GOVERNMENT
Professor joins council
A National Dong Hwa University assistant professor has been named the new deputy head of the Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples, the Cabinet said in a statement yesterday. Chen Chang Pei-lun (陳張培倫), who works in the university’s Department of Indigenous Development and Social Work, will assume the post that former council deputy head Kao Yang-sheng (高揚昇) left on July 31 to take over as Deputy Taoyuan County Magistrate. Chen Chang, a member of the Bunun group whose Aboriginal name is Tunkan Tansikian, has spent many years researching the rights of indigenous peoples and served as a consultant to the council, the Cabinet said.
TECHNOLOGY
Taipei inks city domain deal
The Taipei City Government yesterday signed a registry agreement with the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open the top-level domain suffix “.taipei” for registration in November, according to the Taipei Department of Information Technology. The agreement was signed in the capital by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and ICANN board member Wu Kuo-wei (吳國維). Hau said Web sites for the special 1999 phone line for city residents and the public bicycle rental system YouBike would be among the first to adopt the “.taipei” suffix. Yesterday’s deal brings to 14 the number of Taiwanese cities to have secured their own top-level domains, according to the Chinese-language Apple Daily.
GOVERNMENT
Ma vows to help firefighters
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday promised to give full support to the nation’s firefighters, who have complained of a lack of equipment and a shortage of manpower. Ma made the remarks at a ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) meeting after about 100 firefighters petitioned the Ministry of the Interior on Monday asking the government to improve their working conditions. Six firefighters died in the Greater Kaohsiung pipeline explosions caused by propene leaks on July 31 and Aug. 1, while another was injured on Friday last week in a gas explosion at an apartment in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店). The petitioners called on the government to give them more higher-quality equipment and increase personnel, among other demands, so they can do their jobs better and more safely.
DIPLOMACY
Taiwan role model: Widodo
Indonesian president-elect Joko Widodo has cited Taiwan as a role model for his country, saying that advances in Taiwan’s human resources have led to high productivity. Manpower development is the biggest challenge facing Indonesia, Widodo said at a forum in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on Monday, describing the situation as a matter that must be dealt with, according to a report on detik.com, an Indonesian online news portal. Widodo said he shares the views of Indonesian writer Mochtar Lubis on the weaknesses of Indonesians, including hypocrisy, lack of a sense of responsibility, being superstitious and lacking courage. Another characteristic needing work is a lack of attention to quality, Widodo said. He said he relates to that well, based on his past experience working in furniture exports, which left him with an impression of the little importance Indonesians attach to quality. However, it is possible for Indonesia to catch up with countries such as Taiwan, Singapore and Japan, whose people are highly productive, through education, the Jakarta governor said. The changes are vital to the country’s productivity and competitiveness, he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERs IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
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