SOCIETY
Photographer wins awards
Taiwanese photographer Tzeng Chin-fa (曾進發) won nine awards, including two golds, at the Moscow International Foto Awards on Monday. Tzeng, from Miaoli County, on Tuesday said that a photograph of his 90-year-old mother using an old sewing machine won a gold award in the people and culture category. The image was part of his series Traditional Cultural Skills In Disappearance, which also features people preparing traditional food, weaving and performing a traditional face-threading treatment. His other gold-winning photo was of a couple, dressed in wedding outfits, standing at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan. Tzeng also won five silver and two bronze awards at the contest. Last year, he won 28 prizes at the awards, the most among Taiwanese competitors.
TRAVEL
Passport ranks 31st
Taiwan’s passport ranked 31st on a list of the world’s most “powerful” passports, offering its holders visa-free access to 146 destinations, according to the Henley Passport Index for the third quarter issued on Wednesday. Taiwan moved up one spot from the second quarter, the latest survey by British consulting firm Henley & Partners showed. The index includes 199 passports and 227 travel destinations. The passports were ranked based on the number of destinations to which they give holders visa-free access. Taiwan shared 31st with Mauritius and Saint Lucia. Japan remained No. 1 for the fourth consecutive year, with holders of its passport having access to 193 destinations without a visa, followed by Singapore with access to 192 locations, and South Korea and Germany tied at third with 191, the survey showed.
SOCIETY
Fukuhara finalizes divorce
Japanese table tennis star Ai Fukuhara and her Taiwanese husband, table tennis player Chiang Hung-chieh (江宏傑), on Thursday formally announced their divorce, bringing an end to their four-year marriage. In a statement released by their management company, HIM International Music, the pair said they had finalized divorce proceedings and agreed to joint custody of their two children. The high-profile couple, both 32, married in Tokyo in 2016. They have a three-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. Fukuhara, a two-time Olympic medal winner, retired from competitive table tennis in 2018 following the birth of her daughter. She was Japan’s top female table tennis player and at one point ranked world No. 4.
DEFENSE
Institute signs MOU
The Institute for National Defense and Security Research signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Czech think tank to strengthen exchanges and cooperation on research in security and national defense, it said on Wednesday. The institute, established by the Ministry of National Defense, said in a statement that it signed the MOU on June 30 in a virtual ceremony with the Czech Republic’s European Values Center for Security Policy (EVC). Representatives from the two think tanks who attended the ceremony included institute chief executive Lin Chen-wei (林成蔚) and deputy chief executives Po Hung-hui (柏鴻輝) and Ou Hsi-fu (歐錫富), as well as EVC director Jakub Janda and Richard Kraemer, head of its Taiwan office that is to open in Taipei, the statement said. Janda said that Taiwan and the Czech Republic have common values of democracy, and the EVC would share European perspectives with the institute to deepen bilateral cooperation.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
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