ENTERTAINMENT
Ang Lee wins US award
Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee (李安) received the 2012 best director award from the North Carolina Film Critics Association (NCFCA) on Tuesday for Life of Pi (少年PI的奇幻漂流), his third such honor for the year. Lee defeated several other hopefuls, including Kathryn Bigelow, who directed Zero Dark Thirty, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, Paul Thomas Anderson for The Master, Wes Anderson for Moonrise Kingdom and Rian Johnson for Looper. The award was Lee’s third best director award for the film, following a Kansas City Film Critics Circle award announced in December and another from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society that same month. Lee’s 3D fantasy was also nominated by the NCFCA for best adapted screenplay, but did not win.
TRAVEL
Travel program expanded
A program that allows Chinese tourists to travel independently to Taiwan will be expanded, a tourism official said yesterday. Chang Shi-chung (張時中), deputy director-general of the Tourism Bureau and vice president of the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA), said the association and its Chinese counterpart, the Cross-Strait Tourism Association, have reached an agreement to extend the free independent travel program to an additional number of Chinese cities. Currently, residents of 13 cities — Jinan, Xian, Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu — are permitted to travel as independent visitors and not just in tour groups. Arrivals from China last year totaled 2.58 million, an annual increase of 44.96 percent, according to the TSTA’s Beijing office. Of that number, 190,676 were independent travelers, which represented an annual increase of 529.69 percent, the office said.
WEATHER
Cold weather expected
The weather could be at its coldest between today and tomorrow, with northern and eastern parts of the country likely to see rainfall, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau also warned of strong winds between today and Saturday in southern areas, as well as in Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. The chill could start to ease up on Saturday, when clear skies are expected countrywide, it said. Tamsui recorded the lowest temperature this winter on Dec. 30, reaching a low of 7.3°C.
ENTERTAINMENT
Taipei-based film to open
The romantic comedy film Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (明天記得愛上我), directed by Arvin Chen (陳駿霖) and set in Taipei, has been included in the Panorama program of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival. The film will have its world premiere at the 63rd annual film festival, which runs from Feb. 7 to Feb. 17. It is part of a lineup of 31 fictional features from 23 countries that have been selected for Panorama’s main program to provide insight into the world of contemporary cinema production. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? is the second Mandarin feature film from Chen, a 34-year-old American of Taiwanese descent, following Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北), also a romantic comedy set in Taipei, which won the Best Asian Film Award from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema at the 60th Berlin Film Festival. Chen’s first short film, MEI (美), won a Silver Berlin Bear at the festival in 2007.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS