ENTERTAINMENT
Patty Wu claims award
Taiwanese actress Patty Wu (吳可熙) yesterday received the Asia International Competition Best Actress Award at the SSFF & ASIA Film Festival in Osaka, Japan. Wu, who starred in two shorts at the festival, won the award for her role in The Place on the Sea (海上皇宮), an otherworldly short set in Kaohsiung, about a ghost who visits a palace in the sea with her lover for one final dance. Calling the award a big surprise and thanking the judges for choosing her, Wu said she was thrilled and touched that her performance had been so popular with the audience, adding that she hoped to learn more about acting and share her experiences with the public.
ANIMAL WELFARE
Rights education urged
The authorities are asking employers of foreign workers and recruitment agencies to step up animal rights education to help prevent incidents of cat or dog consumption, the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency said. A majority of foreign workers come from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, where it is legal to eat cats and dogs. Some of the workers are reported to have made meals using cat meat or dog meat. According to Taiwan’s Animal Protection Act (動物保護法), anyone found to have caused the death of an animal banned from slaughter is subject to a maximum prison sentence of one year, in conjunction with a fine of between NT$100,000 and NT$1,000,000 (US$3,219 and US$32,194). The Workforce Development Agency said that many foreign workers are not aware of legislation regarding the protection of animals so it is asking local employers and recruitment agencies to help raise awareness.
ENTERTAINMENT
A-mei to sing at ceremony
Pop diva A-mei (阿妹) is to join a list of performers at this year’s Golden Melody Awards ceremony, organizers of the event said yesterday. In her performance, the singer is to collaborate with Filipino dance group A-Team, which won gold at the World Hip-Hop Dance Championship last year, Taiwan Television Enterprise said in a statement. The 42-year-old singer and her album Faces of Paranoia were nominated for three Golden Melody awards this year — Best Mandarin Female Singer, Best Song of the Year and Best Album Packaging. She is to compete against Taiwan’s Lala Xu (徐佳瑩), Waa Wei (魏如萱) and A-lin (黃麗玲) and Hong Kong’s Karen Mok (莫文蔚) for the Best Mandarin Female Singer award. Among the other singers set to perform at the ceremony are Taiwan’s Show Luo (羅志祥) and Harlem Yu (庾澄慶), and Hong Kong’s Eason Chan (陳奕迅) and Sandy Lam (林憶蓮). The 26th Golden Melody Awards is to be held at Taipei Arena on June 27.
WEATHER
Heavy rain batters nation
Some areas in Hsinchu County and New Taipei City were battered by heavy rain yesterday, with Hsinchu’s Jianshi Township (尖石) and Sansia District (三峽) in New Taipei City seeing 87mm of rain between noon and 6pm, the Central Weather Bureau said. Monitoring stations in Taipei recorded 55mm of rain during the same period, and heavy rain was recorded in mountainous areas of Nantou and Chiayi counties, Tainan and Kaohsiung. Rising waters caused by the heavy rain trapped 12 adults and eight children on a sandbar in New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來) until firefighters were able to haul them to safety with a rope. No one was injured in the incident.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
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