TRAVEL
Taichung-Okinawa flight
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, is to launch direct flights between Taichung and Okinawa, Japan, starting today, the Taichung City Government announced yesterday. The route would utilize an Airbus A321neo aircraft with 188 seats, creating new international tourism opportunities for Taichung, while serving 7.3 million central Taiwan residents and travelers from Japan, the city government said in a news release. Starlux said it would operate four round-trip flights weekly on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Flights to Okinawa would depart from Taichung at 12:30pm and arrive at Naha Airport at 3pm local time, while return flights would leave at 4pm local time and land in Taichung at 4:50pm, the airline said.
TOURISM
Taipei 76th in top 100 list
CNN Travel on Saturday reported on a list compiled by global marketing experts ranking the top 100 cities in the world for next year, which includes Taipei. The piece introduced next year’s World’s Best Cities report, created by international marketing consultancy Resonance in collaboration with global market research company Ipsos. The report was compiled using statistics from a survey of 22,000 respondents in 30 countries combined with data ranking cities based on the indicators of livability, lovability and prosperity. In the report, Taipei placed 76th after receiving a score of 51 for lovability and 56 for livability. “From urban jungle to real-life nature, Taipei serves up a balanced landscape of future-defining tech manufacturing and its coveted good life,” the report said. The report introduced Taiwan’s capital as a foodie heaven that ranked 22nd in the list’s food category.
SOCIETY
Woman dies in Daan blaze
A 53-year-old woman died from a fire in a 17-story public housing building in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) in the early hours of yesterday morning. Seventeen fire trucks, four command vehicles and four ambulances were dispatched to Fuxing S Road after authorities received a report of the blaze at 4:14am. First responders extracted a mother and son from the 16th-floor unit, where the fire started. The mother, a 53-year-old, identified by her surname, Chueh (闕), was taken to nearby Cathay General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead after efforts to restart her heart failed. Her 19-year-old son was found conscious and is receiving treatment. Forty-five residents were also evacuated from the fire with the assistance of more than 60 police and firefighting personnel. The fire was extinguished by 4:49am. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
SCIENCE
Inventors win 108 medals
A delegation of inventors from Taiwan won a total of 108 medals at the annual Seoul International Invention Fair, which ran from Wednesday to Saturday. Led by the Taiwan Invention Association, the 220-strong Taiwanese delegation took 41 gold, 42 silver and 25 bronze medals at the event in South Korea. Taiwan’s inventors secured their record-breaking achievement in competition with over 500 entries from 32 countries. Taiwan submitted 112 inventions this year. A younger team from Keelung’s Mingchuan Junior High School won four golds, four silvers and a bronze for a wide range of ideas, including a smart medicine container that reminds owners to take their pills.
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
SECURITY RISK: A university student sent a general alarm signal to THSRC’s control center on April 5, causing four operating trains to temporarily halt services The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday pledged to submit a report on ways to harden the communication security of railway systems after a university student hacked into Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp’s (THSRC) radio communications system and disrupted operations of four high-speed rail trains last month. Investigation by the police and prosecutors found that the university student and radio enthusiast, surnamed Lin (林), first used a software-defined radio (SDR) filter to analyze THSRC signals, downloaded the data to a computer, cracked the parameters and then programmed the codes into his radio devices. Lin then sent a general alarm signal to
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