WEATHER
Bureau forecasts heavy rain
The first stationary front of the plum rain season, which tends to linger over the same region, is expected to affect Taiwan from Friday and bring heavy rain nationwide, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Accompanied by northeasterly winds, the frontal system could continue through Monday next week, introducing weather such as torrential rainfall or thunderstorms, forecasters said. Temperatures are likely to drop significantly from Friday, with daytime highs dropping by about 5°C and lows dropping by about 3°C, said Daniel Wu (吳德榮), a former bureau Weather Forecast Center director who is now an adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University. Temperatures at the weekend could range from 19°C to 23°C in northern Taiwan, 20°C to 25°C in central Taiwan and 22°C to 27°C in southern Taiwan, the bureau said.
SOCIETY
Lucky bills bring in NT$66m
New Taiwan dollar bills with special serial numbers have brought in a net NT$66 million (US$2.23 million) to the national coffers from auctions over the past decade, the central bank said. At the biannual auctions that began in 2012, the NT dollar bills generated total sales of NT$89.88 million, it said on Thursday. The net profit from those auctions, which amounted to NT$66 million over the past 10 years, has been put into the Treasury, the central bank said. The next auction from Thursday next week to May 24 is to offer 4,592 “lucky” bills in NT$100, NT$500 and NT$1,000 denominations, it said. In Taiwan, bills bearing serial numbers that sound similar to auspicious phrases in Mandarin are usually in high demand, the central bank said, citing examples such as 666666, 888888, 168168 and 168888.
CRIME
Funeral home punishments
Prosecutors in Kaohsiung on Friday launched a program for first-time drunk drivers that defers their prosecutions, but requires them to help out at a local funeral home, hoping it will prevent them from driving under the influence again. The Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office said 11 drunk driving offenders were sent to a funeral home for two hours of community service on Friday under the terms of their deferred prosecution, and were asked to clean the cosmetic and casketing rooms, the autopsy room and body freezers. In the past, people suspected of drunk driving would be sent to classes on drunk driving laws, but the Ciaotou office felt that approach did not yield much of a change in behavior, the office said in a statement. People caught driving under the influence without causing an accident can face a prison sentence of three years and a fine of up to NT$300,000.
CULTURE
Indigenous art in the US
The Washington-based Hillyer Art Gallery on Saturday opened an exhibition titled “Fluid Boundaries” to showcase four Taiwanese indigenous artists, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) said. TECO said its cultural division organized the exhibition and that the artwork being displayed was on loan from the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, which curated the event. The exhibition reflects the fluidity of the artists’ identities and presents an interpretation of indigenous culture with an added emphasis on female creators, cocurator Hsu Po-han (徐柏涵) said. The creations were specially selected to introduce a US audience to Taiwan, she said. Entrance is free and the exhibition runs through June 26.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
NO RIGHT: After 38 years of martial law under the former KMT government, the KMT is the least qualified to accuse others of harboring such intentions, DPP officials said The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of creating a stir on social media by implying that the government supports martial law, adding that the KMT is the least qualified to criticize others after decades of martial law in Taiwan under the former KMT regime. After South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol late on Tuesday night declared martial law (which was rescinded six hours later), the DPP caucus issued a statement on Thread saying that Taiwan’s legislature was facing a situation similar to that in South Korea, which had prompted Yoon to declare martial law. “The South
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
RSS