ASTRONOMY
Meteor shower approaches
Stargazers will have an opportunity to see the Eta Aquarid meteor shower when it peaks on Saturday, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. Astronomy buffs can expect to see up to 50 shooting stars per hour during the peak period from Friday to Saturday, it said. Sky watchers in mountainous and suburban areas where there are no bright lights or air pollution will be able to see the shooting stars with the naked eye, it added. In central Taiwan, Hehuanshan (合歡山) or Alishan (阿里山) will be ideal viewing spots, while in northern Taiwan, Yangmingshan (陽明山) will be the best, the museum said, advising astronomy enthusiasts to watch the sky to the southeast to see the shooting stars.
SOCIETY
Facebook top choice: poll
More than 80 percent of Taiwanese have Facebook accounts, a survey on social network use by people over the age of 12 showed yesterday. Taiwanese on average have four social media accounts, with Facebook taking the lead with 90.9 percent, followed by Line at 87.1 percent, the poll by Innovative DigiTech-Enabled Applications and Services Institute showed. Line use among all age groups topped 80 percent — except for those aged 55 or above, where the percentage fell to 60 percent. Most users of social networking sites, especially YouTube and Professional Technology Temple, are male, the survey found. Only on three social networking sites — Sina Weibo, Pinterest and Snapchat — did female users outnumber males.
ENTERTAINMENT
Four films win in Houston
Four Taiwanese films on Sunday received awards at the 50th WorldFest-Houston International Film and Video Festival, an independent international festival that is one of the oldest and largest film and video competitions in the world. Lokah Laqi (只要我長大), by director Laha Mebow, won a special jury award for feature drama. The film depicts the story of three children growing up in a secluded Aboriginal village in Taiwan. The three other Taiwanese gold-award recipients were Sea Pig (海豬仔), a feature film by Huang Chun-hua (黃駿樺); Packages from Daddy (心靈時鐘), a feature film by Tsai Yin-chuan (蔡銀娟); and Barkley (小貓巴克里), an animation by Chiu Li-wei (邱立偉). The festival, which honors independent films and filmmakers, is one of the three original international film festivals in North America, the other two being in San Francisco and New York. This year’s event featured about 60 feature films and ran from April 21 to Sunday.
DIPLOMACY
Nova Scotia inks deal
Taiwan has reached a reciprocal driver’s license agreement with the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada, the ninth Candian province to sign such an arrangement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The agreement, which came into effect on Tuesday last week, allows licensed drivers from Taiwan and Nova Scotia to apply for a license in each other’s territory without having to take road or written test, the ministry said. Nova Scotia is one of Canada’s four Atlantic provinces and the second smallest. Taiwan also has reciprocal driver’s license agreements with Quebec, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan. It has similar agreements with more than 20 US states, including Maryland, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe
RSS