China is Taiwan’s sworn enemy
China is Taiwan’s sworn enemyBy Lai Yen-cheng 賴彥丞During a speech at the Ketagalan Forum’s 2021 Asia-Pacific Security Dialogue on Tuesday last week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) referred to “neighboring countries,” which some interpreted to include China. Taiwan’s pan-blue camp was incandescent with rage and claimed that Tsai’s choice of words would lead to “cross-strait conflict.”The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was predictably hopping mad. The party’s pro-Beijing credentials were on full display as it demanded the president take into account Beijing’s reaction before opening her mouth. Is it any wonder that a recent opinion poll showed that Taiwanese voters display more antipathy toward the KMT than any other political party? It is maddening that the treacherous KMT continues to exist, for China is not just a neighbor: It is Taiwan’s sworn enemy.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 16:05 UTC
COVID-19: Government should raise vaccine coverage: expert
COVID-19: Government should raise vaccine coverage: expertBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterThe government should increase first-dose COVID-19 vaccination coverage in people aged 12 and older, as well as the second-dose coverage in people aged 60 and older, amid an outbreak of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, National Taiwan University College of Public Health professor Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. Chen said that he suspects that one of the pilots was the first to contract COVID-19, possibly when he was in Chicago between Aug. 23 and 26. While the one-dose vaccination coverage of adults is nearly 50 percent, and the coverage in people aged 60 and older is more than 70 percent, the second-dose vaccination coverage is still very low in all age groups, he said. With Taiwan facing possible community spread of the Delta variant, Chen said his research team has suggested a vaccination policy. He said the goal is to increase the first-dose vaccination coverage to 90 percent, while at the same time increasing the second-dose vaccination coverage in people aged 60 and older to 90 percent.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
COVID-19: Preschool cluster confirmed as Delta variant
COVID-19: Preschool cluster confirmed as Delta variantCOMPLICATED: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said the 10 preschool cases shared a genome sequence, but that it differed from the aircrew cluster’s sequenceBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterA cluster of 23 infections at a preschool in New Taipei City have been confirmed as being from the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei TimesThe first case in the preschool cluster was reported on Sunday, a preschool teacher, while several preschool students and their family members tested positive in the following days, he said. Chen said that 1,013 close contacts of the preschool cluster have been placed in home isolation and 49 are practicing self-health management. Among them, 358 have tested negative, 22 have tested positive and 633 are waiting for their results, he said. Genome sequencing on virus samples collected from 10 cases in the preschool cluster showed that they are all infected with the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, he added.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Bitcoin battered after debut as tender in El Salvador
Bitcoin battered after debut as tender in El SalvadorReuters, TOKYOBitcoin licked its wounds yesterday, a day after its heaviest losses in two-and-a-half months, as El Salvador’s historic adoption of the crypto asset as legal tender caused chaos online and on the streets. ANTICIPATIONA woman protests the use of bitcoin as legal tender in San Salvador on Tuesday. It was a historical day for bitcoin as El Salvador’s experiment of making it legal tender got off to a bumpy start. As bitcoin wobbled, Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele said his government purchased an additional 150 bitcoins on Tuesday, worth about US$7 million. “That has underscored the difficulty in trying to protect the value of bitcoin as its own currency,” Monex Securities chief economist Nana Otsuki said.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Intel to invest billions to boost EU chip capacity
Intel to invest billions to boost EU chip capacityReutersIntel Corp on Tuesday said it could invest as much as 80 billion euros (US$94.53 billion) in Europe over the next decade to boost the region’s chip capacity and would open up its semiconductor plant in Ireland for automakers. The Intel Corp logo is pictured at the entrance to the company’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 2, 2010. The aim is to create a center of innovation in Europe, for Europe,” Gelsinger said. The “Intel Foundry Services Accelerator” is aimed at helping automakers learn to make chips using what Intel calls its “Intel 16” chip manufacturing technology and later move to its “Intel 3” and “Intel 18A” technologies. Intel said nearly 100 automakers and key suppliers — including BMW AG, Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and Robert Bosch GmbH — had expressed support for its programs.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Amazon to open two cashierless Whole Foods stores
Amazon to open two cashierless Whole Foods storesAP, NEW YORKThere will be something missing at two Whole Foods Market Inc stores opening next year: the rows of cashiers. Amazon.com Inc, which owns the grocery chain, yesterday said that it would bring its cashierless technology to two Whole Foods stores for the first time, letting shoppers grab what they need and leave without having to open their wallets. Amazon first unveiled the cashierless technology in 2018 at an Amazon Go convenience store and has expanded it to larger Amazon supermarkets, but it would be the first time it has appeared at Whole Foods, a chain of more than 500 grocery stores Amazon bought four years ago. They are to be stocked with the typical Whole Foods fare, including seafood, fresh-squeezed orange juice and organic vegetables. It also declined to say if it plans to bring the technology to more Whole Foods locations.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
DPP lawmakers call for foreign mission renaming
DPP lawmakers call for foreign mission renamingBy Lu Yi-hsuan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writerThe government should use “Taiwan” for its 91 de facto embassies in foreign countries, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) and Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said yesterday. The lawmakers made the remark at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei calling on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to establish a task force for this purpose. The Taiwan Representative Office in the Republic of Somaliland, inaugurated last year, is the only representative office using the name, and a planned office in Lithuania is expected to become the second. All Taiwan’s representative offices — including those in the US and Japan — should be renamed, Chiu said. Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that the ministry appreciates the lawmakers’ suggestion, but a representative office can only be renamed with the host nation’s consent.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Japan upgrades GDP on raised business spending
Japan upgrades GDP on raised business spendingReuters, TOKYOJapan’s economy grew faster than initially estimated in the April-to-June quarter, helped by solid capital expenditure, although a resurgence in COVID-19 is undermining service-sector consumption and clouding the outlook. A worker checks a spool of recycled paper at a Corelex Shinei Co toilet paper factory in Fuji, Japan, on Tuesday. Japan’s GDP expanded at an annualized pace of 1.9 percent in the three months to June. “Japan’s recovery is lagging behind other advanced economies. Private consumption, which accounts for more than half of Japan’s GDP, grew 0.9 percent from April to June compared with the previous three months, up slightly from a preliminary estimate of a 0.8 percent gain.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Organizers of Tiananmen vigil arrested by HK police
Organizers of Tiananmen vigil arrested by HK policeAFP, HONG KONGHong Kong police yesterday arrested four members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group behind annual vigils for the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a day after they refused to cooperate with a national security investigation. Hong Kong Alliance vice chairwoman Chow Han-tung speaks to reporters in Hong Kong on Sunday. “Anyone who has violated the National Security Law of Hong Kong and other laws of Hong Kong must be punished by the law,” the Chinese National Security Bureau in Hong Kong said. “Even before a trial begins, Hong Kong Alliance is presumed guilty. It completely violates the presumption of innocence in the past,” former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law (羅冠聰) said.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Wong Chi-huey honored
Wong Chi-huey honoredStaff writer, with CNAFormer Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠) is likely to become the first person in Taiwan to receive the Welch Award in Chemistry, anonymous sources have said. The purpose of the award is “to foster and encourage basic chemical research and to recognize, in a substantial manner, the value of chemical research contributions for the benefit of humankind,” the foundation’s Web site says. Chemist and former Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey sits at his desk in an undated photograph. Wong, who had been impeached because of bribery charges related to OBI Pharma Inc (浩鼎), in 2016 resigned from his position as the president of Academia Sinica. Some say Wong could have won the award a few years earlier, but was hampered by the charges.
Source:Taipei Times
September 08, 2021 15:56 UTC
Painting, ‘guqin’ listed as Hsinchu cultural assets
Painting, ‘guqin’ listed as Hsinchu cultural assetsBy Hung Mei-hsiu and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writerHsinchu’s traditional architectural painting and guqin (古琴) have been named intangible cultural assets, bringing the city’s total to six and marking the first time the instrument has been recognized by any region. The guqin is China’s oldest musical instrument with a history dating back 3,000 years, the Hsinchu Cultural Affairs Bureau said last week. The detailed and colorful paintings of Fu Pai-tsun (傅?村) have also been registered as intangible cultural assets in recognition of his more than 60 years decorating shrines and temples. Like the other preservers of culture, he uses traditional methods, including freehand blowing and molding of glass, it said. The other three intangible cultural assets listed in Hsinchu are woodcarving, lacquer art and mother-of-pearl inlays.
Source:Taipei Times
September 07, 2021 15:56 UTC
Cabinet holds ‘no stance’ on idea of ‘Greater Hsinchu’
Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) later proposed that the new “Greater Hsinchu” become the nation’s seventh special municipality, an idea for which Lin yesterday voiced support. Traffic congests the Ching-kuo Bridge connecting Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City and Hsinchu City in an undated photograph. Without Miaoli County, creating “Greater Hsinchu” would involve revising the Local Government Act (地方制度法). Statistics from the end of last month show that Hsinchu County has a population of 573,858, while Hsinchu City has 452,781 people for a total of 1.03 million. In response to media queries, an Executive Yuan official yesterday said that the Cabinet has not yet formally discussed the proposal.
Source:Taipei Times
September 07, 2021 15:56 UTC
South Korean firm Coupang launches second Taipei site
South Korean firm Coupang launches second Taipei siteBy Angelica Oung / Staff reporterSouth Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Corp yesterday launched its second outlet in Taipei after opening its first in Zhongshan District (中山) in July. The new site in Xinyi District (信義) suggests that Coupang, often described as “the Amazon of South Korea,” is to contest the app-based delivery space occupied by Foodpanda Taiwan Co (富胖達) and Uber Eats Taiwan. A Coupang Corp employee delivers an eco-bag carrying fresh food in Bucheon, South Korea, on Feb. 19. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/BloombergCoupang says it delivers within 15 minutes for orders to Songshan (松山), Daan (大安), Xinyi, Zhongshan and Datong (大同) districts. Coupang founder and chief executive officer Bom Kim said that he is excited by the opportunities in the Taiwanese market.
Source:Taipei Times
September 07, 2021 15:56 UTC
COVID-19: Cluster cases likely not Alpha, CECC says
Among the eight new local cases, seven were in New Taipei City, including five people linked to the preschool cluster, and one in Taipei, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. A cleaner sanitizes a playground at the affiliated kindergarten of an elementary school in Taipei yesterday, after a cluster of COVID-19 cases were linked to a kindergarten in New Taipei City. Photo: CNAThe cluster has since expanded to 15 people, with nine cases — eight students and a parent — reported on Monday, and five more cases — a student, three parents and a one-year-old sibling of a student — reported yesterday, Chen said. The CECC also reported four imported COVID-19 cases: two Taiwanese, one Japanese and one Malaysian. The 12 new cases brought the total number of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan to 16,047, of which 14,386 were domestic infections reported since May 15, when the country first recorded more than 100 cases in a single day.
Source:Taipei Times
September 07, 2021 15:56 UTC
NPP caucus unveils 28 bills, amendments on to-do list
NPP caucus unveils 28 bills, amendments on to-do listBy Shelley Shan / Staff reporterThe New Power Party (NPP) legislative caucus yesterday listed 28 bills and amendments that it aims to help pass during the new legislative session, adding that it would focus on a “vacant home tax act” and amendments to laws governing investment from China. Legislators need to review the draft of the vacant home tax act, which is backed by the Democratic Progressive Party, NPP caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said. Taiwan had 1.66 million vacant homes last year, up from 1.23 million in 2000, Chiu said, citing Ministry of the Interior data. From left, New Power Party (NPP) legislators Claire Wang, Chiu Hsien-chih and Chen Jiau-hua introduce the NPP caucus’ priority bills for the new legislative session at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday. “We have seen a rise in funding from China disguised as investments from other countries to avoid scrutiny by the Investment Commission.
Source:Taipei Times
September 07, 2021 15:56 UTC