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Jazz fest next weekend
Local and foreign jazz musicians are inviting the public to enjoy a two-day jazz marathon in Daan Forest Park next Friday and Saturday with performances ranging from classic to fusion jazz. Nine renowned musicians from the US, the Netherlands, Belgium and Taiwan will perform in the 2007 Taipei International Jazz Festival, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs said yesterday. Department director Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) said the musicians play electronic jazz, salsa, blues and classic jazz. Saskia Laroo, Deborah Carter, Peter Van Marle, John Ruocco, Thierry Gutmann, Bart De Nolf, Fabien Degryse, Hsieh Chi-pin (謝啟彬) and Chang Kai-ya (張凱雅) will play at the festival. The festival will start at 7:30pm on the music stage of Daan Forest Park on Friday. Saturday's show will begin at 4pm, with more than 40 local jazz bands.
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Book explores Hakka issues
The Council for Hakka Affairs released a new book yesterday in response to increasing interest in Hakka studies. The book, titled Introduction to Taiwanese Hakka Studies, is a compilation by more than 20 academics specializing in Hakka culture and affairs. The book delves into 22 aspects of Taiwanese Hakka culture. Themes covered in the book include the history of Hakka settlements in Taiwan, social structure, language, art and contemporary issues, book editor Hsu Cheng-kuang (徐正光) said. "Whether you're a Hakka or not, reading this book will help you better understand Hakkas," council Minister Lee Yung-te (李永得) said at the book's release.
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Legislator in animated film
Legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標) of the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union has lent his voice to a character in a locally produced animated film titled Matsu. The film recounts various legends about Matsu, the goddess of the sea, said a spokesman for Twentieth Century Fox Taiwan, the film's distributor. Yen is the chairman of a Taichung County Matsu temple that parades its Matsu statue around Taiwan every year. The popular and highly revered deity is believed to have been sent by the bodhisattva of mercy, Guanyin, to save people in distress and is said to have been born as a mortal woman named Lin Mo-niang (林默娘) during the Northern Sung dynasty. The Chinese Cartoon Production Co spent three years making the movie and more than a year visiting more than 1,000 Matsu temples around Taiwan to seek blessings for the film from the goddess.
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Orchestra plays in Japan
The National Symphony Orchestra will perform in the Japanese Pacific Music Festival under the name "Taiwan Philharmonic." Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀), chairwoman of the National Theater and Concert Hall management center, said the orchestra is the only foreign group invited to perform at the festival. This type of cultural and artistic exchange usually provides a good means of promoting friendship and cooperation between two countries, Tchen said. The orchestra will combine Asian and Western music, including Chung Yau-kuang's (鍾耀光) Festival and Sergei Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2. The festival was established in 1990 by Leonard Bernstein, a US composer, conductor and educator. The annual program provides four weeks of courses to train up talents from around the world.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods