President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said he has agreed to hold a national health forum every year on April 27 to review achievements and discuss improvements that could be made to the healthcare sector, while pledging to build a healthy Taiwan.Lai was speaking in Taipei at the last session o
MAKING A POINT? The incursions came a day after Antony Blinken discussed Taiwan with Xi Jinping and as the US and Philippines conduct joint military drills
Taiwan yesterday reported renewed Chinese military activity near the nation, with 12 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait the day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his visit to China.“We detected activities from 22 PLA aircraft
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Jie (黃捷) has proposed an amendment to the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) that would allow the government to demand that digital stores issue warnings about, remove or ban applications that present possible information security risks.Huang s
Russia launched a “massive” missile strike at Ukraine overnight, damaging four power plants in the latest barrage targeting the country’s energy supply, officials in Kyiv said yesterday, after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Friday announced that the US would provide Ukraine with additional
Hamas yesterday said it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, as Egypt intensified efforts to broker a deal to end the months-long war and stave off a possible Israeli ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said the Palesti
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global
Chip testing and packaging service provider King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子) yesterday said it plans to divest its Chinese subsidiary amid heightened geopolitical tensions and a US-China trade dispute that led to a drastic shuffle of the global semiconductor supply chain landscape.Intensifying compet
The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that slander as a punishable crime is constitutional, but its scope should be better defined.The court heard 31 petitions for constitutional interpretation, including 20 filed by judges who said that slander was not clearly defined in practice and was not in
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday ordered the US units of China Telecom Corp (中國電信), China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd (中國聯通) and China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband Internet operations in the US.The FCC said it was requiring the Chinese carriers to dis
Haiti’s nine-member governing council began to take control of the troubled, gang-riven Caribbean nation as local media reported sporadic gunfire throughout parts of the capital.Composed of representatives from civil society and the private sector, the council was sworn in on Thursday during a rushe
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lun
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips.TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufact
DIPLOMACY: Democratic countries have reiterated the importance of cross-strait peace and their support can deter China’s aggression, MOFA said
Taiwan will continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday after US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral John Aquilino issued a warning about Beijing’s ambition of being able to invade Taipei by 2027.Asked about Aquilino’s comment on Tuesday that China
Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the US, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, US officials said on Wednesday.Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday raised what the US describes as unfair Chinese trade practices during his first full day of meetings in China with local government officials in the financial hub of Shanghai.Blinken met with Chinese Communist Party Secretary of Shanghai Chen Jining (陳吉
TAIPEI’S GRATITUDE: President Tsai Ing-wen thanked the US for its support and called for more collaboration to contribute to the peace and stability of the region
The US Senate on Tuesday approved US$95 billion in aid to Taiwan, Ukraine and Israel, with the package of bills containing the funding expected to be signed into law after press time last night.The Senate passed the bills in a 79-18 vote after the US House of Representatives on Saturday approved the
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan.The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for
‘URGENT NEED’: To meet its personnel needs and process cases that are in a backlog, 5,536 new judges, clerks and other staff would have to be hired, the Judicial Yuan said
The Judicial Yuan yesterday said it has proposed amendments to the Court Organization Act (法院組織法) and other laws in a bid to hire more judicial staff and tackle the issue of overwork.Case numbers have risen significantly in the past few years, which has led to judges, clerks and other staff being ov
A high-school student who designed an app that sends earthquake alerts more readily than the Central Weather Administration (CWA) is facing bandwidth issues after a surge in downloads as wary Taiwanese endure aftershocks from a major quake on April 3.The app (台灣地震速報), which is free on Apple’s App St
Indonesia’s electoral commission yesterday formally declared Prabowo Subianto president-elect in a ceremony, after the country’s highest court rejected challenges to his landslide victory lodged by two losing presidential candidates.Subianto, who is minister of defense, won the election with 58.6 pe