Culture
Farmers try to break record
A total of 1,200 Taiwanese farmers will try to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest number of people simultaneously transplanting rice seedlings on a plot of land next week, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday. The farmers will attempt to transplant rice seedlings on a 2 hectare plot of land in under 25 minutes, the council said. The event will be held in Taoyuan County on Aug. 18. The purpose of the event is to promote rice consumption in Taiwan, the council said. According to Guinness World Records, the current record was set on May 6, 2010, and stands at 904 people on a 1.6 hectare plot of land in 30 minutes, 35 seconds.
Culture
Taiwanese art in Venice
A large-scale corrugated paper artwork featuring Taiwan’s natural scenery will be displayed at an international architectural exhibition in Venice later this month, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The piece is expected to attract the attention of the foreign media,” said Hsu Mien-sheng (徐勉生), director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs. The artwork, titled Enlightenment from Geography, will be on display from Aug. 27 to Nov. 25 at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, a major contemporary art show. Describing Taiwan’s presence at the show as an “exhibition of soft power,” Hsu said the foreign ministry would continue to support cultural exchanges. The paper artwork would allow visitors to gain a sense of Taiwan’s natural wonders and street scenes, said Liao Wei-li (廖偉立), one of the piece’s designers and an architect at Taiwan-based AMBi Studio, adding that the work also features audio that features sounds of nature and the city.
ENERGY
Kaohsiung aims to go solar
The Greater Kaohsiung Government aims to generate 100,000 watt-peak (Wp) of electricity from local solar panels for the whole of this year, according to the city’s Office of Building Administration. To achieve this, the city government has been cooperating with the Bureau of Energy’s Million Rooftop Photovoltaics project to encourage local households and businesses to install solar panels and expand solar energy facilities, the office said. The city government has established new laws that relax regulations for installing rooftop photovoltaic facilities and is offering subsidies as part of its solar energy execution plan, the office said. The southern city receives over 2,100 hours of sunlight per year, and is therefore better positioned to set up solar energy facilities than Taiwan’s northern and central areas, said Yang Ming-chou (楊明州), chief of the city’s Public Works Bureau. The bureau aims to build solar energy facilities with a combined size of 10 Kaohsiung National Stadiums over the next three years, Yang said.
EDUCATION
Students debate
Students from 16 universities from Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia and Australia are to go head-to-head in a debating competition tomorrow. The theme of the five-day contest will be Taiwan’s public policies, said the National Chiao Tung University’s (NCTU) Department of Communication and Technology, the organizer of the contest. Taiwan’s National Chengchi University and Soochow University will face the University of Malaya and China’s Soochow University respectively in the preliminary round of the competition, which runs from tomorrow until Thursday at NCTU’s College of Hakka Studies.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
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