■MUSIC
Top folk choir to perform
The world’s No. 1 folklore choir, Kearsney College Choir of South Africa, is to perform in Taiwan this week on its “Absolutely African” concert tour, organizers Skybridge Folk Arts Troupe said yesterday. The group of 58 males will present a program comprising musical genres that range from contemporary, folklore and religious songs to popular music by The Killer, ABBA, and Queen. The repertoire will include traditional Zulu songs, an anti-apartheid protest song called Weeping, and a Taiwanese and Japanese song. The choir is currently in the 17th spot in the Musica Mundi World Rankings and is the leading folklore choir among more than 3,500 such groups around the world. The choir will perform in Taichung tomorrow and in Taipei on Friday. After its performances in Taiwan, the group is scheduled to go to Japan and then to China to compete in the sixth annual World Choir Games.
■CULTURE
Yingge hosts art exhibition
A biennial exhibition featuring 43 artists from 17 countries will open this year’s International Ceramics Festival in Taipei County’s Yingge Township (鶯歌) tomorrow, the county’s Cultural Affairs Bureau said yesterday. The Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum exhibition will feature a total of 105 works, said bureau director Ching Min-liang (卿敏良). The curator of the exhibition, entitled Korero is Moyra Elliott from New Zealand, who the museum selected from 64 candidates. She said that korero means “to speak” in Maori and that she hopes viewers will have lively “conversations” with the ceramic pieces on display. People are also invited to participate and learn to make ceramics along with other activities, Ching said. The exhibition will run through the end of October.
■CRIME
Female detention opens
The government will officially open the first detention center exclusively for women tomorrow to provide a better environment for female detainees. The women’s detention center is part of a Ministry of Justice plan to improve conditions for detained women that was announced by then-minister of justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) in March. The center will be set up by transforming the current Shihlin Detention Center and will house detainees from northern Taiwanese areas including Taipei, Keelung and Taoyuan.
■HEALTH
Girls offered vaccine
Teenage girls living in remote mountainous or in low-income households will be offered free cervical cancer vaccinations from the second half of this year, a Department of Health (DOH) official said yesterday. Bureau of Health Promotion Deputy Director Chao Kun-yu (趙坤郁) said the government will earmark NT$42.16 million (US$1.27 million) to purchase the human papilliomavirus vaccine (HPV vaccine) for cervical cancer prevention, of which NT$33.6 million will be used to subsidize vaccinations for teenage girls from remote areas, and NT$8.5 million will be spent on those from low-income families. Although Taiwan has been promoting cervical smear tests for years, few women from remote areas actually have the tests, Chou said, adding that the government therefore decided to take a suggestion from the WHO and carry out a vaccination program with priority given to those from disadvantaged groups.
RSS