SOCIETY
Yunlin runs music festival
Yunlin County is to hold its first music festival along its coastline today to celebrate summer and the area’s love of the ocean. The festival, which will feature a family running event, concerts, art performances and a lucky draw, is also aimed at raising environmental awareness, organizers said. Sharing the spotlight at the festival will be a new museum near the venue that opened early this year, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) said yestereday. She touted the museum as the Taiwanese version of the remote moorland farmhouse named “Wuthering Heights” that serves as the backdrop of the novel of the same name by British writer Emily Bronte. As isolated as Wuthering Heights, the Taiwan Taisi Haikou Life Museum rises up on the seashore in a beautiful panoramic setting, Su said. The museum offers an authentic glimpse of the lifestyles of people living along the coastal area and introduces aquaculture, one of the economic backbones of Yunlin County, she said.
SOCIETY
New Party founder dies
Senior politician Chen Kwei-miew (陳癸淼), who helped found the pro-China New Party in 1993, has died at the age of 81. Chen was surrounded by his family at Cheng Hsin General Hospital when he died. The New Party has extended its condolences to his family members, with party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) commending Chen as a respectable politician. Chen had suffered from kidney and liver disease in his later years. A former lawmaker and acting mayor of what was then Tainan City in the 1990s, Chen helped found the New Party, which broke away from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in opposition to the leadership style of then-KMT chairman and then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
SOCIETY
Tang winner reveals plans
Chinese-American historian Yu Ying-shih (余英時), the first Tang Prize winner in Sinology, promised on Friday to visit Taiwan for the first time in six years in September and attend the Tang Prize award ceremony and related events in person. Yu, a Princeton University professor emeritus, is regarded by many of his peers as the greatest Chinese intellectual historian of his generation. The 84-year-old said he plans to arrive in Taipei on Sept. 13 and will attend the award ceremony on Sept. 18, deliver a speech the following day, and then participate in a forum on Sept. 20. In addition to his academic pursuits, Yu is an outspoken supporter of the democracy movement in China.
ENTERTAINMENT
Carey concert sought
The cancelation of Celine Dion’s Taipei concert in October could reopen the possibility of a performance in the city by Mariah Carey, who was vying for the same venue earlier this month. Amy Ko, a promoter at Yu Kuang Music, said they informed Carey’s team immediately once they found out that Taipei Arena was available again, adding that they have not had any response yet. “If we get a positive response from the pop diva, the most likely date for the concert would be Oct. 30,” Ko said. Carey and Dion had been competing to book Taipei Arena from Oct. 27 to Oct. 30, with the Canadian singer winning the time slot. After losing out in Taipei, Carey’s team planned a concert in Manila on Oct. 28. However, on Aug. 13, Dion announced that she had canceled her Asian tour to look after her 72-year-old husband Rene Angelil, who is battling throat cancer.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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