ART
Yo-yo Ma to visit Kaohsiung
World-renowned Grammy-winning cellist Yo-yo Ma (馬友友) next month is to give a concert at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts with his longtime collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott, the concert’s promoter Management of New Arts said in a statement on Wednesday. The duo is to perform classics including the Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Cello Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck, it said. These classics are important to Ma as vehicles of dialogue and a way to communicate emotions, the promoter said. The concert is to take place on Nov. 4, it said.
SOCIETY
Plant closed after deaths
The Taoyuan Department of Labor has ordered work to be suspended at a US chemical plant that closed down recently, after two workers died on Thursday while dismantling equipment. The case is being investigated for possible contravention of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the department said. The incident happened at about 9am when three men identified by their last names Chen (陳), Liang (梁) and Liu (劉) were working to tear down an industrial furnace at Chemours, which closed its plant in Guanyin District (觀音) on Aug. 1 after laying off 259 workers. Chen and Liang were inside the furnace when debris from its inner walls fell, hitting them on the head, the department said. At the time, Liu was standing on top of a ladder and removing the insulation bricks on top of the furnace. Chen, 57, and Liang, 58, were later pronounced dead at a hospital, local authorities said. The three men were working for a local company which was contracted by Chemours to dismantle the furnace’s inner insulation.
ENVIRONMENT
Birds arrive in Tainan
The annual black-faced spoonbill season is to start on Oct. 28, as the bird species start migrating to Taiwan for the winter, the Tainan Ecological Conservation Institute said on Wednesday. A series of events would be held in Tainan’s Cigu District (七股) in the hope of raising awareness about habitat conservation, institute director Chiu Jen-wu (邱仁武) said. The migratory birds fly to Taiwan every year around September for winter and stay until April or May the following year, before they head back to their breeding areas in Northeast Asia. The first black-faced spoonbills this year arrived in Taiwan early last month at the Cigu Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation Area, and as the weather has become cooler since the Mid-Autumn Festival, the number of birds in Tainan and Chiayi has since increased rapidly, Chiu said. As of Wednesday, 235 of the endangered species had arrived in Tainan, with 147 spotted in the reserve, he added.
TRANSPORTATION
Kinmen taxi fares to rise
Taxi fares in Kinmen County are to increase from January for the first time since 2011, the local government announced on Thursday. The Kinmen County Government said it approved the increase proposed by the association of local taxi drivers due to the ballooning cost of running business. The new fee charging system would go into effect on Jan. 1 and see fares rise faster than before in two ways. Each journey is to charge an additional NT$5 for every 200m after the first kilometer and for every accumulated two minutes during which the taxi travels slower than 5kph.
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
HEALTHCARE: Following a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling, Taiwanese traveling overseas for six months would no longer be able to suspend their insurance Measures allowing people to suspend National Health Insurance (NHI) services if they plan to leave the country for six months would be abolished starting Dec. 23, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday. The decision followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and that it would invalidate the regulation automatically unless the NHIA amended it to conform with the Constitution. The agency would amend the regulations to remove the articles and sections that allow the suspension of NHI services, and also introduce provisional clauses for those who suspended their NHI services before Dec. 23, Shih said. According to
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
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