WEATHER
Sea warning likely today
A sea warning is likely to be issued today as a tropical storm southeast of Taiwan approaches, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The Tropical Storm Hagupit, which was 750km east of the nation’s southern tip at 2pm yesterday, was moving at 20km per hour in a northwesterly direction, the bureau said. The Hagupit storm might cause surging waves starting today, the bureau said. Tropical Storm Sinlaku, which formed yesterday afternoon south of China’s Hainan Island, is not expected to affect Taiwan, but would move toward southeast China and Vietnam over the next few days, forecasters said.
CRIME
Chinese dredgers detained
The Coast Guard Administration yesterday said that it arrested eight Chinese crew members aboard a China-registered vessel that was caught dredging sea sand in waters around the Penghu archipelago. The Hai Sheng 877 was intercepted at about 5am on Thursday after it was spotted illegally operating 56 nautical miles (104km) southwest of Cimei Township (七美). Coast guard personnel seized nearly 600 tonnes of sea sand. The crew members were turned over to the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office in Kaohsiung pending further investigation. The coast guard said that from January to this month, its personnel chased 2,988 Chinese dredging vessels found to be operating illegally in Taiwanese waters.
CULTURE
Miaobei festival scheduled
A festival featuring top orchestras and theater groups from across the country is to be held in Miaoli County for the first time in October to promote the appreciation of culture in the area. The Miaobei Arts Festival — scheduled for Oct. 2 to Dec. 20 at the Miaobei Arts Center — aims to attract locals and visitors from across the country to visit Miaoli, center artistic director Lin Chia-ying (林佳瑩) said. Some of the groups that are to perform include the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Godot Theatre Company and the Shining Youth League of Tang Mei Yun Taiwanese Opera Company, Lin added. Information on performance times and scheduling can be found on the Miaobei Art Center’s Web site.
ENTERTAINMENT
VR projects go to Venice
Two local virtual reality (VR) projects — Great Hoax: The Moon Landing and Jiou Jia (Home) — have been included in the “Venice VR Expanded” section of this year’s Venice Film Festival. The two projects would be among 44 immersive works from 24 countries to be presented online during the 77th Venice International Film Festival, held Sept. 2 to 12. The comedy Great Hoax: The Moon Landing, by Taiwanese film director John Hsu (徐漢強) has been shortlisted for an award with 30 other immersive projects. The 17-minute film, a collaboration with Argentinian VR, film and animation studio 3dar, allows the viewer to play an astronaut faking a moon landing, while listening to the directions of a film director. Jiou Jia (Home), a collaboration by Taiwanese director Hsu Chih-yen (許智彥) and Funique VR Studio, was selected to be presented in the out-of-competition section with eight other works. The 18-minute film portrays a summer afternoon when various family members return to the family property to visit their grandmother.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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