MUSIC
Bands to rock the world
Reggae-rock band Matzka and eight other bands are set to rock stages across the world with the backing of the Ministry of Culture. Matzka, Taiwanese-Canadian rock band io and electronic band Red are set to perform at Canadian Music Week next month, according to the ministry. Later in the month, rapper MC HotDog and rock bands Quarterback and The 13 Band will perform in Singapore at the Music Matters festival. Rock bands Monkey Pilot, My Skin Against Your Skin and Red-Flower are also slated to play at the Java Rockin’land festival in Indonesia later this year, the ministry said. Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) said bands were an easier way to reach out to young people than films and performing arts, adding that she believes the musicians will help people abroad learn more about Taiwan.
SOCIETY
Koala cubs to debut
Three newborn koalas are expected to debut at the Taipei Zoo three months from now after they were discovered in their mothers’ pouches, zoo officials said on Monday. Zookeepers found the joeys during an examination of the three female koalas on April 14, 35 days after they mated. The gestation period for koalas is between 34 and 36 days, after which newborn joeys find their way into their mothers’ pouches, where they nurse for up to six months. Zoo personnel helped the koalas mate early last month after seeing them climb down from trees and walk backward, which are signs they are in heat. While the happy news is likely to draw more crowds, officials asked the public to keep the noise down when visiting the koala enclosure, so as not to disturb the mothers tending to their joeys. The zoo currently has 13 koalas.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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