■FILM
‘Port of Return’ up for award
The Taiwanese animated film Port of Return (靠岸) has been nominated for Best Feature Film at this year’s 14th Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival, the film’s production company said yesterday. The film will compete with four other films from the Czech Republic, Japan, Denmark and South Korea next month, Spring House Entertainment Inc said. The festival is an annual competition for animation, cartoon and related genres that has been held in South Korea since 1995. A total of 1,332 films from 52 countries will be shown at this year’s festival, the company said. Port of Return, directed by cartoonist Chang Jung- kuei (張榮貴), has been touted as a milestone for the local animation industry. The film took four years to complete and reportedly cost NT$120 million (US$3.7 million). It will soon become the first animated film screened on the Kland Channel, a mobile phone service established by Spring House Entertainment.
■SOCIETY
Dragon Boat race gearing up
More than 130 teams from across Taiwan and around the world will participate in this year’s Taipei International Dragon Boat Championships, Taipei Sports Office, the sponsoring organization, said on its Web site. Taipei European School, Taipei Japanese School, the New Zealand Commerce and Industrial Office and the Philippine national team will join the races from today until Sunday at Taipei’s Dajia Riverside Park. In addition to the annual championships, the festivities will feature riverside fun including food stands, games, concerts and other activities, the organizers said. To celebrate the coming Flora Expo, “flower fairies” — the exposition’s mascot — will attend the festival and be available for photo opportunities. In a salute to the Dragon Boat Festival’s “egg standing” tradition, in which people are said to have a year of good luck if they can balance an egg upright at noon on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, organizers will hold an egg-dropping competition.
■SOCIETY
Lake to host mass wedding
Couples with special love stories about Sun Moon Lake will have a chance to hold their weddings at the scenic area in a group wedding organized by the local tourism authority. After the success of last year’s group wedding, the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration said it would choose 20 couples to participate in this year’s event on July 9 and July 10. The administration said most of the 10 couples who participated last year did so because Sun Moon Lake played a role in their relationship, and that this year couples would be asked to share their stories about the resort. Selected couples will be able to purchase a wedding package worth NT$50,000 (US$1,545) for just NT$7,999, including the wedding, one night’s accommodation, meals at the hotel and a boat tour.
■SPORTS
Photo competition to be held
The German trade office in Taipei yesterday invited Taiwanese to take part in a photography competition that will be held during this year’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa from today to July 11. Creative and interesting photos of scenes related to the World Cup may be submitted on the office’s Web site during the one-month period, after which three photos will be selected for the top prizes, the Deutsches Institut Taipei said. More information on the photography competition can be obtained at: www.taipei.diplo.de/.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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