker was killed and one Taiwanese worker was badly injured at a construction site in Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山) yesterday morning after a tower crane collapsed, the city’s fire bureau said. First responders found the Vietnamese man’s body under the collapsed crane, with no vital signs, and an unconscious Taiwanese man with multiple bone fractures, the bureau said, adding that it received a report about the incident at about 9:40am. The Taiwanese man, who was the operator of the tower crane, was injured after it fell to the ground and has been hospitalized, Kaohsiung City Labor Affairs Bureau chief secretary Pi Chung-mou (皮忠謀) said. All work at the construction site has been ordered to stop for an investigation into the deadly incident, Pi said. The Labor Affairs Bureau would work with Vietnam’s representative office in Taiwan and help the family of the Vietnamese man make necessary arrangements, including claiming compensation for the work-related death, Pi added.
SPORTS
RCBIC to begin next week
The Kaohsiung Respect Culture Breaking International Championships (RCBIC) are to take place at the Kaohsiung Music Center on Saturday and Sunday next week, featuring Canadian breakdancer B-Boy Phil Wizard, who won the gold medal for men’s breaking in the Paris Olympics last month, the event organizer said. The competition has a total prize of NT$1.5 million (US$46,963) and would have team battles, individual men’s and women’s categories, a category for individuals younger than 15 years old and a new all-style individual category for the first time, the Kaohsiung Sports Development Bureau said. The event would also feature judges and top breakers from the Paris Games, the bureau added. Renowned South Korean breakdancer B-Boy Hong 10 and Menno from the Netherlands, who are three-time Red Bull BC One world champions, are also to participate in the event. Japanese breakdancer B-Girl Ayumi, a competitor in the women’s breaking competition at the Paris Olympics, would serve as a judge. Known for her smooth moves and impressive musicality, Ayumi remains a top-ranked breaker at the age of 40. Another judge is South Korean breakdancer Virus, who is known for integrating crutches into his breaking, the bureau said in the statement.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Many Japanese couples are coming to Taiwan to obtain donated sperm or eggs for fertility treatment due to conservatism in their home country, Taiwan’s high standards and low costs, doctors said. One in every six couples in Japan is receiving infertility treatment, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare data show. About 70,000 children are born in Japan every year through in vitro fertilization (IVF), or about one in every 11 children born. Few people accept donated reproductive cells in Japan due to a lack of clear regulations, leaving treatment in a “gray zone,” Taichung Nuwa Fertility Center medical director Wang Huai-ling (王懷麟)
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
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