ENTERTAINMENT
Comic artist wins in France
Taiwanese comic artist Liu Chien-fan (劉倩帆) on Thursday won second place in the digital comics category at the 45th Angouleme International Comics Festival in France. The festival, which opened on Thursday and attracts more than 200,000 visitors each year, awards several prestigious industry prizes, for which six Taiwanese were nominated this year. Liu, who was nominated in the same category as Linx (次叔), Eli Lin (林倩羽) and Asta Wu (吳雅怡), was awarded for her work Plongee (French for “diving”) about a day in the life of a deaf girl who is waiting to get a hearing aid. It was the first time that Liu submitted her work, which incorporates flash animation and GIF files, to the festival, so she was surprised to find out that she had won, she said. Taiwan was also well represented in the Young Talent competition, with artists Chin Wei (覃偉) and Arwen Huang selected from among the 20 finalists, although neither won. All six nominated artists’ work is to be on display at the festival’s Taiwan Pavilion until Jan. 28.
FOREIGN AID
Taiwan offers islands relief
As the US rebuilds in the wake of the devastation brought by Hurricane Maria, Taiwan is lending a helping hand to disaster relief efforts with a US$20,000 donation each to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. According to a statement from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Miami, Director General Philip Wang (王贊禹) visited St Croix, the largest of the islands that make up the Virgin Islands on Jan. 10 and 11. During his visit, he met with Virgin Islands Lieutenant-Governor Osbert Potter and donated US$20,000 to disaster relief efforts, to be used by the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands to rebuild after the hurricane in September. Wang made a similar trip to Puerto Rico from Jan. 16 to 18, where he presented Governor Ricardo Rossello with the US$20,000 donation. Rossello expressed his desire to visit Taiwan once more progress has been made rebuilding Puerto Rico.
TRAFFIC
Loose screws cause chaos
A truck driver surnamed Wu (吳) failed to properly secure the buckets of screws he was transporting on Thursday, causing nearly 1,000 to fall onto the road, damaging the tires of several cars and motorcycles, the Kaohsiung Police Department said. Alian Police Station chief Wu Yen-cheng (吳燕成) said that after receiving a report, police officers were dispatched to the scene to investigate and collected nearly 1,000 screws. At least 10 people have lodged complaints and demanded compensation for damaged tires, he said. The truck driver apologized and said he was willing to compensate everyone for the damage.
CRIME
Man arrested for growing pot
A Tainan resident was on Tuesday arrested by police for growing marijuana on the roof of his residence, Taipei police authorities said on Thursday. Taipei Police Department anti-drug center head Huang Ren-jian (黃壬鍵) said the man, surnamed Ting (丁), 44, was found to have engaged in suspicious activity online that led police to believe he was growing marijuana at his home in Tainan. After several months of investigation, police discovered that Ting purchased marijuana seeds from Web sites abroad and grew marijuana with other plants at his home in a bid to prevent detection, Huang said. Ting has been turned over to prosecutors for further investigation on charges of violating the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例).
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
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