SOCIETY
Noodles mark Tsai victory
A restaurant in Kaohsiung is offering a discount on its trademark dish to celebrate the election of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as the nation’s first female president. The restaurant is to sell a bowl of big-bone noodles for NT$60 instead of its usual price of NT$90 until the end of this month. The owner, surnamed Huang (黃), said he initially planned to sell the noodles for NT$30, but changed his mind for fear of harming business for other restaurants. Huang said he set the price at NT$60 because Tsai is to turn 60 this year. He said Tsai’s victory represents women’s success and hopes that she can revitalize the sluggish economy after she assumes office. If well-received, the discount could be extended until the president-elect’s May 20 inauguration, Huang said.
POLITICS
Runner-up demands recount
DPP legislative candidate Hsu Ching-wen (徐景文) has filed for a vote recount with the Taoyuan District Court after losing an electoral race in the city with a margin of less than 0.25 percent. A judge yesterday seized the ballots and poll books at 173 voting stations in the city’s third electoral district and ordered police to guard them around the clock. Hsu made the request on Monday after losing to Apollo Chen (陳學聖) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Hsu received 77,120 votes, or 44.4896 percent, compared with Chen’s 77,510 votes, or 44.7146 percent. According to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), a recount can be requested if the difference between two candidates is less than 0.3 percent. The law stipulates that once an appeal for a vote recount is made, the results should be announced within 20 days.
CULTURE
Museum raises visitor quota
The National Palace Museum Southern Branch in Chiayi County has increased its daily visitor quota for next month from 1,750 to 5,000 to meet growing demand. The museum opened late last year on a trial basis. Under the original plan, it was intended to accept 1,000 free visits per day until the end of its trial run on March 31. The quota was then increased to 1,750 per day due to rising demand to tour the new museum, which was designed by architect Kris Yao (姚仁喜), the museum said. As the winter break for students and the Lunar New Year holiday are approaching, the museum decided to further raise the daily quota to 5,000 for next month, it said. Individuals or tour groups planning to visit the southern branch must book permits online in advance at the museum’s official Web site, with registration for visits next month to start today.
CRIME
Police search for slasher
Police are still trying to track down a Vietnamese migrant worker who allegedly slashed four of his compatriots with a knife in Nantou County over the weekend. The Nantou Precinct on Monday said that the four foreign workers were gathering at a Vietnamese eatery at about 5pm on Sunday when about seven or eight foreign workers rushed in and one of them slashed the four with a knife. The suspect and his friends fled the scene in two vehicles. The four injured Vietnamese were rushed to a hospital and their situation was stable. The most seriously injured was a worker who had two fingers cut off. Two of the injured people checked out of the hospital on Monday, while the other two remained hospitalized.They said that they did not know the suspect or why they were targeted.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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