■ ARTS
Hakka musical to debut
The first Broadway-style Hakka musical -- My Daughter's Wedding -- is scheduled to debut at Taipei's National Theater next month. The musical, produced by the Taipei National University of the Arts, is based on William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, director David Jiang (蔣維國) said. It tells the story of a successful career woman who is skeptical of love and fears marriage, Jiang said. No man dares approach her because of her rudeness -- except one, who tries to win her heart by unusual means. "The musical itself is quite Western and Broadway-like," Jiang said. "But we blended many Hakka elements to make it modern and classical at the same time -- and that's what makes it so unique."
■ CRIME
NIA to improve detention
The Ministry of Interior's National Immigration Agency (NIA) will improve facilities and personnel at its detention centers to prevent detained illegal immigrants from escaping, an agency official said on Friday. The agency will replace dilapidated iron fences, update security systems and monitor illegal immigrants' communication records to keep better control of their movements, the official said, adding that the National Police Agency has appointed 120 people in alternative military service to help cover night shifts at detention centers to increase the frequency of patrols. The immigration agency has also increased the capacity at the detention centers in Kaohsiung City and Tainan County and plans to set up new centers in Nantou County and Kaohsiung County to ease overcrowding.
■ CRIME
`Sexcapade' verdict rendered
Two defendants in former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Hsien-chou's (黃顯洲) "sexcapade" case were given their final verdicts by the Supreme Court on Friday evening. Chan Hui-hua (詹惠華) received a seven-year-and-six-month sentence while Yu Hung-tsan (游洪贊) was sentenced to six years in jail. The pair was found guilty for kidnapping and robbing Huang. The event in question began when Huang reported to police that he had been robbed, kidnapped and forced to participate in a sex party in a hotel room at Taipei's Grand Hyatt Hotel on Dec. 27, 2001. Chan called Huang on Dec. 26 and asked to meet on Dec. 27 at the hotel to discuss her mother's money problems. As Huang arrived at the hotel room, Chan and Yu called two Chinese prostitutes for a sex party.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Bird poachers on notice
The Pingtung District Prosecutors' Office, in conjunction with the Kenting National Park Administration Office, Pingtung forest rangers and police, has launched a protection campaign for wild birds in an effort to curb illegal bird-hunting, officials said yesterday. Rewards of up to NT$100,000 will be given to anyone providing information on such offenses, while convicted poachers will face prison, the prosecutors said. Every year in fall and winter, large numbers of migratory birds such as brown shrikes, Chinese sparrow-hawks and gray-faced buzzards, fly in from the north to the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) to feed and rest, the Kenting park office said. However, over the past decades, the birds -- especially the brown shrikes and gray-faced buzzards -- have become targets for local poachers. In a nod to the old adage that poachers make the best gamekeepers, the prosecutors have reinforced measures to crack down on poaching, which includes using reformed poachers as watchmen.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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