■ Diplomacy
Expert warns of Kerry shift
A US expert on international affairs said on Saturday that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry might steer the course of the Clinton administration and press Taiwan to negotiate with China if he wins the election in November this year. Larry Wortzel, vice president and director of the Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute for International Policy Studies, made the remarks in a speech he delivered at the Japan-US-Taiwan Security Cooperation Seminar held in Tokyo. Predicting that the US government's Taiwan policy will not undergo big changes if Kerry becomes president, Wortzel claimed, however, that Washington might request that Taiwan go to the negotiation table with China.
■ Society
Dactylology promoted
The 2004 Hearing-Impaired Youth Leaders Camp, co-sponsored by Rotary International District 3520 and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) opened yesterday in Taipei with 120 hearing-impaired young people from 12 countries attending. With the theme "Embracing the world with both hands," the camp is aimed at promoting the internationalization of dactylology to facilitate communication among the deaf. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Liang Wu Pei-lin (梁吳蓓琳), supervisor of the Rotary International District 3520, said that because of their speech and hearing disabilities, the hearing-impaired often have poor communication skills and are thus isolated from the mainstream society, even though they might have excellent abilities.
■ Diplomacy
Wang wraps up trip
Republic of China Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and four other legislators left for Taipei Saturday after concluding a four-day visit to Guatemala. During the visit, the lawmakers not only attended the July 30 forum for parliamentary speakers from Central American and Caribbean nations, but also met with Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and Parliament Speaker Rolando Morales. Berger promised while receiving Wang and other ROC legislators that he will visit Taiwan "at an appropriate time" and urged the two countries to hold talks for signing a free trade agreement as soon as possible. Saying that his country and the ROC have traditionally had friendly and close relations, the president also called for the two nations to "forge ahead by uniting their forces."
■ Politics
Ma to speak to US group
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is scheduled to visit New York City Aug. 14, where he will deliver a speech at a dinner to be sponsored by the Chinese American Academic and Professional Society, sources said yesterday. Ma is expected to speak on "Taipei's challenges under global competition," at the dinner, which will be part of the society's annual general meeting. This will mark Ma's first visit to New York since Sept. 6, 1999, when he met with then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for wide-ranging talks, including on exchanges of artists of residence from the two cities. The society is a group established by Chinese-American academics and professionals in the US 29 years ago to help make known the voice of Chinese-Americans and to bolster communications and exchanges among them. The number of its members has exceeded 500.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS