DIPLOMACY
Chopin Web site updated
The designation of Taiwan on the International Chopin Piano Competition’s Web site has been changed to “Chinese Taipei,” after the government protested the use of two other names, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. When the contestants for the preliminary round were named last week, the country of the Taiwanese was first listed as “PRC Taiwan” before being changed to “China Taiwan.” After the Taipei Representative Office in Poland lodged a protest, the appellation was changed on Saturday to “Chinese Taipei,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said. Although the designation is still not what the government would prefer, it is “acceptable,” Ou said. She thanked the competition’s organizers for their efforts to resolve the matter, despite pressure from Beijing.
EARTHQUAKES
Tainan rocked by temblor
A magnitude 4.2 earthquake hit southern Taiwan at 9:52am yesterday, but no damage or injuries were immediately reported. The epicenter was in Tainan’s Nanhua District (南化), and the quake hit at a depth of 13.2km, the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Center said. The quake’s highest intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, measured 4 on Taiwan’s zero to 7 intensity scale in Nansi and 3 in Kaohsiung and Chiayi County. It had an intensity of 2 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County.
DIPLOMACY
UN Woman criticized
The Presidential Office on Friday criticized the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women for not including President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the “Women in Politics: 2020” map it produced with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The map, released on Tuesday, also shows Taiwan in the same color as China, suggesting that they are one nation. “Hello @UN_Women: If you really want to empower women around the world, you may need 2 things: 1) NEW GLASSES so you can see past your prejudices; 2) MORE COURAGE so you can face reality & acknowledge #Taiwan’s widely admired head of state, President @iingwen!” the office tweeted. The office also posted a map showing Taiwan as one of 21 nations that have a female as head of state or government leader. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has asked the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York to file a protest with the UN over Tsai’s exclusion.
EDUCATION
Gold medalists honored
The Ministry of Education on Friday presented awards to the gold medalists of last year’s International Exhibition for Young Inventors. Taiwanese won nine of the 33 gold medals that were awarded at the exhibition in Indonesia in October, the ministry said. They included students from Kaohsiung, Tainan, Taipei, Taichung, New Taipei City and Yilan County, whose projects were chosen from out of 140 submitted. Last year’s event drew participants, aged six to 19 from 11 nations, who competed in seven categories: disaster management; education and recreation; foods and agriculture; green technologies; safety and health; technologies for special needs; and art technology. The K-12 Education Administration said that by recognizing the medalists, it hopes to encourage students to continue to invent and to innovate, and to inspire others to be passionate about technology and invention.
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
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