Taiwan and Israel on Wednesday identified areas of future cooperation in science and technology, from marine sciences to algorithms for application in robotics, a visiting Israeli official said yesterday.
Daniel Weihs, chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology, said Taiwan was the best among the 15 countries that had signed a Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement with Israel in terms of the success of relationships built and papers published in several areas.
Since the agreement was signed in 2006, scientists and academics from Taiwan and Israel have jointly worked in the areas of neuroscience and medical engineering in the first two-year program that started in 2007 and nanotechnology and medical devices in the second-stage program.
Research in marine sciences will cover a wide range of issues facing the two countries, including water shortages, ocean pollution, marine agriculture, marine -archeology and the effects of human activity on marine life and marine ecology Weihs said.
“Both countries have water as the only free border. Taiwan is an island and in Israel, we have land borders closed because of political issues, [and thus our] water border is the only way out through the ocean, the same way you have the same thing,” he said.
Taiwan and Israel also plan to develop machine learning algorithms and apply them to robots, which will help robots learn how to respond to a situation when something unusual happens, Weihs said.
“The idea of [our] joint research is to look at the problems facing the two countries that are actually driving scientists, and try to find out how to deal with them. This is the major part of the collaboration,” Israeli Representative to Taiwan Simon Halperin said.
Halperin cited an example of desalination and marine agriculture.
“Just like Israel, water shortage is a serious problem. Desalination has not yet been introduced in Taiwan. In this regard, Israel is a pioneer in the world. Not only was the original technology for desalination developed by Israel, Israel also has the largest desalination plant in the world,” Halperin said.
“Israel is interested in learning and cooperating with Taiwan in researching grouper breading and [their] hatching process since Taiwan is a world leader in marine agriculture in certain areas,” she added.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
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