More than a year after horrific gas pipeline blasts claimed over 30 lives, Kaohsiung City is mending its wounds, seeking answers, and assigning blame. First the ground shook. Milliseconds later came fireballs shooting as high as 50 meters into the sky. Roads split in half, swallowing cars and motorcycles. Vehicles were tossed onto four-story rooftops….
Proposed legislation would require religious foundations to establish internal financial auditing systems. Earlier this year, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan’s largest and arguably most revered charity organization due to its efficient response at times of natural disasters, quite unexpectedly found itself under heavy attack by the domestic media and netizens over the…
Rebuffed in its bid to be among the bank’s founders, Taiwan is expected to apply for regular membership. Several hours before the midnight deadline on the evening of March 31, Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford sent a fax to the preparatory office for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing expressing Taiwan’s desire to…
Despite controversy and heavy fines, Uber persists in seeking its niche in the Taiwan market. Since the market launch in Taiwan of ride-sharing service/mobile app company Uber in mid-2013, the company has seen impressive growth on the island. Both ridership and the driver pool have increased by an average of 30% a month, according to…
PREVAILING WINDS — The maps chart seasonal prevailing winds in East Asia. The map on the left shows the winter winds coming south off of the Korean Peninsula, which eventually hit Taiwan from the east. Located in Asia’s wet subtropical zone, Taiwan receives 2.6 times more rainfall than the global average – yet it is…
The Suhua Highway, now under construction, should reduce accidents, but will it spoil one of the more pristine parts of the island? By Jens Kastner From time immemorial, people travelling overland to and from Taiwan’s east coast have done so at the risk of life and limb. But at long last the days of landslides…
