CULTURE
Israeli troupe starts festival
Local and international performance groups organized by a Yunlin County-based arts workshop will put on a series of shows from today to Oct. 23 around the county. The Mystorin Theatre Group from Israel will take the stage during the Yunlin performance arts festival, as a warmup event of the 2013 Yunlin Agriculture Expo to be held in December in the county. The workshop, composed of mainly local dance troupes, was established to promote global arts and cultural exchanges between local and foreign performance groups by making good use of the area’s stages, props, costumes and choreographed dance pieces. To correspond with the theme of the Yunlin Agriculture Expo, the workshop will use costumes and props made with ecofriendly materials.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Ministry denies cutbacks
The Ministry of National Defense on Friday denied a report that the Navy plans to cut the number of frigates by six to cut costs. The report in the latest edition of the China Times Weekly is “pure speculation and untrue,” the ministry said in a statement. The ministry confirmed plans that two US-made Knox-class frigates will be replaced by two Perry-class frigates that the navy is in the process of acquiring from the US. The crews of the two Knox-class frigates will be transferred to the Perry-class vessels, the ministry said, without elaborating. The ministry also denied that it was planning to downgrade the Triservice Headquarters, as was reported by the weekly. A task force is expected to complete its planning on the future force structure by March based on its assessment of threats, available resources and the military development of relevant countries.
CULTURE
Street dance contest held
A preliminary round of a New Taipei City (新北市) street dance competition took place yesterday, drawing about 400 dancers in a bid to promote Taiwanese youth culture. During a group dance session, more than 20 teams fused breakdance elements, such as pops and hip hop, which won huge applause from the audience. Now in its sixth year, the international street dance competition is aimed at making New Taipei City the capital of street dance, a city official said. The event this year will feature a special qualifying competition Nov. 2, with 70 dancers from more than 20 countries expected to compete, Chou said. The final will be held on Nov. 3, with winners from the preliminaries held in northern, central and southern Taiwan to vie for total prize money of NT$400,000.
EDUCATION
SIM university signs deal
Taiwan’s representative office in Singapore signed a memorandum of understanding with SIM University on Friday to boost cultural interaction through various activities. SIM University is the second Singaporean university, following Nanyang Technological University, to forge ties with Taiwan. Representative to Singapore Hsieh Fa-dah (謝發達) said he hoped the new platform would help make each other’s culture more vibrant and stimulate the creation of new cultural innovation businesses. Eddie Kuo, head of the university’s Centre for Chinese Studies, said the first activity to be staged dum will be a concert held before the end of the year in which singers perform songs with lyrics from poems by renowned Taiwanese writer and poet Yu Kwang-chung (余光中). A Chinese-language film festival will follow, in which films produced by Taiwanese directors will be screened, he said.
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
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