DIPLOMACY
Paraguayan leader to visit
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is scheduled to arrive on Friday for a weeklong visit, the Paraguayan Presidential Office said in a statement on Monday. He is scheduled to meet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Cabinet ministers, in addition to visiting some industrial parks, the statement said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had invited him to visit several times, but he had been unable to travel because of treatment for lymphatic cancer and the unstable political situation in Paraguay. Lugo began his trip to Asia on Sunday in Vietnam.
SOCIETY
Survey finds work woes
A survey of women found that more than three-fourths (77 percent) of those who left the workforce after marriage said it was difficult to return to work, a poll by 104 job bank showed yesterday. The poll, released to coincide with International Women’s Day, sought to determine whether marriage was a stumbling block in a woman’s career. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they left the workforce after marriage. Within that group, 65 percent said they quit “to take care of a newborn,” while 19 percent said it was “less costly to take care of children by themselves” and 17 percent said they were laid off because of “family and children” factors. Of the women who left work after marriage, 95 percent said they planned on returning to the work. Fifty-six percent wanted to return within two years, citing financial difficulties (53 percent), the need to find self-worth (31 percent) and to “kill time” as children grew up (19 percent).
SOCIETY
Financial literacy ranked
Taiwanese women rank sixth in financial literacy among 14 markets in the Asia-Pacific region, a survey by MasterCard found. Women in Taiwan scored 68.7 on MasterCard’s Index of Financial Literacy, beating their counterparts in Hong Kong (68) and China (60.1). They also outshone their counterparts in South Korea (55.9) and Japan (59.9). The survey was conducted between Sept. 13 and Nov. 11 last year, and asked respondents questions on three major components of financial literacy: basic money management, financial planning and investment. Questions on basic money management included skills in budgeting, amount of savings, and responsible usage of credit. The financial planning section asked respondents about their knowledge of financial products, as well as their ability to make a long-term plan for their financial needs. Investment-related questions involved knowledge of investment risks and investment products. The index score was calculated from the weighted sum of the three components, with 100 as the maximum score in financial literacy and zero as the lowest possible score. Taiwan ranked third in both financial planning (82.4) and investment (61.3) across the region, trailing Thailand and Vietnam. Women in Hong Kong, however, scored better in basic money management than those from Taiwan and China.
CULTURE
Sextet performs tonight
Devil’s Trill, a string sextet featuring prize-winning Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulovic, will perform its first ever concert in Taiwan tonight, the International New Aspect Culture and Education Foundation said on Monday. “This is definitely not a traditional classical music performance,” New Aspect director Hsu Po-yun (許博允) said. “The group breathes new life into classical music.” Tonight’s concert will feature the Violin Sonata in G minor after which the group is named
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
‘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
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