TRANSPORTATION
Taxi fares up for holidays
An NT$30 surcharge for taxi rides in New Taipei City are to be imposed from Jan. 22 to Feb. 2 around the Lunar New Year holiday (Jan. 25 to Feb. 2), the city’s Transportation Department said. Taxi fares in Taipei and Keelung are also to increase by NT$30 for the same period, with the surcharge to be added to the meter fare for taxis in the three municipalities. An extra NT$20 are to be added for late-night hours between 11pm and 6am during the period, department official Lin Shih-chin (林詩欽) said. Taxi fares are generally calculated by distance, with no additional fees to be charged, Lin added. Drivers who do not adhere to the pricing rules or operate a taxi without a proper license can be fined NT$9,000 to NT$90,000, the department said.
Photo coutersy of the New Taipei City Government’s Transportaion Department
CRIME
Drug trafficker jailed
An Indonesian woman living in Taiwan has been sentenced to 16 years in prison after trying to smuggle heroin into the country for a person she met online. The woman, surnamed Shu (舒), married a Taiwanese man 19 years ago, but her husband died four years ago, the Kaohsiung District Court ruling read. At the end of last year, Shu met a man named “Daniel” online. In May, Daniel asked her to transport “clothing samples” from Thailand to Taiwan, offering to pay for her airfare, accommodation and US$10,000 in compensation, it said. When Shu arrived at Kaohsiung Airport on June 2, customs officials spotted irregularities in her handbag and found it contained 2.3kg of heroin, with an estimated market value of NT$7.3 million (US$224,719), the court said. Shu insisted she had not known what was inside. However, her Internet search history about the penalties for drug smuggling proved she knew she might be helping transport drugs, it said.
HEALTHCARE
Incentive for carers
The Cabinet has approved an annual incentive program to give outstanding residential care service providers up to NT$2.4 million (US$73,880) for excellent care. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said the scheme covers elderly welfare care facilities, disability welfare care facilities, nursing homes, psychiatric nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The facilities are to be evaluated based on emergency response to disasters, individualized support plans, information system development, smart technology applications, personnel management, enhancement of professional knowledge and skills, and protection of rights and interests of service users. Facilities that perform well would receive between NT$1.01 million to NT$2.4 million, depending on the number of beds, it said. The scheme is expected to ease the care burden on families by ensuring quality care at residential care facilities for elderly people and people with disabilities, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said.
EDUCATION
Long break for students
Five of the nation’s top universities are gearing up for their longest-ever winter breaks, which are to run from Dec. 23 to Feb. 14 next year, following a switch to 16-week semesters. Including the holidays before and after the winter break, the number of winter vacation days for students at National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, National Tsing Hua University and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University this year would be 58. Meanwhile, National Taipei University and National Chi Nan University will have a winter break of 51 days from Dec. 30 to Feb. 14.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS