CULTURE
Local belly dancer wins title
Belly dance teacher Alida Lin (林介文) won first place in the dance competition at the “Rags, of Course” dance festival held in Egypt from July 23 to Monday last week. Lin started dancing at age three, but did not begin belly dancing until six years ago. She said this year’s festival sponsors offered classes to nearly 100 participants from around the world, and her long and arduous hours of practice helped her earn the prize. Lin, who won a championship in Beijing in 2011, said she practices at least two hours a day, and as a teacher she must study every detail of the art, which originated in the Middle East. She said she was pleased to beat dancers from so many countries, including Russia, the US, South Korea, Japan and China, “particularly Russia, whose nationals have dominated previous festivals.” Lin, who teaches belly dance in major cities in Taiwan, said she hopes to see more local dancers win honors on the global stage — which she said she has proved is not impossible and believes “every Taiwanese can do, too.”
TRAVEL
Passports gain advantages
Republic of China passport holders can now obtain visa waivers, landing visas or e-visas to 148 countries and territories, as five more countries and one region granted Taiwan preferential treatment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. India, Qatar and Ivory Coast have included Taiwan in their e-visa system; Iran and Armenia have granted Taiwanese landing visa treatment; and Somaliland, a breakaway state in Somalia, has given Taiwanese visa waiver status, the ministry said. However, the Iranian government reserves the right to deny landing visas to travelers if they have an Israeli visa in their passports, the ministry said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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