It took 12 years and months of standing in the same mountain location for director Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) to capture a few seconds of footage: Taiwan’s largest resident raptor locking talons with its mate and spinning through the air in a courtship ritual.With only about 1,000 left in the wild and ver
They have been our meat and our messengers, a source of fertilizer and a religious symbol: while pigeons are now mostly reviled as dirty city pests, they long played an important role in human society.Now, research published yesterday has revealed that the humble birds were first domesticated 3,500
As playwright Aleshea Harris tells it, something felt missing when she first sat down to write her searing and startling play Is God Is, which made waves off-Broadway in 2018.Harris was writing an epic story of Black female revenge, one that drew on Greek tragedy and mythology, but also spaghetti we
In Paris, police deployed tear gas. In Milan, Italy, a fistfight erupted. In London, Singapore and New York, all-night queues snaked from the doors of Swatch stores — the latest examples of status-symbol “drop culture” to flash across the globe when status symbols and resale value collide.The compan
And so, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all the experts on the Strait of Hormuz suddenly became experts on US-China-Taiwan relations. The Internet has certainly expanded human knowledge.Lots of these sudden experts made noise this week about T
The opposition coalition of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has systematically worked to make things extremely difficult for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). They have slashed budgets for military spending, dragged out budget negotiations and blocked
A book about Taiwan’s relevant partners, looking at what they do rather than what they say? This is exactly what anyone wishing to comment on Taiwanese geopolitics needs to have on their bedside table.The book is a collection of texts written by academics presenting their conclusions on how a given
As artificial intelligence casts a shadow over career prospects, it is becoming an unwelcome subject at this season’s college commencements. At several campuses, graduates have interrupted speakers with stadium-wide boos when the topic turned to AI.Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced repeated jeers
The body of Tom Ochieng Mima is dressed in formal funeral finery, casket shaded from the hot western Kenyan sun as family and friends of the late 64-year-old settle into plastic chairs beneath white tents just off the roadside.Wails pierce the air in a mix of lyrical song and unrestrained cries; a g
The Cannes Film Festival can function like a global water cooler for movies, with prevailing issues and anxieties tending to come to the surface at the event. This year, the topic du jour is artificial intelligence.The 79th Cannes may go down as the time the world’s grandest film festival for the fi
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights wea
Top prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket have witnessed a surge in suspicious trades this year, highlighting the popularity of the models with investors but causing a challenge to the platforms as they face increased scrutiny. The surge in suspicious bets comes as trading volumes on pre
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (P
May 18 to May 24Gathered on Yangtou Mountain (羊頭山) on Dec. 5, 1972, Taiwan’s hiking enthusiasts formally declared the formation of the “100 Peaks Club” (百岳俱樂部) and unveiled the final list of mountains.Famed mountaineer Lin Wen-an (林文安) led this effort for the Chinese Alpine Association (中華山岳協會). Wor
Nested in Taiwan’s historical Walled City, a new exhibition invites visitors into the worlds of architect Chan Yi-chung (詹益忠) and illustrator Lin Li (林俐).During his opening remarks, National Taiwan Museum (NTM) Director Chen Teng-chin (陳登欽) said that the exhibition, A Living Museum: Sketches of the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), alongside their smaller allies the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), are often accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some go so far as to call them “traitors.”It is not hard to see why. They regularly pass legislation to stymie the normal f
The Wuming Cliffs (無明) in Taroko National Park have such a bad reputation that many hikers opt to make two separate trips to summit all the nearby peaks, approaching from either side of the cliffs but never actually going through them. Before the open mountain policy was enacted in 2019, the Park ac
In a sudden move last week, opposition lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) passed a NT$780 billion special defense budget as a preemptive measure to stop either Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) or US President Donald Trump from blocking US arms sales to Ta
Billie Eilish is levitating. Or so it seems. When the pop star first emerges on screen in the mouthful Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), she is suspended above a cube built of LED screens, surrounded by a sold-out crowd of over 23,000 fans in the center of the UK’s largest
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