■ Transport
Link goes underground
Taipei City Government's Department of Rapid Transit Systems yesterday announced that the bureau will construct an underground MRT line that connects with CKS International Airport, rather than build an overhead link. Although the Ministry of Transportation and Communications planned to construct an overhead MRT line to the airport, bureau director Fan Liang-hsiu (范良鏽) said the central plan will destroy the city's urban landscape and bring chaos to Taipei's traffic. Fan said the bureau would ask the central government to increase the line's budget and will try its best to finish the underground as soon as possible because underground construction would add two years to the project.
■ Politics
Police want PFP lawmaker
Kaohsiung police said yesterday they wanted a lawmaker to be prosecuted for standing atop a truck that rammed a courthouse gate guarded by police during a post-election riot. Police want prosecutors to charge People First Party (PFP) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) because several officers were injured in the melee, said the city's police chief, Hsieh Hsu-nen (謝秀能). Chiu told reporters he was on top of the truck because he was trying to calm the protesters. But Hsieh didn't believe Chiu's account. "I told him the protest was illegal and asked him to halt immediately," Hsieh said. TV footage showed Chiu standing on a campaign truck that repeatedly rammed a Kaohsiung courthouse gate guarded by a group of police. Chiu was also part of a crowd that stormed the Central Election Commission headquarters in Taipei last Friday.
■ Politics
Ting and Tsai offer to resign
Following Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesman Alex Tsai's (蔡正元) offer to resign on Monday, the director of the KMT's Organization and Development Affairs Committee, Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), also submitted his resignation yesterday. Both Tsai and Ting, whose resignations were not accepted, cited unsatisfactory performance in KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) failed presidential election bid as the reason for their wish to quit. Lien, paired with People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), lost to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by a margin of less than 30,000 votes. Lien is contesting the election result in court. KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正), noting that the election result remained uncertain, had asked Tsai and Ting to stay. "It is natural for party directors to resign from their post as a gesture of taking responsibility," Ting said. "But given that the outcome of this election is controversial, the secretary-general has asked us to remain at our posts."
■ Cross-strait ties
Kinmen learns about links
In an effort to improve the efficacy of the current "three small links," the Kinmen County government hosted a seminar yesterday attended by more than 130 officials from local and central authorities. The symposium, chaired by Kinmen County Deputy Commissioner Yang Chung-chuan (楊忠全), attracted officials from the Kinmen County government, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) as well as other government agencies stationed on the outlying island. Officials from the MAC's Department of Legal Affairs and Department of Economic Affairs were in charge of explaining the newest rules of the "small three links" to attendees.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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