Taiwan

At least 41 people were killed in an accident involving a train on the first day of the holiday in eastern Taiwan. The train derailed in a tunnel. Dozens of passengers are still trapped.   The train from Taipei to Taitung with 350 people on board ran in Hualien, in eastern Taiwan, on the first day of the Qingming Festival on Friday morning. That is a holiday weekend in early April that mobilizes a considerable number of Taiwanese every year. It is still uncertain what caused the accident. Presumably, the train collided with a poorly positioned truck of workers who were working nearby. As a result, they came into interaction with the tunnel wall, after which several carriages flew off the tracks. The balance is already very tough: according to authorities, at least 41 people have d...

Taiwan will adopt the design of passports to prevent citizens from being mistaken for Chinese people abroad. The island state is formally called the Republic of China, and that is also stated on the travel documents.   According to the authorities, residents sometimes have difficulty entering certain countries. The new passport, due to be issued in January, features the word "Taiwan" much more prominently. The big English words "Republic of China" are being deleted. These can confuse because communist China has a similar official name: People's Republic of China. The Taiwanese parliament also approved a proposal to change the name of the national airline earlier this year. It has the name China Airlines and is therefore sometimes mistaken for a Chinese organization. The Chinese na...