A series of stricter water rationing measures that were scheduled to be implemented this week in Taoyuan and parts of New Taipei City have been pushed back one week, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said yesterday.
The measures are set to go into effect on Wednesday next week instead of tomorrow, to allow for the four-day Tomb Sweeping Day weekend that begins on Friday, Mao said.
Tomb Sweeping Day is a major annual event in ethnic Chinese communities, in which families tend to the graves of their ancestors.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The postponement was implemented so the public would not be inconvenienced during the holiday, Mao said.
Rainfall over the past week helped raise the water level of Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan, allowing people living in the areas served by the reservoir one more week of normal water supply, he said.
Under the phase-three rationing measures that are to take effect next week, water supplies to Linkou (林口), Banciao (板橋) and Sinjhuang (新莊) districts of New Taipei City as well as Taoyuan, will be restricted to five days a week on a rotational basis, affecting more than 1.01 million households and industrial users.
Water supplies in other areas remain tight amid a water shortage that is the worst in Taiwan in more than 60 years, Mao said.
Everyone should remember to conserve water, he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan