EDITORIAL CARTOON
During the long Lunar New Year’s holiday, Taiwan has shown several positive developments in different aspects of society, hinting at a hopeful outlook for the Year of the Horse, but there are also significant challenges that the country must cautiously navigate with strength, wisdom and resilience. Before the holiday break, Taiwan’s stock market closed at a record 10,080.3 points and the TAIEX wrapped up at a record-high 33,605.71 points, while Taipei and Washington formally signed the Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and secures Taiwan preferential tariff treatment. President William Lai (賴清德) in
As red lanterns adorn street corners and social media feeds teem with zodiac divinations, the Year of the Horse has arrived. In our hyper-accelerated age, the horse is almost exclusively synonymous with the idiom ma dao cheng gong (馬到成功) — “instant success upon arrival.” It is a linguistic shot of adrenaline, fueling the thrilling illusion that once the bell tolls, our lives would screech off into a cloud of dust, leaving all troubles behind. Yet, when examining the millennia-long partnership between humans and this magnificent “biological machine,” a different truth emerges. The true essence of the horse is not merely speed;
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) earlier this month led a delegation to Beijing to attend a think tank forum between the KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After returning to Taiwan, Hsiao spoke at length about “accumulating mutual trust” and letting matters “fall into place,” portraying the forum as a series of discussions focused on cooperation in tourism, renewable energy, disaster prevention, emerging industries, health and medicine, and artificial intelligence (AI). However, when the entire dialogue presupposes the so-called “1992 consensus — the idea that there is only “one China,” with each side of the Taiwan
India is getting richer every year, but its cities do not seem to be getting any more livable. Not because the country is too poor, or because leaders lack ambition, but because urban citizens are starved of funds and deprived of representation — and the government is in no hurry to fix it, even though people are dying as a result. Mumbai’s skyline is dotted with opulent glass towers, and it calls itself India’s commercial capital. The civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corp, is the country’s richest. Yet, residents have lived for years with no say in how their city was
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