28,000 hectares of arable land, mainly rice paddies, in Hsinchu, Miaoli and Taichung will not be provided with water for irrigation for the spring harvest, due to lack of rain in the last half of this year.
Local farmers will be compensated and subsidized for any stoppage measures imposed.
Also, from Jan. 6, water already being provided under lower pressure for businesses and households in those regions will be further limited.
Big industry users who consume over 1,000 units of water per month will be asked to reduce their water consumption by 7 percent.
Since June, rainfall in Hsinchu, Miaoli and Taichung totaled less than 800 millimeters, the lowest level in 52 years.
The Central Weather Bureau has announced they have finished a project to install undersea cables along Taiwan’s east and south coasts.
The goal is reducing casualties by faster detection of earthquakes and tsunami.
Reuters is reporting Taiwan has agreed to buy almost 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including 10 million from AstraZeneca Plc, the government said on Wednesday.
The vaccines will arrive by March at the earliest.
Taiwan’s population is only a little larger, at about 23.5 million.
Taiwan’s Legislature on Tuesday passed an amendment to a law on sexual harassment to expand the penalty to same-sex perpetrators by replacing the phrase “the opposite sex” with “others.”
Hardinge Inc, a Pennsylvania maker of machine tool equipment and technology has announced plans to relocate manufacturing currently conducted in Taiwan to its existing facility in upstate New York.
The company’s site in Taiwan will retain its engineering, sales, and fulfillment capabilities after the transition.
Taiwan’s machine tooling engineers are among the best in the world, so it makes sense to keep those operations here.
Both China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Airways have announced they will suspend all passenger and cargo flights to and from London in January in the wake of a surge in cases caused by a new, highly infectious variant of COVID-19 found in the United Kingdom.
Resumption of flights will depend on how the pandemic unfolds.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that given the quarantine requirements and other public health measures imposed in both countries, the possibility of a Taiwanese delegation visiting Washington, D.C. for the presidential inauguration is low.
Image courtesy of AstraZeneca’s media centre
