The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) has earmarked NT$31.6 billion to implement the "Keelung River Overall Improvement Project" and has been conducting a series of measures to reduce flooding and protect the safety of residents in low-lying areas around the country, a CEPD spokesman said yesterday.
The spokesman said that as the country is prone to typhoons and often suffers damage from the strong wind and torrential rain brought by typhoons, the CEPD has made water management and flood prevention one of its main goals.
Noting that in the past the CEPD has focused its water treatment efforts on construction work, the spokesman said that to keep abreast of environmental protection trends, it had adjusted its strategy and adopted the measure of integrated catchment management with the aim of creating sustainable water resources.
PROTECTING RESIDENTS
Citing the "Keelung River Overall Improvement Project" as an example, the spokesman said the CEPD allocated NT$316 billion between 2002 and 2005 for the project, which he said includes measures to divert water from the upstream section of the river and to conduct dredging of the downstream section designed to protect the river from flooding for 200 years and protect the safety as well as property of the 2 million residents in the greater Taipei area.
The spokesman said that during the construction of the Yuansantze Diversion System -- the main part of the project -- in 2004, the system was activated three times to make emergency diversions to lower the high water level caused by a Sept. 11 rainstorm followed by typhoons Nock-ten and Nanmadol later that year.
FLOODWATER
When Typhoon Krosa hit the nation on Oct. 6 last year, another flood diversion was conducted to maintain a safe water level, the spokesman said, adding that up to 15.6 million tonnes of floodwater had been diverted into the sea.
From 2005 in central Taiwan, the government has implemented the third stage of a flood control construction project on Tali River (
This project, which was constructed at a cost of NT$25.7 billion and stretches over 36.3km, is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.
The government has budgeted NT$50 billion for a Kaoping River (
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back