DIPLOMACY
Ambassador pans crime
Taiwan’s ambassador to Panama expressed concern on Tuesday over a series of crimes targeting his compatriots and said he would ask the Central American nation to improve security. “In general terms the Chinese [sic] community is very concerned,” Simon Ko (柯森耀) said during a meeting with international journalists in the capital. Ko said there was to be a “peaceful” march in Panama yesterday that would “not be a protest, but as a repudiation and in solidarity” with the families of the victims. The comments came a week after a Dominica national was arrested on suspicion of last year’s kidnapping and killing of five young people of Chinese descent, who were buried in a house west of the capital. In addition, a Taiwanese was shot dead at his home last week in Chepo, east of the capital, creating more fear among the Asian community of about 150,000 people.
ENTERTAINMENT
‘Seediq’ subtitled in English
The production firm responsible for the Taiwanese film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale decided yesterday to release a version of the film with English subtitles so foreigners in Taiwan would be able to enjoy the movie. The film took more than NT$120 million (US$4 million) in the four days after its debut on Sept. 9, breaking the box-office record for a local film. Its gross earnings to date total more than NT$250 million. The movie was made mostly in Sediq, which is the language of one of Taiwan’s officially recognized Aboriginal tribes, while there is also some dialogue in Taiwanese and Japanese. It is currently shown with Chinese subtitles. Director Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) said he had originally thought it would be troublesome for the audience to read four lines of subtitles, including English and Chinese.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
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