Staff writer, with CNA
ART
Yo-yo Ma to visit Kaohsiung
World-renowned Grammy-winning cellist Yo-yo Ma (馬友友) next month is to give a concert at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts with his longtime collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott, the concert’s promoter Management of New Arts said in a statement on Wednesday. The duo is to perform classics including the Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Cello Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck, it said. These classics are important to Ma as vehicles of dialogue and a way to communicate emotions, the promoter said. The concert is to take place on Nov. 4, it said.
SOCIETY
Plant closed after deaths
The Taoyuan Department of Labor has ordered work to be suspended at a US chemical plant that closed down recently, after two workers died on Thursday while dismantling equipment. The case is being investigated for possible contravention of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the department said. The incident happened at about 9am when three men identified by their last names Chen (陳), Liang (梁) and Liu (劉) were working to tear down an industrial furnace at Chemours, which closed its plant in Guanyin District (觀音) on Aug. 1 after laying off 259 workers. Chen and Liang were inside the furnace when debris from its inner walls fell, hitting them on the head, the department said. At the time, Liu was standing on top of a ladder and removing the insulation bricks on top of the furnace. Chen, 57, and Liang, 58, were later pronounced dead at a hospital, local authorities said. The three men were working for a local company which was contracted by Chemours to dismantle the furnace’s inner insulation.
ENVIRONMENT
Birds arrive in Tainan
The annual black-faced spoonbill season is to start on Oct. 28, as the bird species start migrating to Taiwan for the winter, the Tainan Ecological Conservation Institute said on Wednesday. A series of events would be held in Tainan’s Cigu District (七股) in the hope of raising awareness about habitat conservation, institute director Chiu Jen-wu (邱仁武) said. The migratory birds fly to Taiwan every year around September for winter and stay until April or May the following year, before they head back to their breeding areas in Northeast Asia. The first black-faced spoonbills this year arrived in Taiwan early last month at the Cigu Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation Area, and as the weather has become cooler since the Mid-Autumn Festival, the number of birds in Tainan and Chiayi has since increased rapidly, Chiu said. As of Wednesday, 235 of the endangered species had arrived in Tainan, with 147 spotted in the reserve, he added.
TRANSPORTATION
Kinmen taxi fares to rise
Taxi fares in Kinmen County are to increase from January for the first time since 2011, the local government announced on Thursday. The Kinmen County Government said it approved the increase proposed by the association of local taxi drivers due to the ballooning cost of running business. The new fee charging system would go into effect on Jan. 1 and see fares rise faster than before in two ways. Each journey is to charge an additional NT$5 for every 200m after the first kilometer and for every accumulated two minutes during which the taxi travels slower than 5kph.
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