Thu, Nov 07, 2024
The US will continue its friendly approach toward Taiwan in the next US administration and Taiwan would work to prevent China “making trouble” during the transition, a senior Taiwanese security official said yesterday.Former US president Donald Trump, the Republican candidate who claimed victory in
FUNDING STALLED? The KMT’s Jessica Chen arrived at 5:40am, started the meeting at 9am, but ended it at 9:03am with no consensus on proposed amendments The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee met for only three minutes early yesterday morning before giving a preliminary approval to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), as debate continues over proposed amendments.Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus
The Ministry of Interior yesterday said that it was seeking to forcibly disband the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), adding that it would present evidence the party developed organizations and interfered in elections on behalf of China.The CUPP has engaged in organized activities on behalf
Thousands of people on Tuesday protested against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissal of his defense minister, demanding that the government do everything in its power to bring home hostages held in Gaza.The demonstration erupted soon after Netanyahu’s office announced the sacking o
SOLID TIES: Basilio Gustavo Nunez Gimenez said he was visiting Taiwan to reaffirm his nation’s commitment to bilateral ties and deepening cooperation with Taipei President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday welcomed Paraguayan Senate President Basilio Gustavo Nunez Gimenez, who is visiting to bolster bilateral relations and deepen cooperation with Taiwan.Nunez, who arrived with a delegation on Monday on a five-day visit, described Paraguay as “not only a friend, bu
The Canadian government has stationed a cybersecurity expert at its Taipei office as Ottawa deepens security cooperation with Taiwan, Canadian media reported yesterday.Recognizing that China poses the biggest threat to Canada and Taiwan in terms of cybersecurity, Ottawa wants to work with Taiwan to
OPINIONS: Although a participant said that Trump was ‘anti-democratic,’ another one said he was more capable of addressing Beijing’s unfair international trade practices As votes determining the next US president were being counted, people gathered yesterday morning at a bar in downtown Taipei to follow live updates of a race that was clearly moving in former US president Donald Trump’s favor. At a watch party in Taipei hosted by Democrats Abroad’s chapter in Taiwan
RELATIONS: Although Trump expressed discontent with the CHIPS and Science Act, the government is prepared and confident of stable ties, officials said In the face of former US president Donald Trump’s re-election, government officials are hopeful that Taiwan-US relations would continue to improve under the new administration, while an expert said that Taiwan should not solely rely on the US. During his campaign, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing”
A group of conscripts doing one-year mandatory military service yesterday fired domestically made portable rocket launchers during a media event in Tainan. In the live-fire exercises at the Southern Taiwan Military Training Center, conscripts who spent several weeks training with portable Kestrel mi
Taiwanese director Fu Tien-yu (傅天余) was presented a Kurosawa Akira Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) on Tuesday for her feature film Day Off (本日公休), event organizers said in a news release. Fu’s film follows the protagonist, a female barber, embarking on a long journey to cut the
The government is closely watching the incoming center-left Lithuania coalition government and hopes cordial relations with Vilnius would continue, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said on Tuesday. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of European Affairs Director-General Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) made the remar
SHAME: When teams from other countries see the safety notices posted at the entrances of the Taipei Dome it would become an international joke, a city councilor said Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted Farglory Group (遠雄集團) and the Taipei City Government for not addressing safety issues at the Taipei Dome, with the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 baseball tournament to start next week.The Taipei Construction Management Office posted notice
IMPORT CHECKS: Enhanced border inspections put in place in March in response to a separate Sudan red dye incident did not include turmeric powder, the FDA said A banned toxic Sudan red dye was detected in turmeric used in a curry powder sold by a Taiwanese company, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday, while the Ministry of Education informed schools nationwide to temporarily suspend the use of the powder.The Flying Horse Special Mix Curry
At a drone testing field in southwestern Taiwan, university students watched anxiously as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) they designed took off, landed and, occasionally, crashed in a simulated battlefield scenario.They are participating in a competition that is helping the nation’s efforts to boos
Every winter in Kinmen, thousands of cormorants can be seen at dawn and dusk, forming V-shaped or straight lines in the sky as they return to their roosts. This spectacular “black-clad army” descending upon Kinmen is one of the park’s most iconic ecological sights. These visitors from southern Siber
ELECTION: Bitcoin surged US$6,000 to a record US$75,371.69, while the US dollar rose more than 1 percent against the euro and 1.5 percent against the Japanese yen The US dollar surged and bitcoin hit a record high yesterday before former US president Donald Trump claimed victory in the US election, with traders ramping up bets on fresh tax cuts, tariffs and rising inflation.While polls had shown the race on a knife edge, the Republican fared far better than h
The consumer price index (CPI) last month grew 1.69 percent from a year earlier, the lowest in 3.5 years and below the central bank’s 2 percent target for the second straight month, as food, service and shelter prices rose at a moderate pace, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statist
Taiwanese officials have said that they believed talks on a Taiwan-US trade and double taxation deal would not be impacted by the election of a new US president.The Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations told CNA that Taiwan and the US have been in close communication over the first agreement
China Unification Promotion Party central committee member Chang Meng-chung (張孟崇) and his wife were indicted on Monday on charges of accepting NT$74 million (US$2.3 million) from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to interfere in Taiwan’s elections and to induce members of the military to surrender s
A 15-year-old boy surnamed Tseng (曾) from Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) illegally drove his grandfather’s sports utility vehicle on the evening of Oct. 17 and crashed into a roadside eatery, killing three and injuring two. Such a serious incident, along with the fact that the sentence for young peopl
In response to the escalation of the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) incident in the South China Sea in recent months, Japan and the Philippines signed a defense pact on July 8. The defense treaty, known as the Reciprocal Access Agreement which allows for the deployment of Japanese forces to
‘DARK PLACE’: While the win was a perfect send-off for Amorim, it was City’s heaviest losing margin in Europe since 2018 and their first defeat in four games this season Viktor Gyokeres on Tuesday scored a hat-trick as Ruben Amorim’s Sporting Lisbon stunned Manchester City with a 4-1 win in the UEFA Champions League, while Liverpool trounced Xabi Alonso’s Bayer 04 Leverkusen and AC Milan beat holders Real Madrid in Spain.Sporting stole the show with their performanc
Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova on Tuesday survived a crucial doubles group-stage match at the WTA Finals in Riyadh, giving them a chance today to earn a semi-final berth, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens were at press time last night aim
The sound of a starting gun can cause a runner with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to “fall into a panic or complete despair,” a Ukrainian war veteran said, but help is at hand due to a revolutionary system devised in Ukraine.The organizers of the Nova Post Barrier-Free Marathon in Kyiv in Se
Former Manchester United and Atletico Madrid striker Diego Forlan on Tuesday said he felt “like a little boy” after swapping his soccer boots for a tennis racket at the age of 45.The former Uruguayan forward was speaking at the launch of the Uruguay Open, where he would make his professional tennis
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England.Poland last month said that it had ar
‘FIRST BATTLES’: Contact with North Korean soldiers on the battlefield has begun ‘a new chapter of instability in the world,’ the Ukrainian president said on Tuesday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said that the Ukrainian military’s first clashes with North Korean troops had opened the way to more “instability in the world.”Ukrainian Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov said in an interview with South Korean television that the first armed engage
Republicans are to reclaim control of the US Senate, picking up seats in West Virginia and Ohio in US elections on Tuesday as former US president Donald Trump exceeded 270 electoral college votes to book a return to the White House.In the US House of Representatives, there were close contests in New
Nowadays, Taipei has no shortage of Indian restaurants. Just check my Uber Eats order history. But any authentic international feed needs knowledgeable chefs not only cooking their home cuisine, but unbending to local tastes. India’s savory, spicy and creamy is not an immediate match for Taiwan’s sw
Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached.At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are
Talent, discipline and a desire to please leader Kim Jong-un have helped propel North Korea’s youth footballers to two Women’s World Cup crowns in a matter of weeks, experts say.Nuclear-armed but impoverished, North Korea is more often in the news for sanctions-busting ballistic missile launches.But
A: Have you seen the reality TV show “Culinary Class Wars?”B: Sure! It’s a competition between two classes: 20 celebrity chefs dubbed the “white spoons” versus 80 non-celebrity chefs dubbed the “black spoons.”A: The two judges are master chef, Paik Jong-won, and South Korea’s only three-Michelin-
Have you ever encountered abbreviations like “vs.” or “a.m.” and thought about their origins or pronunciation? These terms are leftovers of ancient Latin. For centuries, no one has claimed Latin as their mother tongue, yet many of us unknowingly use this language daily. Let’s explore three common La
Floods that killed more than 200 people in eastern Spain last week were caused by a storm that dumped a year’s worth of rainfall in less than 24 hours.The tragedy has raised questions about whether earlier warnings could have prevented so many deaths, while the widespread damage shows how many citie
It’s certainly been a pleasure watching the presidential campaign launch of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) lurch painfully about like a wounded pachyderm in search of an elephant graveyard. Hou’s fall to third place in some polls last week appears early, and it might still be recoverable. But grumbling in his party about replacing him has already begun. Indeed, all indications are that the party that twice gave us Lien Chan (連戰), the most despised politician in Taiwan, as a presidential candidate and later offered voters Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), is arcing along its normal descending trajectory, the North Korean missile test of electoral politics. A KIND OF POLICY PLATFORM Last week the KMT doubled down on this path with Hou’s calls for nuclear power and more death penalty executions, standard KMT fare for decades (the latter is unnecessary since so many potential criminals are likely to die in traffic accidents long before they harm anyone). Apparently KMT policy institutions are not echo chambers so much as mausoleums where dead ideas are embalmed and then periodically put on display. The lack of public policy imagination is obvious. A less obvious facet of KMT ineptitude: with years of speculation that Hou would be their man in 2024, neither Hou nor the party insisted on interesting or experimental public policies to showcase Hou’s greatness in preparation for the showdown. Of course, that is even more true of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Hou’s slide and the media buzz surrounding it are obscuring the truly urgent problem the pro-Taiwan side faces: DPP presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德) has not expanded his voter support beyond the party base. In most polls he remains below 40 percent. Independent voters are staying away in droves, and for the moment the young are turning to
July 17 to July 23 When Yeh Ken-chuang (葉根壯) came of age, the traditional skills of architecture and carpentry that had been in his family for four generations were disappearing. After helping his uncle Yeh Teh-ling (葉得令) construct ships, residences and temples for more than a decade, Yeh struck out on his own at the age of 28 in 1960 as a damusi (大木司, chief carpenter), earning his lifelong title “Chief Chuang” (壯司). Around this time, builders in his homeland of Penghu were increasingly using reinforced concrete instead of wood, due to the humid climate. The period also saw a frenzy in temple construction as the economy improved, meaning there was plenty of work for Yeh. Adept in non-structural techniques such as doors, windows and furniture, as well as the intricate carvings and detailed decorations that adorned the structures, Yeh was able to adapt his skills, leading the reconstruction of the historic Hsiliao Daitian Temple (西寮代天宮) on Penghu’s main island in 1963. According to the book Crossing Traditions in Yeh Ken-chuang’s Large-scale Carpentry Skills (宮廟巧藝 :跨越傳統的葉根壯大木作技術), it was Penghu’s first temple that used a purely reinforced concrete structure. Before his life was cut short, Yeh created more than 70 temples and related structures across the various islands of Penghu and left behind more than 230 building plans. Although Yeh could have built temples and other structures on Taiwan proper, he only worked on a handful of projects outside of Penghu because he wanted to be close to his family. CLAN OF CARPENTERS The Yeh family’s woodworking tradition began with Yeh Ma-li (葉媽利), who learned the architecture and carpentry trade from an unknown master on Kinmen. The Yehs trace their roots to Kinmen, although this branch had been living in Penghu since the early 1600s. Yeh Ma-li was Penghu’s chief temple builder between 1860 and
| New Taipei City | 14-23 | 10% |  |
| Hsinchu County | 14-22 | 10% | |
| Hsinchu City | 14-22 | 10% | |
| Taipei City | 14-22 | 10% | |
| Miaoli County | 12-22 | 10% | |
| Taoyuan City | 14-22 | 10% | |
| Keelung City | 15-21 | 10% | |
| Yunlin County | 14-24 | 0% | |
| Taichung City | 14-24 | 0% | |
| Nantou County | 14-24 | 0% | |
| Changhua County | 14-23 | 0% | |
| Chiayi County | 13-24 | 0% | |
| Chiayi City | 14-25 | 0% | |
| Tainan City | 15-22 | 0% | |
| Kaohsiung City | 17-23 | 0% | |
| Pingtung County | 16-25 | 0% | |
| Yilan County | 14-22 | 10% | |
| Hualien County | 16-22 | 10% | |
| Taitung County | 17-23 | 10% | |
| Kinmen County | 11-18 | 0% | |
| Penghu County | 17-20 | 0% | |
| Lienchiang County | 10-13 | 10% | |
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