The tragic death of a judge who fell from a building on April 12 accentuated the issue of long-term overtime work endangering the mental and physical health of judicial officials.Many have advocated for an increase in personnel or adjustments in case distribution to relieve the overworked judicial s
When J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) takes up his new role as minister of economic affairs next month, he will need to move fast if he is to salvage one of the government’s signature projects. Policy conflict and misguided goals threaten to sink outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) hopes of achieving renewable-en
With tensions between China and the Philippines heating up, face-offs have not only occurred in the South China Sea, but the Philippines also skipped the Western Pacific Naval Symposium — which received delegations from 29 countries, including the US — hosted by China.Lately, many Chinese exchange s
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Now that the US House of Representatives, acting in an unusually bipartisan way, has finally passed a US$61 billion aid package for Ukraine, the big question is what the Ukrainians should spend it on.This aid comes not a minute too soon. Russia has been gathering momentum both on the ground and in t
If you believe the Chinese government, the country does not import any oil from Iran. Zero. Not a barrel. Instead, it imports lots of Malaysian crude. So much so that official Chinese customs data showed it somehow buys more than twice as much Malaysian oil as Malaysia actually produces.Impossible?
On Tuesday last week, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unanimously passed the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet bill. The US House of Representatives had passed the resolution on Feb. 15. The next stage is for it to be reviewed in the
Recent media reports said that a district court judge committed suicide by jumping from a building because he was mentally distressed due to heavy work pressure. Official statistics shows that in 2017, the number of ordinary and special criminal cases totaled 482,428. Seven years later, the most con
Last year, then-Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada in an annual defense report said: “China is rapidly enhancing its military capability qualitatively and quantitatively, including nuclear and missile forces, while continuing and amplifying its unilateral changes to the status quo by force
The passage of the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also known as the Resolve Tibet bill, by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday last week, to be sent to the US Senate for a vote, marks a pivotal moment in international relations, one that could significantl
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India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition can sweep three out of every four parliament seats as he crisscrosses the country to charm voters. Analysts and election strategists from his party say the task is not entirely impossible, but is likely
Violence lurks in nearly all of Latin America’s major cities. Even capitals that have traditionally been considered peaceful are coming to resemble hotspots such as Reynosa and Tijuana, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; Port-au-Prince and Rio de Janeiro.Although Latin America has more than 180 million people
Nymphia Wind, the pride of Taiwan’s queer community, on Friday night won the crown on the latest season of the US reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race, becoming the first East Asian drag queen and second Asian queen to win the vaunted title. For her final lip-synching performance, she shuffled onto the s
As Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won by a landslide in Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is a good time to take another look at recent developments in the Maldivian foreign policy. While Muizzu has been promoting his “Maldives First” policy, the agenda seems to have lost sight of a nu
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using many tactics to subvert the government, Taiwanese need to be aware of the possibility that it is also trying to sow confusion among the public and cause dissatisfaction with the ruling party.However, as this is not the eve of a major war, the CCP is unli
Chiang must change focusTaipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) announced that the city would enter a “major urban renewal era” to deal with damage done by the April 3 earthquake.When Kee Tai Properties Co’s construction work in September last year caused the collapse
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An emerging debate about the definition of infrastructure suggests that Western democracies are starting to shift their priorities. The renewed focus on infrastructure and what it includes is to be welcomed — not least because it rebuts the claim that the West has lost faith in the future.Many argue