Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts
A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said
China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique
OVERWHELMING SUPPORT: The bill with US$2 billion in Foreign Military Financing Program funds and US$1.9 billion to replenish defense articles passed the House 385-34
Taiwan is to continue working with the US to ensure peace in the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday after the US House of Representatives approved a US$95 billion foreign aid package with funding for Taiwan. The bills were passed with bipartisan support in a rare Saturday session after votes had been delayed for months by House Republicans. After clearing the House, the bills — containing US$8 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region, along with US$60.8 billion for Kyiv, and US$26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones — would be combined into a
The navy next month is expected to commission into service two more domestically built Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes, a source said yesterday. The Hsu Chiang (旭江, PGG-621) and the Wu Chiang (武江, PGG-623) would be officially commissioned in a ceremony early next month, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The corvettes, launched in February and June last year respectively, were delivered to the navy in February. They are the third and fourth Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes to be produced. The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a domestically designed and manufactured class of fast and stealthy multipurpose corvette built for 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 Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated
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 package, which US President Joe Biden said he would sign. “Tonight, a bipartisan majority in the Senate joined the House to answer history’s call at this critical inflection point,” Biden said. The legislation would send US$26 billion in wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza, and
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
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 Store, has been compared favorably with the national emergency alert system, which has remained largely silent to people outside the immediate area of epicenters amid a spate of quakes this month. The app’s developer, Kang Chiao International School student Lin Tzu-yu (林子祐), said that it had garnered about 10,000 downloads before this month,
SOLVING PROBLEMS: Taiwan can use its advantages in tech to make swift progress and create an international paradigm in facing the challenges of climate change, Lai said
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that he would push forward the net zero transition, and accelerate geothermal and hydrogenic energy developments after taking office next month. Lai made the remarks in a prerecorded video played at the opening session of the Earth Solutions 2024 Sustainable Design Action Conference held in Taipei on Earth Day yesterday. The transition to net zero is an urgent task, and Taiwan must speed up its pace and strengthen its competitiveness in sustainable development to keep up with the global trend, Lai said. Taiwan has laid a good foundation in the past few years and has competitive advantages,
North Korea has tested a “super-large warhead” designed for a strategic cruise missile, state media said yesterday, the most recent test since UN sanctions monitoring against the nuclear-armed nation was upended by Russia. Russia last month used its UN Security Council veto to effectively end UN monitoring of violations of the raft of sanctions on Kim Jong-un’s administration for its nuclear and weapons program. Analysts have said that North Korea could be testing cruise missiles ahead of sending them to Russia for use in Ukraine, with Washington and Seoul claiming Kim has shipped weapons to Moscow, despite UN sanctions banning any such
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said
More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues
A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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 manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
WORRYING ALLIANCE: While the G7 leaders also vowed to provide more support to Ukraine, Blinken said China was the ‘primary contributor’ to Moscow’s defense industry
The G7 on Friday issued a statement reiterating the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, calling it critical to global security and prosperity. The foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, as well as the EU issued the joint statement following a meeting held on the Italian island of Capri from Wednesday to Friday. In the statement, the G7 described peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as “indispensable to security and prosperity for the whole international community,” and called for the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues. “We support Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international
INCENTIVES: A KMT legislator proposed adding combat bonuses for soldiers and removing forms of corporal punishment in an effort to bolster recruitment
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators have proposed an amendment to strip benefits from military retirees who have received suspended sentences for espionage-related offenses. China frequently uses retired military officers to “build bridges” with active-duty military personnel in Taiwan, but under the law only those who have received sentences for contraventions stipulated in the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法) or the National Security Act (國家安全法) would lose their retirement benefits, DPP Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) said. The 14 retirees who have been sentenced for espionage-related offenses under those laws have been ordered to repay about NT$40 million (US$1.23 million) worth of benefits, but 85 percent