North Korea said yesterday that it had cut off a key military hotline with South Korea that allows cross-border travel to a jointly run industrial complex in the North, a move that ratchets up already high tension and possibly jeopardizes the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
North Korea recently cut a Red Cross hotline with South Korea and another with the US-led UN command at the border between the Koreas, but there is still a hotline linking aviation authorities in the North and South.
North Korea’s chief delegate to inter-Korean military made the announcement yesterday in a statement sent to his South Korean counterpart. The hotline is important because the Koreas use it to communicate as hundreds of workers travel back and forth to the Kaesong industrial complex.
Meanwhile, a Chinese border province has announced plans to beef up transport and trade links with North Korea, including new railways to the frontier, soon after pledges by Beijing to implement tough new UN sanctions.
The blueprint by the Jilin provincial government, in northeast China, calls for “hastening the construction of express railways from key cities such as Chang-chun to major border cities” and improving rail links from Tumen on the frontier to Rason and Chongjin in North Korea.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
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