WEATHER
Heavy rain expected
Rain is forecast for northern and eastern Taiwan due to the proximity of Tropical Storm Trami, which was near the Philippines, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Heavy rain or extremely heavy rain is forecast in northern Taiwan, and Yilan and Hualien counties from early this morning through tomorrow with Trami predicted to cross Luzon Island and move toward the Indochinese Peninsula, CWA forecaster Liu Yu-chi (劉宇其) said. The storm, which was 800km from Taiwan’s southeastern coast, would not directly affect Taiwan, and the chances of storm warnings for Taiwan are low, Liu said. However, its outer ring would extend into the Bashi Channel between the Philippines’ Batan Island and Taitung County’s Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), he said. Warm southeasterly winds introduced by Trami are expected to converge with cold northeasterly winds over Taiwan, creating an “accompanied effect” that would deliver rain, he said. Downpours are expected from today to early tomorrow, mainly in mountainous areas in Yilan and Hualien counties, before the storm gradually moves away from Taiwan on Saturday, Liu said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Jay Chou tickets sell out
Tickets for pop star Jay Chou’s (周杰倫) four concerts at the Taipei Dome in December sold out within five minutes yesterday afternoon. The pop star is holding concerts for his Carnival World Tour at the new arena from Dec. 5 to 8, the first time he is to perform in Taiwan in years. Tickets went on sale at noon on the tixCraft Web site for the concerts, set to be the largest indoor solo concerts ever in Taiwan. The Web site recorded 890,583 concurrent visits, with 150,000 tickets purchased, JVR Music said. All of the tickets were snapped up within five minutes, the company said. The box office value of the tickets was more than NT$657 million (US$20.47 million). On Tuesday, an online tool that allowed people to practice buying tickets was accessed millions of times. A Threads account on Monday shared the tool, which recreated the tixCraft Web site, including options to choose the day, seat, number of tickets and verification method — promising people who wanted tickets a way to practice quickly placing their order once the actual sales went live. As of 9:40am yesterday, the practice site had crashed several times while logging 20 million visits.
SOCIETY
Tax refunds due next week
The second batch of income tax refunds are due to be credited on Thursday next week, totaling nearly NT$1.61 billion. There are 94,104 tax refunds in the second batch totaling about NT$1.61 billion, Ministry of Finance data showed. The refunds would be transferred to the bank accounts specified when filing. For those who did not designate where to deposit the funds, the National Taxation Bureau would issue refund vouchers, which can be redeemed at a designated financial institution until Dec. 31, the ministry said. It warned people to be wary of scam calls and other forms of fraud. The ministry said it would not notify people to redeem refunds at ATMs. The tax settlement process ended on May 31, with the three batches of refunds scheduled for July 31, Thursday next week and Jan. 20 next year. This round of refunds is mostly for taxpayers who used a barcode or filed manually, such as those who wrote in their declarations. There are also 1,666 cases of taxpayers needing to make additional payments, totaling NT$409.7 million.
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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