ENTERTAINMENT
Stars to shine in Taitung
Some of the nation’s most famous Aboriginal singers, including Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹), better known as A-mei (阿妹), will gather in Taitung County for a three-day music festival next week. Shen Kuan-yuan (沈光遠), general manager of Friendly Dog Entertainment, which is helping the Taitung County Government organize the Aug. 19 to Aug. 21 event, said Taitung was renowned for its rich Aboriginal culture and the welcoming, laid-back friendliness of its people. Hosting the event — now in its fifth year — is significant in terms of passing down the culture and tradition of Taitung to the younger generation, he said. The first day of the Taitung Music Festival will see performances by Pau-dull (陳建年, better known as Chen Jian-nian), Suming (舒米恩) and indie band Matzka (瑪斯卡). A-mei will take center stage on day two, while musician Biung and singer/actor Van Fan (范逸臣) will grace the stage on Aug. 21. This year’s festival will also feature singers from Okinawa and Hong Kong. The festival will be held at Jialulan (伽路蘭) in the East Coast National Scenic Area.
SPORTS
Paragliders head to Hualien
The nation’s largest paragliding accuracy tournament will be held in Hualien County from Thursday to Aug. 22 as part of efforts to promote Taiwan as a destination for extreme sports. The tournament is expected to draw 104 gliders from six countries, including China, Japan and the Philippines. Both individual and team events will be held in the spot landing competitions, where pilots will have to dive from a 370m high hilltop to targets in the middle of a 10m circle. “It will be a contest of international caliber, and a good chance for our gliders to learn from competitors all over the world,” event organizer Lee Kuo-chen said.
CYBERCRIME
Police probe hacking
The police said yesterday they were investigating claims by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that hackers backed by China were stealing information related to its presidential campaign. The Criminal Investigation Bureau said in a statement that it would also offer necessary assistance to the DPP to protect its information. The DPP said that in the past four months, it had traced more than a dozen cyber attacks every day to Chinese Internet protocol (IP) addresses. It said that hackers mainly targeted its presidential campaign planning as the party gears up for the January elections against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
HEALTH
More drugs in US beef
The Department of Health (DOH) said on Wednesday it has again found residues of drugs promoting lean meat in beef products imported from the US. DOH statistics show that 1.9 percent of US beef imports have been tainted with the drug ractopamine. The drug was detected in three batches of US beef products awaiting customs clearance in Taiwan, and authorities have already requested that the products be shipped back or destroyed, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Since last month, about 2.52 million kilograms of boneless beef and 130,000kg of bone-in beef from the US have passed customs inspections, according to the Ministry of Finance. In the same period, more than 50,000kg of beef imports from the US were banned from entering Taiwan because of ractopamine residues.
DIPLOMACY
Visa-free travel to Israel
The Taiwan-Israel waiver agreement took effect yesterday, allowing Republic of China (ROC) passport holders to enter Israel and stay up to 90 days every 180 days without visas, the Israel Economic and Culture Office in Taipei announced yesterday. Based on the principle of reciprocity, Taiwan granted the same privilege to citizens of Israel, the 114th country or region in the world that Taiwanese nationals could visit without visas or with landing visas, and the first in the Middle East. Ali Yang (楊心怡), deputy director-general of the ministry of foreign affairs’ Department of West Asian Affairs, said the ministry was negotiating visa-waiver agreements with two other countries in the Middle East region. Meanwhile, the ministry said it had been informed by Kosovo on Monday that it had granted ROC passport holders with supporting documents visa-free entry for stays of up to 90 days, effective immediately.
LEGISLATION
New rules for Red Cross
Following public criticism of the Red Cross Society’s transparency in the handling of donations, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) has recently passed draft revisions to the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China Act (中華民國紅十字會法) to tighten regulations on the group’s fundraising. The ministry’s Department of Social Affairs director Huang Pi-hsia (黃碧霞) said yesterday that while the society was allowed to make fundraising decisions on its own, the revisions would require the group to apply for permission from the ministry, just like other non-governmental organizations, before launching a fundraising campaign. The revisions passed by the ministry would be sent to the Executive Yuan for further review before being forwarded to the Legislative Yuan for final approval, Huang added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
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