TRANSPORTATION
Alishan train to resume
The Alishan Forest Railway in Chiayi County is to resume full operations on Saturday, 15 years after part of the line was closed due to damage by Typhoon Morakot, the Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office said. Eighty-five tickets for the first train on Saturday were sold out within 10 minutes of going on sale at 2pm yesterday, when online bookings for tickets from that day to July 16 started, office deputy director Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. All tickets for direct services from Chiayi Station to Alishan Station from Saturday to Wednesday next week were also snapped up within 20 minutes, Chou said. Following the completion of the new No. 42 tunnel, the railway is to reopen with a new timetable and four trains daily, he said. The full fare for a one-way journey from Chiayi to Alishan is NT$600. Ticket prices are unchanged, but fares might be adjusted after nine newly purchased locomotives and 48 cars go into service in the second half of next year, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office
MILITARY
PLA planes, ships detected
Nineteen Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and vessels were detected in the airspace and waters around Taiwan in the 24-hour period starting at 6am on Monday, including aircraft flying as close as 47 nautical miles (87km) from Keelung, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. Thirteen Chinese military aircraft were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity, of which 10 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or its extension, entering the nation’s air defense identification zone, flight information released by the ministry showed. Six PLA vessels were detected in waters near Taiwan during the same 24-hour period, the information showed. The ministry said it was closely monitoring the situation and had deployed combat air patrol aircraft, coastal missile systems and navy vessels in response.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Marshallese minister arrives
Joe Bejang, the education, sports and training minister of the Marshall Islands, arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a five-day stay, during which he is to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on expanded cooperation. The agreement is to cover enhanced collaboration between the two nations on education and sports, and expanded exchanges on Austronesian cultural research, language teacher training and volunteer dispatching, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Bejang is also to meet with Marshallese students, as well as visit Ming Chuan University, the National Center for Traditional Arts and the National Human Rights Museum, the ministry said. The visit is Bejang’s first to Taiwan since he assumed his post in January as part of a new government.
LEISURE
Swim event expanded
The Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival in September is to accept 25,000 participants in groups of at least five this year, the Puli Four-Season Swimming Association, which organizes the event, said yesterday. As registration for last year’s event filled up in three days, the association has increased the participation cap to 25,000, it said, adding that 24,636 swan in last year’s event. Registrations open next month, it said. The Sept. 15 event is scheduled for two days before Mid-Autumn Festival, the Nantou County Government said. As Mid-Autumn Festival is on a Tuesday this year and the day before is a regular work day, the Sunday event should not interfere with holiday travel, it said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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