CULTURE
Taiwan festival to begin
The annual Taiwan Plus cultural festival in Japan is to be held in Kyoto for the first time on Saturday and Sunday, showcasing the Taiwanese religious icon Mazu and featuring live performances by popular music acts, an event promoter said yesterday. The festival, which celebrates the rapport between Taiwan and Japan, would include an exhibition about the sea goddess enshrined in Fengtian Temple in Hsinkang, Chiayi County, the Kyoto City Tourism Association said. There would also be live music shows, featuring Taiwanese folk singer Chen Ming-chang (陳明章), Hakka pop singer Hsieh Yu-Wei (謝宇威) and Puyuma Family Band, an indigenous band whose members have won more than 10 Golden Melody awards. During the event, the Taiwanese artists would also collaborate with their Japanese counterparts, such as the Style Kyoto Orchestra and conductor Kimbo Ishii, the association said. Other well-known participants include Kyoto Tachibana Senior-High School marching band and Japanese Noh music performer Tatsunori Kongo, it said. Besides music, a bazaar featuring Taiwanese food and culture from about 100 local brands would offer delicacies including bubble milk tea, pastries, beer and jam, it said. The event is to run from 11am to 6pm.
EDUCATION
Teacher suspended
The Taichung Bureau of Education said it has fined and imposed a four-year teaching ban on a preschool teacher who threatened a child with scissors, while also ordering the school that employed her to halt new enrollments for one year. The bureau said it received a tip-off earlier last month and contracted an outside investigator on April 22 to examine the case. The investigator’s report said that the teacher forcibly held down a child with special needs, threatened a child with a pair of scissors and made children run laps around a track as a punishment. After a meeting on the situation on Tuesday last week, the bureau said it had fined the female teacher NT$400,000 and banned her from working at educational institutions for four years.
‘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
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
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
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
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