WEATHER
Cold weather alerts to start
A user-friendly, color-coded alert system is to be introduced from next month to warn of low temperatures across the nation, the Central Weather Bureau said on Friday. The system has a yellow alert to warn of “cold” temperatures, an orange alert for “very cold” temperatures and a red alert for “frigid” temperatures, the bureau said, adding that the warning system would serve non-mountainous areas throughout the country. A yellow warning would be issued when the temperature in low-altitude areas drops to less than 10?C, the bureau said. If the temperature falls to less than 6?C, or if the forecast is to remain between 10?C and 12?C for more than 24 hours, an orange warning would be issued, it said, adding that a red alert would be used when the forecast is for temperatures of below 6?C for at least 24 hours. For the outlying Matsu Islands, the temperature thresholds for the alerts would be 4?C lower than for the rest of the nation, because the islands’ latitude generally brings cooler temperatures, it said. The aim of the alert system is to make it easier for people to know what to expect, as the warning includes the temperature and the expected duration of the cold spell.
POLITICS
Ma departs for Europe
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last night departed on an eight-day visit to Europe, His office said yesterday. Ma has since last year been an executive fellow of the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, so he plans to attend a school event tomorrow in Rome before traveling to London the following day, his office said. On Wednesday, Ma is scheduled to attend a panel discussion with academics and graduate students at the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway, it said, adding that on Thursday, Ma would visit the University of Oxford to meet with university vice-chancellor Louise Richardson and deliver a speech titled “Cross-strait Relations at a Crossroad” at the Oxford Union. During his stay in London, Ma also plans to visit places where Republic of China founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) set foot when he traveled to England to recruit members for his revolt against the Qing Dynasty, the office said. Ma is scheduled to return to Taiwan on Saturday, it added.
DIPLOMACY
Tuvalu talks target sea levels
Taiwan is to engage in talks with Tuvalu on how to combat climate change, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week following an appeal by the Pacific island ally for assistance in dealing with rising sea levels. In a recent interview with Japan’s Kyodo News, Tuvaluan Prime Minister Kausea Natano issued a call for global partners to help his country with a land reclamation plan so that it can cope with rising sea levels. There is a serious risk of Tuvalu losing its land due to rapidly rising sea levels, Natano said, adding that the country is developing the land reclamation project to respond to the emergency. Natano said he hopes that other countries would offer assistance to make the plan possible. Natano became the country’s prime minister in an election last month. He succeeded Enele Sopoaga, who led the country for six years. Speculation has spread about whether Tuvalu would follow the Solomon Islands and Kiribati in switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, but Natano said last month that his government would continue to work closely with Taiwan.
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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