SOCIETY
Lantern festivals scheduled
The first of two Pingsi Sky Lantern Festivals is to take place during the Lantern Festival in New Taipei City on March 2, featuring lantern launches, performances and other activities, the city’s Tourism and Travel Department said yesterday. The festival is to take place at Shifen Sky Lantern Square from 5:30pm to 8:30pm, and is to feature eight launches of lanterns, as well as stations staffed by Sanrio-themed mascots. Participants interested in launching a lantern that evening can get a free coupon from event planners, starting at 10am. New Taipei City authorities are partnering this year with the local branch of Sanrio Co, the Japanese company behind Hello Kitty and other popular cartoon characters. The second festival is scheduled on Sept. 24 during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
CRIME
Bali detains Taiwanese
Eight Taiwanese suspects in a cross-border fraud ring who were recently arrested by Indonesian authorities remained detained on Bali yesterday, while 55 Chinese members of the ring were returned to China, Indonesian police said. The Taiwanese are suspected members of a telecom fraud ring that also includes 55 Chinese, four Indonesians and one Malaysian. They were tracked down by Indonesian law enforcement officials at four locations in Bali on Jan. 11 and accused of swindling money from people in Taiwan and China. Taiwan’s representative office in Jakarta was reported to be in talks with the Indonesian authorities, in the hope that the men can be returned to Taiwan.
CRIME
Japan jails Taiwanese
A Taiwanese man was on Thursday given a 25-year sentence and fined ￥10 million (US$91,000) by the Naha district court on the charge of masterminding the attempted smuggling of illicit drugs into Japan. The 45-year-old man, whose identity was not revealed, was caught while trying to move 597kg of methamphetamines to his yacht from an unidentified ship in the East China Sea in May 2016. “This is an organized criminal act that is of a magnitude that would have inevitably caused harm to Japan,” the presiding judge in the court in Okinawa’s capital said. Two other Taiwanese involved in the case were each sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined ￥5 million in November last year.
TRAFFIC
New route to partly open
The first section of the Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) improvement project, a road that cuts through the mountains along the east coast, is to open on Monday at 4pm, in time for surging travel demand around the Lunar New Year holiday, the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said yesterday. The 9.7km stretch passes from Yilan County’s Suao (蘇澳) to Hualien County’s Dongao (東澳), the DGH said. The new road includes the Suao Tunnel, the Baimi Bridge, the Yongle Bridge, the Dongao Tunnel and the Dongyue Tunnel, after which it rejoins the original highway. The first section is expected to be safer and faster than the existing road, taking 10 minutes instead of 30, the DGH said, but added that commercial vehicles are currently not allowed on the route. There is to be a maximum speed limit of 60kph and a ban on overtaking vehicles. The full Suhua Highway overhaul project is to be completed by the end of next year, which would reduce travel time between Yilan and Hualien from about two-and-a-half hours to 80 minutes, the transport ministry said.
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
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