ENVIRONMENT
City to charge for utensils
The Taipei City Government is to begin charging take-out customers for disposable utensils and containers at 66 city-operated facilities, starting with Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital yesterday, the Department of Environmental Protection said yesterday. Lin Yutang House, Grass Mountain Chateau and food stalls operating in the No. 3 Area of the Taipei Arena MRT Station are to follow suit by the end of the year, while other outlets will adopt the rule by July 5 next year, the department said. The charges are NT$2 for a meal container and NT$1 each for a bowl, a pair of chopsticks or a spoon, it said. The measure is expected to reduce the number of single-use disposable utensils annually by up to 5 million, it added.
SOCIETY
MRT flower shops open
With flower exports declining 20 to 30 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is working with Taipei Metro to operate a series of flower shops inside MRT stations to sell locally produced blooms. The second of the stores had its official opening on Wednesday at the Songjiang Nanjing Station following a two-month trial run during which it averaged sales of NT$4,000 to NT$5,000 per day, and hit a daily high of NT$12,000, said Evelyn Lu (呂瀅瀅), chairwoman of Taipei Flower Auction, which buys the flowers from local growers and sells them through the stores. Ghost Month, which started this year on Wednesday, generally gives a boost to flower sales, as many people purchase them to appease the spirits, Lu said. Sales are also expected to surge in the runup to Qixi Festival, which falls on Tuesday next week. The metro flower shops sell everything from orchids to roses, balloon flowers and lilies. The first store opened at Zhongshan MRT Station on July 25.
DIPLOMACY
AIT names Kaohsiung head
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Wednesday named Mason Yu (禹道瑞) as the head of its Kaohsiung branch, saying he had taken office following the departure of his predecessor. Yu, a former deputy chief at the branch office, replaced Matthew O’Connor, who recently completed his three-year tenure and has left Taiwan. Yu joined the US Department of State in 2001 and most recently served as special assistant to the assistant secretary of the Bureau of Administration, an AIT news release said. He has also served in several posts overseas, including in Singapore, Saudi Arabia and China, the AIT said. A native of Seattle, Washington, Yu graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Mass Communications and earned a Master of Military Studies from the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College, it said.
CULTURE
Movie funding pulls NT$24m
A crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to produce a movie series based on Taiwan’s history has raised more than NT$24 million (US$813,229) from more than 6,000 people, according to the campaign’s Web site. The first phase of the campaign, which runs until Oct. 10, is aimed at raising NT$100 million. Taiwanese filmmaker Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), who directed the popular two-part epic film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊), based on the 1930 Wushe Incident in central Taiwan, aims to release a trilogy — Siraya, Teyouan and Formosa in 2024, 2025 and 2026 respectively. More information on the film series can be found at the Taiwan Trilogy Film Fundraising Project-Phase 1 Web site.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
The airspace around Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) is to be closed for an hour on July 25 and July 23 respectively, due to the Han Kuang military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. The annual exercise is to be held on Taiwan proper and its outlying islands from July 22 to 26. During last year’s exercise, the military conducted anti-aircraft landing drills at the Taoyuan airport for the first time, for which a one-hour no-fly ban was issued. Based on a live-fire bulletin sent out by the Maritime and Port Bureau, the nation’s
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we