Sat, May 04, 2024
US lawmakers on Thursday introduced new legislation to strengthen Taiwan-US defense cooperation to counter Beijing’s aggression.US senators Jacky Rosen and Dan Sullivan, along with US representatives Michelle Steel and Steven Horsford, introduced the bipartisan and bicameral bill, transpacific allie
Taiwanese and US representatives yesterday wrapped up the latest round of in-person trade talks in Taipei, but did not succeed in inking any agreements, Minister Without Portfolio and top negotiator John Deng (鄧振中) told a media briefing.“The two sides gained better understanding of bilateral rules a
Three US Representatives on Thursday urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to stop requesting Taiwan to join the Olympic Games using the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北) in a letter addressed to committee president Thomas Bach.Not only do Taiwanese athletes have to compete under the name “Chines
Defense chiefs from the US, Australia, Japan and the Philippines on Thursday vowed to deepen their cooperation as they gathered in Hawaii for their second-ever joint meeting amid concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea.The meeting came after the four countries last month held their
‘A CLEAR MESSAGE’: Labour leader Keir Starmer said local election results showed that the party is ‘fundamentally different’ than four years ago The UK’s main opposition Labour Party yesterday called on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to call a general election, after seizing another parliamentary seat from the Conservatives and making gains in English local elections.Labour leader Keir Starmer said its candidate’s win in Blackpool South
REBUILDING PLANS: The government is to provide a monthly subsidy for people forced out of their homes, with the amount varying depending on household size The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a plan to allocate NT$28.55 billion (US$878.57 million) for Hualien County reconstruction after it was affected by a earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale on April 3.The approval came after Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) listened to briefings from governme
WHO SAGA: Excluding Taiwan undermines global public health cooperation and security, which the world demands, the US’ top diplomatic official said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement published on Wednesday urged the WHO to invite Taiwan to participate in the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer.The US “strongly encourages the WHO to reinstate an invitation to Taiwan to participate as an observer at this year’s WH
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China.DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act
The Ministry of National Defense’s Defense Mission to the US and the American Institute in Taiwan have signed a NT$518.2 million (US$16 million) continuing service agreement for the Maritime Operations Support Center at the Pingtung Air Base.The ministry said the contract for continued US technical
Taiwan and the US have been looking at a piece of legislation that has guided their unofficial relations over the past 45 years, and they both think it is adequate for their current needs, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Thursday.The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) provides the U
‘NOT ENOUGH’: The effect would be limited, because a price discount would also be offered to industries that take measures to reduce emissions, an expert said The three laws proposed by the Ministry of Environment to promote carbon reduction through the use of carbon fees would only have a limited impact on reining in emissions if adopted, experts said.Earlier this week, the ministry proposed three new laws based on the Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應
BLOOD SUCKER: The researchers plans to publish the complete genome of the tiny black mosquito on an open-access Web site to encourage further study of the species Taiwanese scientists have cracked the genetic code of a tiny bloodsucker in an advancement of research on repellant and insecticide development, a study published this month in the journal Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology showed.Forcipomyia taiwana, commonly known in Chinese as the “tiny bl
A presentation yesterday on Taiwan’s self-built language model TAIDE, released commercially on April 15, showed the many fields it can be applied to, from language learning and agricultural knowledge searches to banking customer service. The project to develop TAIDE, which stands for Trustworthy AI
SPRING COLORS: Chengfu Elementary School principal said yesterday the incident was an excellent opportunity to teach students how to approach nudity and art A billboard put up by the Li Mei-shu Art Gallery featuring a female nude painting by late artist Lee Shih-chiao (李石樵) was partially censored yesterday following complaints from the parents of students at a nearby elementary school.The gallery put a QR code on the blacked-out portion alongside a prin
The parents-in-law of famed blogger Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), better known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), were handed over to investigators at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday after being escorted from Canada back to Taiwan, where they are wanted for suspected fraud.Su and her husband, Huang Po-chi
The Ministry of Labor on Thursday said it is planning to open the social-work sector to foreign nationals following the passage of a regulatory amendment.Workforce Development Agency officials said that foreign nationals would be allowed to seek white-collar job opportunities in the social-work sect
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year.The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterat
The rate of businesses in the US using artificial intelligence (AI) is still relatively small, but it is growing rapidly, with firms in information technology, and in places such as Colorado and Washington, leading the way, a new paper from US Census Bureau researchers said.Overall use of AI tools b
FEES DISCUSSIONS: Migrant worker groups called for direct recruitment, without going through brokers, but others at the meeting advocated a dual approach Most of the participants in a Ministry of Labor meeting on Thursday discussing the recruitment of Indian migrant workers to alleviate Taiwan’s labor shortage have agreed that the manufacturing sector should be the first industry to start recruiting.Migrant worker groups, employer representatives, la
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their re
A package of four laws that provide US$95 billion in security-related aid to Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific countries including Taiwan has been enacted by both chambers of the US Congress and signed into law by US President Joe Biden. Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan have voiced their gratitude, while E
The European Commission and associated national enforcement agencies conducted unannounced inspections of the Polish and Dutch subsidiaries of Chinese security scanner manufacturer Nuctech Co (同方威視) on Tuesday last week. The raids were carried out under the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Rule (FSR).Former C
DATE WITH KNICKS: Indiana are to play New York in the second round after both teams won their series in six games, with the Bucks and the 76ers eliminated T.J. McConnell and Obi Toppin on Thursday complemented one another’s play perfectly and they were still trading fist bumps long after the Indiana Pacers celebrated a rare series-clinching victory by beating the Milwaukee Bucks 120-98 in Game 6.Toppin scored 21 points, while McConnell added 20 points
Iga Swiatek on Thursday cruised to a straight-sets semi-final win over Madison Keys to reach the Madrid Open final and a rematch against No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka.Top-ranked Swiatek beat No. 20 Keys 6-1, 6-3 and next faces the defending champion Sabalenka, who rallied to overcome fourth-ranked Elena Ryb
Playing soccer and competing for trophies is the best way that many transplanted Hong Kongers and Macanese have found to stay in touch, and to interact with Taiwanese society, said officials at the Taiwan-Hong Kong-Macau Football Friendship Cup, which was held on April 13.Twelve clubs, mostly of pla
William Nylander scored twice, while Joseph Woll made 22 saves on Thursday as the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins 2-1 to force a seventh game in their first-round Eastern Conference series.“We battled and competed,” said Nylander, who sat out the first three games of the series because of
HALTED: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is faced with pressure at home to halt trade with Israel, following major setbacks in local elections in March Turkey on Thursday suspended all imports and exports to Israel citing the country’s ongoing military action in Gaza and vowed to continue to impose the measures until the Israeli government allows the flow of humanitarian aid to the region.A Turkish Ministry of Trade statement said: “Export and impo
US President Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the US on immigration.The remarks, at a campaign fundraising eve
Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) yesterday said government support for press freedom has been declining worldwide, as it unveiled its annual world rankings, highlighting Argentina among the countries where the situation has deteriorated.Norway retained its top position, while Eri
Sipping champagne and nibbling fried dumplings, Shanghai’s rich and influential posed by Louis Vuitton signs at a runway afterparty — a lavish affair designed to win customers in China’s crucial market.China is the world’s biggest spender in the luxury sector, accounting for half of global sales. Bu
The swing of a talon and a flurry of feathers leaves a rooster motionless, a cockfight bout viewed as cruel by many but which binds disparate Indian forest communities together.India is renowned for its fanatical cricket obsession but in the central state of Chhattisgarh, cockfighting draws the crow
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from
Jumping rope has long been considered an excellent form of exercise. It not only burns calories but also improves cardiovascular health and __1__ core muscles. Anyone who has used a traditional jump rope, though, knows that it requires a certain level of skill and coordination. However, with the dev
A: Also, police seized seven pornographic videos featuring minors that entertainer Mickey Huang purchased in his hard disc.B: That’s just outrageous!A: His ex-girlfriend entertainer Little S and some others are calling for a legal amendment to increase the penalty.B: The buyers and sellers shoul
A: Entertainer Mickey Huang’s #MeToo scandal has kept snowballing.B: Didn’t Huang just escape prosecution on several sexual misconduct charges due to a lack of evidence?A: He has now been accused of raping a woman identified as "Miss K."B: It’s like one trouble follows another!A: His decent “pe
It’s certainly been a pleasure watching the presidential campaign launch of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) lurch painfully about like a wounded pachyderm in search of an elephant graveyard. Hou’s fall to third place in some polls last week appears early, and it might still be recoverable. But grumbling in his party about replacing him has already begun. Indeed, all indications are that the party that twice gave us Lien Chan (連戰), the most despised politician in Taiwan, as a presidential candidate and later offered voters Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), is arcing along its normal descending trajectory, the North Korean missile test of electoral politics. A KIND OF POLICY PLATFORM Last week the KMT doubled down on this path with Hou’s calls for nuclear power and more death penalty executions, standard KMT fare for decades (the latter is unnecessary since so many potential criminals are likely to die in traffic accidents long before they harm anyone). Apparently KMT policy institutions are not echo chambers so much as mausoleums where dead ideas are embalmed and then periodically put on display. The lack of public policy imagination is obvious. A less obvious facet of KMT ineptitude: with years of speculation that Hou would be their man in 2024, neither Hou nor the party insisted on interesting or experimental public policies to showcase Hou’s greatness in preparation for the showdown. Of course, that is even more true of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Hou’s slide and the media buzz surrounding it are obscuring the truly urgent problem the pro-Taiwan side faces: DPP presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德) has not expanded his voter support beyond the party base. In most polls he remains below 40 percent. Independent voters are staying away in droves, and for the moment the young are turning to
July 17 to July 23 When Yeh Ken-chuang (葉根壯) came of age, the traditional skills of architecture and carpentry that had been in his family for four generations were disappearing. After helping his uncle Yeh Teh-ling (葉得令) construct ships, residences and temples for more than a decade, Yeh struck out on his own at the age of 28 in 1960 as a damusi (大木司, chief carpenter), earning his lifelong title “Chief Chuang” (壯司). Around this time, builders in his homeland of Penghu were increasingly using reinforced concrete instead of wood, due to the humid climate. The period also saw a frenzy in temple construction as the economy improved, meaning there was plenty of work for Yeh. Adept in non-structural techniques such as doors, windows and furniture, as well as the intricate carvings and detailed decorations that adorned the structures, Yeh was able to adapt his skills, leading the reconstruction of the historic Hsiliao Daitian Temple (西寮代天宮) on Penghu’s main island in 1963. According to the book Crossing Traditions in Yeh Ken-chuang’s Large-scale Carpentry Skills (宮廟巧藝 :跨越傳統的葉根壯大木作技術), it was Penghu’s first temple that used a purely reinforced concrete structure. Before his life was cut short, Yeh created more than 70 temples and related structures across the various islands of Penghu and left behind more than 230 building plans. Although Yeh could have built temples and other structures on Taiwan proper, he only worked on a handful of projects outside of Penghu because he wanted to be close to his family. CLAN OF CARPENTERS The Yeh family’s woodworking tradition began with Yeh Ma-li (葉媽利), who learned the architecture and carpentry trade from an unknown master on Kinmen. The Yehs trace their roots to Kinmen, although this branch had been living in Penghu since the early 1600s. Yeh Ma-li was Penghu’s chief temple builder between 1860 and
New Taipei City | 14-23 | 10% | |
Hsinchu County | 14-22 | 10% | |
Hsinchu City | 14-22 | 10% | |
Taipei City | 14-22 | 10% | |
Miaoli County | 12-22 | 10% | |
Taoyuan City | 14-22 | 10% | |
Keelung City | 15-21 | 10% |
Yunlin County | 14-24 | 0% | |
Taichung City | 14-24 | 0% | |
Nantou County | 14-24 | 0% | |
Changhua County | 14-23 | 0% |
Chiayi County | 13-24 | 0% | |
Chiayi City | 14-25 | 0% | |
Tainan City | 15-22 | 0% | |
Kaohsiung City | 17-23 | 0% | |
Pingtung County | 16-25 | 0% |
Yilan County | 14-22 | 10% | |
Hualien County | 16-22 | 10% | |
Taitung County | 17-23 | 10% |
Kinmen County | 11-18 | 0% | |
Penghu County | 17-20 | 0% | |
Lienchiang County | 10-13 | 10% |