MILITARY
Drills might disrupt flights
Flights at seven airports could be affected by the Han Kuang military exercises that are being held until Friday next week, the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said on Tuesday. The extent of disruptions would depend on daily drill operations and airspace conditions, it said in a statement. Flights at Taichung International Airport might be affected from Sunday to Tuesday next week, while Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport could see disruptions from Sunday to Thursday next week, it said. Kaohsiung International Airport, Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and Tainan Airport might be affected on Sunday and Wednesday next week, and again on Monday in Tainan. Hualien Airport might face flight disruptions on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, while Chiayi Airport could be affected on Wednesday, it added. Air traffic authorities might implement control measures as needed, which could result in flights being rescheduled earlier or later, and disruption after the exercises conclude, the CAA said.
MUSIC
Composer wins Apulia prize
Taiwanese composer Chiang Yi-chen (江宜臻) has become the first Asian and the first woman to win an award at Italy’s Apulia Soundtrack Awards, held from Thursday last week to Sunday. Chiang, who received the Emerging Composer Award, said she was thrilled her music could transcend language and cultural boundaries, and that she hoped her work would help amplify Taiwan’s voice on the global stage. Founded in 2021 to recognize excellence in film music, the Apulia Soundtrack Awards were presented this year by Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley and Italian composer Carlo Crivelli. Head judge Cyril Morin, an acclaimed film composer, praised Chiang’s work for blending Asian and Hollywood musical styles, saying: “The moment I heard all the finalists’ work, I knew she was the winner.” During the ceremony, Chiang performed the end-credit score from Stories of the Return (歸舟」), a film about a Taiwanese-American woman’s emotional journey back to her roots.
ENVIRONMENT
McDonald’s cuts waste
McDonald’s Taiwan has stopped using plastic lamination and paper boxes for certain items as part of its ongoing efforts to reduce waste and promote environmental sustainability. Starting this month, the fast-food chain began serving items such as the Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets, Filet-O-Fish and Apple Pie in paper wraps and bags instead of boxes — which could save about 10,000 trees annually, it said in a statement on Tuesday. Moreover, the company said it has replaced the plastic lamination inside its packaging with materials made from starch or silicon, which is expected to reduce plastic use by 86 tonnes. The new packaging was first piloted in October last year at two of its eco-friendly concept stores and later rolled out to four more locations in March.
LITERATURE
Translation contest opens
The Taiwan-Ireland Poetry Translation Competition is now accepting entries, inviting translators worldwide to take on a poem by Taiwanese poet Dong Shu-ming (董恕明), organizers announced on Tuesday. This year’s featured work is Like a Song — to 107-year-old Mumu on Her Journey (如歌— 致 107歲mumu遠行), an elegy written in a combination of Mandarin, Bopomofo, English and Puyuma, said the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, which cohosts the event with Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. The poem pays tribute to Dong’s grandmother, a 107-year-old whose life embodies a century of Puyuma resilience, cultural memory and multilingual heritage, the museum said. “Through richly textured imagery, multilingual cadences and intergenerational echoes, the poem traces mumu’s life as a woman of the Pinaski (a Puyuma tribe) community, spanning languages from Puyuma to Japanese to Mandarin and beyond,” Trinity said in a press release. Now in its fifth year, the competition has previously featured poems in Chinese, Taiwanese and Hakka by poets including Tsao Yu-po (曹馭博), Cheng Shun-tsong (鄭順聰), Tseng Kuei-hai (曾貴海) and Temu Suyan (黃璽). The initiative was launched in 2021 by Trinity College Dublin and the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland. Winners are to be invited to take part in an international online exchange in November to share insights on translation and creative writing. The deadline for submission is on Sept. 10.
Staff writer, with CNA
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS