People enjoy the warm waters of a hot spring in Taipei’s Beitou District yesterday. A large part of northern Taiwan saw temperatures plunge to 6oC from Monday night to last night, the Central Weather Bureau said. Slightly warmer temperatures are expected during the day today, with highs of 12oC to 15oC in the north and in Yilan and Hualien counties, 16oC to 18oC in Taitung and from Taichung down to Tainan in the west, and 19oC to 21oC in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, the bureau said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
CHAMPION TREES: The team used light detection and ranging imaging to locate the tree, and found that it measured a height of 84.1m and had a girth of 8.5m A team committed to finding the tallest trees in the nation yesterday said that an 84.1m tall Taiwania cryptomerioides tree had been named the tallest tree in Taiwan and East Asia. The Taiwan Champion Trees, a team consisting of researchers from the Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in June last year used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to find the giant tree, numbered 55214, upstream of the Daan River (大安溪). A 20-member expedition team led by Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, set out to find the
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
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The Tourism Bureau plans to offer incentives to attract international tourists as the nation plans to gradually lift all travel restrictions to contain COVID-19, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday. The incentives would be funded by surplus national tax revenue from last year, Wang said. The funding could be appropriated after the legislature passes draft special statutes governing the use of the surplus tax revenue in the upcoming legislative session, he said. Of the NT$450 billion (US$14.97 billion) in surplus tax revenue, the government plans to spend NT$100 billion on seven categories of projects to bolster Taiwan’s
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