The first steady rain in months helped firefighters gain control over a forest fire yesterday that has been raging for six days in central Taiwan. The fire has ravaged 185 hectares of forest since Saturday, fueled by strong winds and the worst drought in two decades, the Forestry Bureau said. "The fire is under control, and we should be able to continue to contain it," the bureau said in a statement. A rain front began passing over the country on Wednesday and was expected to continue to drench cities, parched land and mountain ranges through the weekend. Yesterday, about 1,000 firefighters were tackling the blaze, now confined to nine hectares of forest on Lishan. Firefighters have managed to keep the blaze from spreading to a mountain creek inhabited by an endangered species of salmon and to a nearby conservation area in the Shei-Pa National Park, the bureau said. Investigators have not yet discovered the fire's cause.
BACK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: The planned transit by the ‘Baden-Wuerttemberg’ and the ‘Frankfurt am Main’ would be the German Navy’s first passage since 2002 Two German warships are set to pass through the Taiwan Strait in the middle of this month, becoming the first German naval vessels to do so in 22 years, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. Reuters last month reported that the warships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main, were awaiting orders from Berlin to sail the Strait, prompting a rebuke to Germany from Beijing. Der Spiegel cited unspecified sources as saying Beijing would not be formally notified of the German ships’ passage to emphasize that Berlin views the trip as normal. The German Federal Ministry of Defense declined to comment. While
‘REGRETTABLE’: TPP lawmaker Vivian Huang said that ‘we will continue to support Chairman Ko and defend his innocence’ as he was transferred to a detention facility The Taipei District Court yesterday ruled that Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) be detained and held incommunicado over alleged corruption dating to his time as mayor of Taipei. The ruling reversed a decision by the court on Monday morning that Ko be released without bail. After prosecutors on Wednesday appealed the Monday decision, the High Court said that Ko had potentially been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Ko did not speak to reporters upon his arrival at the district court at about 9:10am yesterday to attend a procedural
Thirty Taiwanese firms, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), yesterday launched a silicon photonics industry alliance, aiming to accelerate the medium’s development and address the energy efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) devices like data centers. As the world is ushering in a new AI era with tremendous demand for computing power and algorithms, energy consumption is emerging as a critical issue, TSMC vice president of integrated interconnect and packaging business C.K. Hsu (徐國晉) told a media briefing in Taipei. To solve this issue, it is essential to introduce silicon photonics and copackaged optics (CPO)
The High Court yesterday overturned a Taipei District Court decision to release Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and sent the case back to the lower court. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Saturday questioned Ko amid a probe into alleged corruption involving the Core Pacific City development project during his time as Taipei mayor. Core Pacific City, also known as Living Mall (京華城購物中心), was a shopping mall in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) that has since been demolished. On Monday, the Taipei District Court granted a second motion by Ko’s attorney to release him without bail, a decision the prosecutors’ office appealed
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