As the city emerges from the shadow of the attack on Friday last week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) is set to depart for the Taipei-Shanghai Twin City Forum, this year taking place in Shanghai, where he might meet with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤). Under the present
Friday last week’s attack on Taipei’s metro system was shocking and heartbreaking. Such violence not only harms lives, but also shakes public trust in the safety of shared spaces. Every person deserves the basic human rights of safety, dignity and freedom from fear. Public transportation should be a
On Friday afternoon last week, there was nothing particularly significant happening in Taipei. There was no election, no protest, no collective mobilization. It was the end of the workday, people were beginning their commute or browsing shops before heading home. Perhaps it was precisely because of
Premier Cho Jung-tai’s (卓榮泰) rare refusal to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the Legislative Yuan has caused an uproar, with critics accusing the executive branch of dictatorial arrogance. However, peeling bac
EDITORIAL CARTOON
Last month, a train carrying almost 500 people came to a sudden halt in eastern Poland. A broken overhead line had smashed several windows and the track ahead was damaged. Elsewhere on the line, explosives detonated under a passing freight train.No one was hurt in either case and the damage was limi
In certain ways, this autumn in the US has recalled the autumn of 1938 in Nazi Germany, when mass deportation of undocumented people was one of Hitler’s most ambitious coercive policies before the start of World War II. In the US, too, the connection between domestic repression and foreign aggressio
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries.At Tai
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously.
An Indian woman named Prema Wangjom Thongdok on Nov. 21 was detained and deported, with her birthplace of Arunachal Pradesh, India, cited as the primary point of contention during her engagement with immigration officers at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.The Indian Ministry of External Affair
Former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) has chosen a curious moment to speak candidly. Days after the Hong Kong court delivered its 855-page verdict against pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英), Leung wrote a lengthy post on Facebook explaining — without embarrassment and with a
EDITORIAL CARTOON
When the Mexican Senate voted last week to approve a 50 percent tariff rate on a broad swathe of countries — China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan among them — politicians from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party pretended they did it for their own reasons. Nobo
In 1980, neither China nor India had much representation in the global middle class — people who neither belong to the bottom half of the income distribution nor rank among the top 10 percent worldwide. Almost a half-century later, things have changed — but in very different ways. China accounts for
COVID-19 lockdowns in China transformed the way people think about their health. As a result, many are starting to run, hike or play tennis, altering the way they live and dress.The country is in the midst of a wellness boom, offering a rare bright spot in an otherwise struggling retail sector — and
The most recent My Formosa opinion poll was released on Dec. 1, outlining findings of opinions last month on issues such as the level of trust in President William Lai (賴清德) and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), as well as the degree of satisfaction with their performances, the state of the nation’s econo
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Monday announced that he would not countersign or promulgate amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan. Cho argued that the legislation would force the central go
According to the most recent My Formosa poll released on Dec. 1, 26.4 percent of respondents agreed that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong under one China,” up from 17.4 percent in March from the same pollster.The proportion of those who disagreed fell from 76.4 to 65.7 percent over the same p
RSS