Thu, Sep 18, 2025
AI BOOST: TSMC has left Samsung’s foundry business behind in the race for global market share with 70.2% compared with the South Korean firm’s 7.3% share National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) yesterday attributed a forecast that Taiwan would overtake South Korea in GDP per capita to the success of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and a boom in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.Yeh’s comments came af
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday.Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said
A member of New York’s Chinese dissident community on Tuesday pleaded guilty to spying on his fellow activists on behalf of the Chinese government.Tang Yuanjun (唐元雋), 68, had long been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party, joining monthly protests outside the country’s Manhattan consul
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday was unable to clinch an ambitious defense treaty with Papua New Guinea (PNG) during a visit to the country, a week after he failed to land a security pact with another South Pacific island neighbor, Vanuatu, aimed at curbing China’s influence in t
EASING ANXIETY: The new guide includes a section encouraging people to discuss the threat of war with their children and teach them how to recognize disinformation The Ministry of National Defense’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency yesterday released its updated civil defense handbook, which defines the types of potential military aggression by an “enemy state” and self-protection tips in such scenarios.The agency has released three editions of the handbook
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number
NEW TECHNOLOGY: Legislators should utilize AI as a ‘diligent intern’ to research available options, not as a provider of solutions, a coauthor of the guidelines said The Legislative Yuan should adopt applied artificial intelligence (AI) guidelines to facilitate communication with the public and protect government information security, lawmakers and groups said yesterday. The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) and the London-based Westminster Foundation for De
Oba, Taiwan’s first therapy dog, retired Tuesday amid fanfare and celebration at Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH). Oba’s vest denoting its status of service was removed, and it received a medal during the ceremony, the hospital said. Oba was Taiwan’s first therapy dog and has provided calm an
ACCUSATION: Actress Chiang Tsu-ping said that Kung Yi-ting drugged and raped her, adding that several other Sanlih staff members had been sexually harassed Kung Yi-ting (龔益霆), son of former Sanlih Television Co (三立電視公司) director Kung Mei-fu (龔美富), was released on NT$1 million (US$33,261) bail on Monday evening after questioning by prosecutors for alleged sexual offenses against actress Chiang Tsu-ping (江祖平). Chiang filed a judicial complaint on Thursda
Japanese actor Satoshi Tsumabuki, who was named Taiwan’s tourism ambassador last year, recommended his favorite Taiwanese food and shaved ice, and shared his experience filming in Tainan during a meet-and-greet in Taipei yesterday. Tsumabuki said he is honored to serve as the nation’s tourism ambass
Former Atomic Energy Council minister Hsieh Shou-shing (謝曉星) is to be fined NT$600,000 for sexually harassing female subordinates before his dismissal in January 2023, the Disciplinary Court ruled yesterday. Hsieh was the first Cabinet official to be removed from office following a sexual harassment
The Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday said that broader public support is needed to implement humane euthanasia in animal shelters, after a citizen-led petition called for it. The public proposal was submitted in early July via the National Development Council’s public policy participation Web site
An American woman has been indicted for allegedly smuggling heroin from Laos at the request of a man she believed to be the superior of her online fiance, whom she had never met in person, the Aviation Police Bureau said yesterday.A Taiwanese man assigned to collect the drugs was also arrested, the
More than one in five Taiwanese teenagers said they have had suicidal thoughts, with girls reporting stronger feelings than boys, according to a survey released yesterday by the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF).On a five-point scale from “not at all” to “extremely,” 23.4 percent of female stud
IMPASSE: The court has been left with just eight justices for almost a year, while opposition amendments require 10 justices to be present for the court to function All political parties should work together to overcome the impasse at the Constitutional Court and provide more transparency on new justice nominees by President William Lai (賴清德), advocacy groups and legal activists said at a news conference yesterday.The Constitutional Court has been immobilized f
LOOKING BRIGHT: Taiwanese tech stocks have been trading at 18 to 19 times earnings, beating the 15 percent long-term average amid AI-driven optimism, an analyst said Taiwan’s economy could expand by as much as 5 percent this year, fueled by its technology manufacturing edge amid a global artificial intelligence (AI) boom, while tariff exemptions on semiconductor products keep the country’s levy burden low despite a headline rate of 20 percent, UBS Investment Ban
COMPANY TOUR: Shibaura executives in July met with Yageo representatives in Taipei, and visited its manufacturing facilities in Kaohsiung and Thailand Yageo Corp (國巨), the world’s No. 3 multilayer ceramic capacitor supplier, on Tuesday night said that it had secured support from Shibaura Electronics Co’s management team for a takeover bid, clearing a major hurdle to clinching the NT$22.83 billion (US$759.4 million) deal later this year.It came aft
British pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) plans to invest US$30 billion in the US over the next five years, it announced yesterday, as US President Donald Trump began a UK state visit.The investments would bolster GSK’s research and development as well as production capacities in the US
An American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesperson on Saturday rebuked a Chinese official for mischaracterizing World War II-era agreements as proving that Taiwan was ceded to China. The US Department of State later affirmed that the AIT remarks reflect Washington’s long-standing position: Taiwan’s
The Executive Yuan on Tuesday last week said that “unsolvable” problems and mistakes in the amended Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) have prevented the central government from disbursing NT$34.5 billion (US$1.15 billion) to local governments. Taichung Ma
Italy’s relationship with Taiwan continues to deepen, as shown by the recent visit of an Italian parliamentary delegation to the nation. The encounter forms part of a broader effort by Italian lawmakers to demonstrate their commitment to Taiwan’s democratic aspirations and global inclusion. Italy ha
HALF CENTURY: Mbappe, who reached 50 goals in Madrid’s narrow victory over Marseille, said he does his best when he feels the pressure in situations Arsenal on Tuesday won 2-0 away to Athletic Bilbao as the league phase of this season’s UEFA Champions League kicked off, with two Kylian Mbappe penalties giving Real Madrid a narrow win over Olympique de Marseille, while Juventus and Borussia Dortmund drew an eight-goal thriller.Tottenham Hotspur a
After Shohei Ohtani on Tuesday pitched five hitless innings for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Rafael Marchon hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer off Blake Treinen with two outs in the ninth inning for a 9-6 win.Brandon Marsh had a two-run homer and Max Kepler added a solo shot i
New Zealand yesterday basked in “amazing” athletics glory after winning two gold medals in as many days at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.Geordie Beamish on Monday claimed New Zealand’s first track gold in history with a shock victory in the 3,000m steeplechase, while high jumper Hamish
From “the couch” to a world champion. That is how American Cordell Tinch summed up his victory on Tuesday in the 110m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.The “champion” part was easy to grasp, in plain view at Japan National Stadium. The “couch” part — that was the three years Tinc
TWO-DAY WINDOW: Many Palestinians said that there is no safe place in the territory and that they would rather die in their homes than be displaced from the Gaza Strip Israel’s army yesterday said that it had opened a temporary new route to allow people to flee Gaza City, a day after launching a major ground assault aimed at crushing Hamas. The Israeli military unleashed a massive bombardment of Gaza City before dawn on Tuesday and pushed its troops deeper into th
‘MOURNING, DESPAIR’: A local TV station reported a ‘gruesome death toll of 22 innocent people cowardly killed without reason or justification’ at a village Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead 22 villagers in western Niger, most attending a baptism ceremony, local media and other sources said on Tuesday.The shootings happened on Monday in the Tillaberi region, near Burkina Faso and Mali, where jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group ar
Decked out with fake crystal chandeliers and velvet sofas, cosmetic surgery clinics in Afghanistan’s capital are a world away from the austerity of Taliban rule, where Botox, lip filler and hair transplants reign.Despite the Taliban authorities’ strict theocratic rule, and prevailing conservatism an
Gaza is an abstraction. It’s video on social media, pictures on a news feed, text on a page. It’s statistics in a UN report and condemnation from the International Criminal Court. It’s enormity is impossible to grasp. Roi Silberberg and Hazem Almassry aren’t interested in abstractions. For them what
The depressing numbers continue to pile up, like casualty lists after a lost battle. This week, after the government announced the 19th straight month of population decline, the Ministry of the Interior said that Taiwan is expected to lose 6.67 million workers in two waves of retirement over the nex
Way of the Dragon’s Enter the Dragon 13 card broke new ground Sunday at the Taipei Gymnasium, staging Asia’s first Dirty Boxing contest while also testing Beta MMA, Cage Striking, and professional MMA. The event drew a steadily growing crowd to the Red Gym, with subdued preliminaries giving way to a
A: The Ministry of Education’s Sports Administration has been upgraded to the Cabinet’s Ministry of Sports, which came into operation on Sept. 9, National Sports Day.B: Yeah, Olympic gold medalist Lee Yang was appointed minister, while baseball superstar Chen Yi-hsin was appointed deputy minister
It is a universally acknowledged truth that Jane Austen, born in 1775, is one of the most beloved English novelists, and that her works still inspire readers today. She is renowned for her novels Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Her stories often explore themes of love, marriage
Britain’s National Gallery announced on Sept. 9 that it will use a whopping ￡375m (US$510m) in donations to open a new wing that, for the first time, will include modern art.Founded in 1824, the gallery has amassed a centuries-spanning collection of Western paintings by artists from Leonardo da Vinc
Two moves show Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) is gunning for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party chair and the 2028 presidential election. Technically, these are not yet “officially” official, but by the rules of Taiwan politics, she is now on the dance floor. Earlier this month Lu confirmed in an interview in Japan’s Nikkei that she was considering running for KMT chair. This is not new news, but according to reports from her camp she previously was still considering the case for and against running. By choosing a respected, international news outlet, she declared it to the world. While the outside world likely paid little attention, domestically the message was unmistakable: She is moving on to a larger stage. Part of the dance is to leave options open before formally committing, and with the chair race due in late September, she has time. If something goes wrong in the meantime, or if power brokers in the party offer her a deal that provides more benefits than taking on the role of chair, she can pivot accordingly. Earlier this year, I suggested that strategically, she would be better off concentrating on her job as Taichung mayor until she is term-limited out of office in December next year. Taichung mayor is obviously a full-time job, and concurrently running the Taipei-headquartered party runs the risk of doing one or both jobs poorly and making mistakes that could imperil her shot at the presidency in 2028. The situation has changed. Current KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), knowing he is likely to face challengers of a higher caliber than the three relative nobodies already declared, has gone all in on appealing to the base. The base is more likely to turn out to vote in the chair election, so this makes some strategic sense in the short term.
Among Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) villages, a certain rivalry exists between Arunothai, the largest of these villages, and Mae Salong, which is currently the most prosperous. Historically, the rivalry stems from a split in KMT military factions in the early 1960s, which divided command and opium territories after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) cut off open support in 1961 due to international pressure (see part two, “The KMT opium lords of the Golden Triangle,” on May 20). But today this rivalry manifests as a different kind of split, with Arunothai leading a pro-China faction and Mae Salong staunchly aligned to Taiwan. Last spring at Arunothai’s Jiaolian School, principal Wang Mingming (王明明) had forewarned me of the division between villages, saying, “We are not like the people in Mae Salong. They are rich. Because of the Taiwanese.” Arunothai has in recent years become split in its loyalties between Taiwan and China (see part one, “A tale of two schools,” on May 15), but in Mae Salong, links to Taiwan remain strong. Taiwan-funded monuments pay homage to the Lost Army, villagers wear T-shirts emblazoned with the Republic of China (ROC) flag and tea plantations grown Taiwan’s most famous tea varieties, including Dong Ding (“frozen peak”) Oolong, Oriental Beauty and Jin Xuan (Golden Daylily or Milk Oolong). Even the numerical classifications of the teas — Oolong No. 12 or No. 17, for example — are the same, and the shops resemble those found on Alishan. At the tomb of General Tuan Hsi-wen (段希文) — perched on a Mae Salong hilltop with a view of his ancestral homeland in China’s Yunnan province — a third generation villager wearing a vintage KMT army uniform, Yan Si-Chung (岩思中), greets visitors with sharp military salutes. “Both my father and my grandfather were soldiers in the KMT army,” the 44-year-old
| New Taipei City | 27-29 | 10% |  |
| Hsinchu County | 26-27 | 0% | |
| Hsinchu City | 26-27 | 0% | |
| Taipei City | 28-29 | 10% |  |
| Miaoli County | 25-26 | 0% | |
| Taoyuan City | 26-28 | 0% | |
| Keelung City | 27-28 | 20% | |
| Yunlin County | 25-27 | 10% | |
| Taichung City | 26-27 | 0% | |
| Nantou County | 25-26 | 0% | |
| Changhua County | 26-28 | 0% | |
| Chiayi County | 26-27 | 10% | |
| Chiayi City | 25-26 | 10% | |
| Tainan City | 28-29 | 20% | |
| Kaohsiung City | 28-29 | 30% |  |
| Pingtung County | 26-27 | 30% | |
| Yilan County | 26-27 | 20% | |
| Hualien County | 26-27 | 30% | |
| Taitung County | 26-27 | 80% | |
| Kinmen County | 27-28 | 20% | |
| Penghu County | 27-28 | 20% | |
| Lienchiang County | 27-28 | 20% | |
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