●Dozens of Ethnic Tibetan students staged a candle-lit vigil inside the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing on Monday, saying it was to pray for the dead. Police kept reporters well away from the peaceful protest.
● Washington said on Monday that it would increase radio broadcasts to Tibet via Voice of America and Radio Free Asia as China clamped down on media coverage.
● Italian media on Monday questioned Pope Benedict's silence and speculated that the pontiff did not want to antagonize Beijing.
● UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called on China to show restraint in handling protests and urged all concerned "to avoid further confrontation and violence."
● But the UN Security Council will likely keep silent about China's crackdown on demonstrations in Tibet, mostly because of the belief that provoking Beijing would accomplish nothing, diplomats said on Monday.
● German police detained 26 Tibetan demonstrators on Monday after they tried to force their way into the Chinese Consulate in Munich.
● Around 200 protesters threw eggs, tomatoes and sticks at the Chinese embassy in London on Monday.
● Some 300 protesters rallied on Monday outside the Chinese consulate in Barcelona, Spain, to denounce Beijing's crackdown.
● A protester who tried to drape the Tibetan flag over the Yahoo billboard in Times Square in New York was arrested.
● In Switzerland, some 400 people protested yesterday, demanding the International Olympic Committee (IOC) intervene. They chanted a prayer and waved Tibetan flags and banners as they marched through Lausanne toward IOC headquarters.
● The IOC said on Monday that it hoped the unrest in Tibet would not prevent the Olympic torch from making its trek through China.
● Tibetan activists sent a letter to the IOC yesterday demanding that the Tibetan region and Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces be excluded from the torch relay.
● The Swiss Olympic Committee on Monday urged the IOC to release a statement and urged IOC head Jacques Rogge to remind China of the world's expectations on human rights and civil liberties.
● John Kenwood, a 19-year-old tourist from Victoria, Canada, said before leaving Lhasa that he saw street cleaners wearing orange vests emblazoned with the Beijing Olympics symbol.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
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