The ongoing Iran conflict is putting Taiwan’s energy fragility on full display — the island of 23 million people, home to the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing, is highly dependent on imported oil and gas, especially that from the Middle East. In 2025, 69.6 percent of Taiwan’s crude
In the wake of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) conviction, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) has offered a predictable counter: the verdict is not legal, but political — an orchestrated campaign by a supposed “party-prosecutor-media-court” alliance.Huang is an academic
Highways across Taiwan were flooded by cars returning home for the Tomb Sweeping long weekend. Bearing flowers and fruits, people visited the tombs of their forebearers to clean their gravesites and pay their respects. However, upon opening the door to our family homes, we are confronted with anothe
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The aviation industry has a lot on its plate right now. Not only is it coping with multiple geopolitical conflicts that are reducing route options and sending jet fuel prices sky high, but it is also navigating a complicated carbon offsetting scheme that may or may not become mandatory next year. Th
Every new restriction on trade between the US and China is supposed to pull the two economies apart — or so we are told. However, the global economy refuses to cooperate with conventional wisdom. In fact, each round of tariffs, export controls and investment screening has been accompanied by more of
Sunshine Women’s Choir (陽光女子合唱團), a Taiwanese production that premiered in China yesterday, received a massive backlash for calling itself the “all-time box office champion for Chinese-language films from the China-Taiwan region” in its promotional post on Chinese social media.Democratic Progressive
Yesterday was Children’s Day, but the mental health of children and adolescents across Taiwan is raising serious red flags. According to statistics, while the declining birthrate has caused the total number of students to drop by 630,000 over the past decade, reported cases of student suicide and se
For more than a millennium, the lines from the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu (杜牧) — “pure brightness, dual souls” — have defined the emotional architecture of Qingming (清明). Arriving around April 5 as the fifth of the 24 solar terms, Qingming is a dual entity: A celestial marker of late spring and one of
Some news media have recently reported on a “plastic bag chaos,” citing online posts claiming that Japan and Australia both still provide free plastic bags, and questioning whether Taiwan’s plastic reduction policies are merely an excuse to charge consumers. However, the issue is not whether breakfa
A flaw in lineage citizenshipTaiwan continues to review and debate immigration reform, including as noted in “Lawmakers question eased migrant domestic worker rules” (April 2, page 4) which identified the concern of “shift[ing] the care burden from the state onto families.” However, overlooked is th
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Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbai
The world witnessed the preamble to a changing of the guard in space as four astronauts climbed aboard the Orion spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin Corp and awaited the countdown. They were launched on April 1 into space on a 10-day journey around the moon by the Space Launch System rocket — a NASA
The National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday released a report on equal access to legal representation, emphasizing that people on trial who require interpreters or publicly appointed lawyers are often disadvantaged by structural weaknesses within Taiwan’s judicial system.The report focuses on no
Influenced by the conflict in the Middle East, the prices of some raw materials have surged. The cost of petrochemical products, such as gasoline and plastics, has risen sharply, leading not only to higher prices for everyday plastic packaging materials, but also potential shortages.For example, the
The Honduran National Congress recently approved a motion urging the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make a report on the state of the agreements signed with China by previous administrations and an overall analysis of the state of relations with China, following allegations that Cuban consu
Despite calling itself a nation based on human rights, Taiwan continues to let migrant workers remain subject to the pressures of debt, precarity and fear in the workplace. This is not the institutional progress we expect; it is a distortion of our values.These so-called “ghost workers,” sidelined t
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