■ POLITICS
KMT upgrades Web site
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday launched the latest version of its official Web site, while seeking to attract younger supporters by setting up a Web department. The party changed the design of its official Web site, www.kmt.org.tw, enhanced its search engine function and urged visitors to share their opinions by participating in online polls. KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) told a press conference that the party would host many online activities to increase its interaction with the younger generation.
■ IMMIGRATION
Rules revised for spouses
The Ministry of the Interior yesterday passed revisions to Regulations Governing Visiting, Residence and Permanent Residence of Aliens (外國人停留居留及永久居留辦法) to allow the Tibetan spouses of Taiwanese nationals and children holding an Identity Certificate — a travel document issued by the Indian government to Tibetans living in exile in India — to apply for residency. Under the current law, only foreign spouses holding valid passports may apply for residency. The revision will be sent to the Cabinet for final approval before taking effect.
■ DIPLOMACY
Speaker announces trip
Upon his return from the US yesterday after attending US President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) announced he will depart for Europe next month, when he will deliver a speech to the European Parliament. The speech will focus on Taiwan’s democratic achievements and contributions to cross-strait peace, he added. Wang said the European trip would also take him to Belgium, Italy and to the Holy See.
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
‘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
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back