WEATHER
WMO retires ‘Morakot’
The name “Morakot” has been retired by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as a Pacific typhoon name because of the extensive damage and casualties it caused in 2009, particularly when it struck Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The name has been replaced on the list of acceptable names by “Atsani,” which means “lightning” in Thai, the bureau said. Typhoon names are generally retired for one of two reasons — either because they were particularly damaging or particular deadly. The bureau said the decision was made in January by the WMO’s committees for the Western North Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. The Regional Specialized Meteorological Center, located in Japan, did not make an official announcement of the change until recently. The deadliest typhoon to affect Taiwan in a century, Morakot killed more than 600 people and caused more than NT$19.5 billion (US$682.13 million) in damage.
EDUCATION
Tuition to remain the same
The Ministry of Education said on Tuesday that 72 universities would not raise tuition or miscellaneous fees during the next academic year, silencing skepticism that the fees would increase. Thirty-five public universities, including National Taiwan University, as well as 37 private universities will have a “zero percent” tuition increase, the ministry said. According to 2003 to 2004 statistics released by the ministry, tuition and fees at local universities are not only far lower than those of the US and Japan, but are also the lowest among the four Asian tigers — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
SOCIETY
Photographer wins in UAE
Fan Hui-ling (范慧玲), a Taiwanese photographer, has emerged as the top winner of an international photography contest in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), capturing the award for best photographer, as well as two silver medals. Fan, who has pursued a career in photography for more than five years, won 30,000 dirham (US$8,165) in prize money in this year’s International Emirates Photography Competition, the Government Information Office (GIO) said. Two of her works also won nominations in a competition sponsored by the International Federation of Photographic Art and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, GIO officials said. The competition drew entries from 139 countries on a theme of “Black and White through creative eyes,” the officials said.
POLITICS
Vote buyer gets jail time
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Wu Kuang-hsun (吳光訓) was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison by the Taiwan High Court’s Greater Kaohsiung branch yesterday for vote-buying, a violation of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法). Wu may appeal the case to the Supreme Court. In 2004, Wu represented the KMT in an election bid for a legislative seat in then-Kaohsiung County. The ruling said Wu handed more than NT$2 million (US$70,000) to two members of his campaign staff and directed them to buy votes in then-Cishan (旗山) and Neimen (內門) townships. The duo gave NT$500 bribes to 4,000 people to vote for Wu, the ruling said. The ruling said investigators learned of Wu’s vote-buying by monitoring his telephone calls after they received a tip that Wu was buying votes in his campaign. The ruling said the two campaign staffers had also been found guilty.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS