ANIMAL WELFARE
Free pet grooming available
The Ministry of Agriculture yesterday said it is sponsoring free grooming sessions for pets at 31 animal stylist venues across the nation today and tomorrow. The ministry’s Department of Animal Welfare and the Kennel Club of Taiwan are jointly organizing the event at partner locations in the six special municipalities, and Yilan, Hsinchu, Changhua, Yunlin and Pingtung counties, it said. Each venue would trim the hair and nails of up to 10 pets as a treat to animal lovers. The animal protection offices of Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung are also to provide free health check-ups for cats and dogs at select locations, it said. The health examinations for the northern region are to be held from 10am to midday and 2pm to 4pm today at Taipei World Trade Center’s Exhibition Hall 1. For the central region, it is to be held today at 10am to midday at the Kenkou Borough Office (坑口) and at 1pm to 3pm at the Liougu (六股) community activity center, which are both in Taichung’s Wufeng District (霧峰), it said. The southern region’s event is to be held at 2pm to 6pm today and tomorrow at the Dream Mall in Kaohsiung, it said.
Photo Courtesy of the Ministry of Agriculture
TRANSPORTATION
More trains added
Twenty-four additional trains are to run during the Lunar New Year period, with reservations to open on Tuesday next week, the Taiwan Railway Corp (TRC) said yesterday. To accommodate the demand on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25, and from Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, 24 trains are to be added, of which 16 are to have reserved seating and eight would have non-reserved seating, the TRC said. Eight Tze-Chiang Express (自強號) trains with 12 carriages of non-reserved seating, which are to travel between Qidu (七堵) and Kaohsiung, are to be added on Jan. 25 and between Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, it said. A total of 39 trains are to run directly between Taipei Station and Taichung Station during the Lunar New Year, shortening the travel time to within two hours, the TRC said.
POLITICS
Sports ministry on track
Provisions paving the way for the establishment of a new sports ministry cleared the legislature on Tuesday. The provisions would allow the Ministry of Education’s Sports Administration to be upgraded to a ministerial agency. The tasks of the planned sports ministry include formulating and implementing sports-related policy, popularizing different sports, promoting the development of the sports industry and fostering collaborations with other countries through “sports diplomacy.” It would be headed by a minister, with two deputy ministers and one vice minister. A Sports Industry Development Center would also be created as one of three public bodies under the ministry, in addition to the National Sports Training Center and the Taiwan Institute of Sports Science. The Executive Yuan began preparations for the planned ministry in August last year, in line with a policy pledge made by President William Lai (賴清德) in his inaugural speech on May 20 last year.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
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