LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Taiwan: Taipei Economic
built 627 days ago
Taiwan is grappling with the environmental ramifications of building one of Asia's richest economies through a decades-long commitment to economic growth. Environmental issues include the pollution of air and water in urban areas, stores of nuclear and toxic wastes, loss of fisheries and coastal ecosystems, and an overall degradation of the country's natural landscape.
Source:
Taiwan has a current population of just over 22 million. The most heavily populated city is Taipei with more than 2.7 million people. Other large cities are Kaohsiung with 1,435,000 residents, Taichung with 860,000 and Tainan with 708,000.
Source:
Most cities and towns in Taiwan are famous for special foods, because of their passion for food and influences from many different countries. For example, Ilan is famous for its mochi, a sticky rice snack often flavored with sesame, peanuts or other flavorings. Yonghe, a suburb of Taipei, is famous for its soy milk and breakfast foods. Taichung is famous for its sun cakes (太陽餅 tàiyáng bǐng), a kind of sweet stuffed pastry and the best place to buy some is arguably Taiyang Tang (太陽堂) along Freedom Road (自由路), where the pastry was supposedly invented. In Chiayi, it's square cookies... called cubic pastry, crispy layered cookies cut into squares and sprinkled liberally with sesame seeds. Tainan is particularly famous among the Taiwanese for its abundance of good food and should be a stop for all gourmands, and the most famous dish is arguably the coffin bread (棺材板).
Source:
Although Taiwan did not sign the Kyoto protocol, the government is working to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In June 2005, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) announced plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 170-million metric tons per year as of 2025. The MOEA plans to impose restrictions on emissions from Taiwan's top 200 energy consumption enterprises, including the Formosa Plastics Group and the China Petroleum Corporation. In 2005, the enterprises must establish voluntary reduction volumes. In the medium term (2008-2015) and long term (2016-2025), the enterprises' factories must decrease the density of their carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Source:
In Taiwan you need to hail the bus you want as you see it coming - much like hailing a taxi. Both end points of the route are listed on the front of the bus in Chinese and sometimes English, so it is important to make sure the bus you get on is going the right direction. In Taipei, you sometimes pay getting on the bus and sometimes getting off (whether with cash or the ubiquitous Easy Card). As you get into the bus there will be an illuminated sign opposite you. If the first character is 上 pay as you get in, if it is 下 pay as you get out (or just watch the other people).
Source:
Taiwan celebrated the end of half a century of martial law in the 1990s with a conscious strategy to prioritize health, education and economic progress rather than military spending. This is not a decision that the Bush administration would necessarily understand. While there is a consensus that the Taiwanese military does need to re-equip to face the threat from the PRC, legislators have been haggling about the precise nature of those needs, and there is a strong suspicion that some of the items the United States is hawking are big on bucks and low on bangs. But politically, Taiwan may end up paying the price to ensure support in Washington, where both houses of Congress in bipartisan resolutions have called for Taiwanese officials to have free access to the United States. [10]
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Taipei Economic