Even as the protests by 2,300 Taiwan railway employees were subsiding on Monday, the Taiwan Railway Labor Union (TRLU) was considering a large-scale strike, local media reported yesterday.
The union workers were protesting moves by the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA,
Chang Wen-cheng (
Union officials were also reported as saying that they expect that TRA Director-General Huang Teh-chih's signing two days ago of a document putting this promise on paper is only a trick to cool things down and that sooner or later he will break the promise.
Hsu Ta-Wen (
The TRA's Reconstruction Bureau (
According to the reports, Minister of Transportation and Communication Lin Ling-san (
In other related news, residents in the Hualien area are reported to be upset that one of their Tzu-chiang class trains has been moved by the TRA to Kaohsiung, where it has been changed into a luxurious tourist train, the Kaohsiung Do-Do Train.
The Hualien City Government is reported to have submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Transportation and Communication, while the Hualien chapter of the TRLU is demanding that development of transportation in eastern Taiwan be given priority.
The TRA is reported as saying that since 20 north- and southbound Tzu-chiang class trains stop in Hualien every day, transferring one of these trains would not affect ordinary traffic.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash