On April 28, the TAIEX benchmark index briefly touched 10,002.58 points – the first time it had surpassed the 10,000-point mark in 15 years – mainly due to stock purchases by foreign investors. While the index retreated later in the morning to close at 9,973.12, it was the highest close since April 11, 2000. Daily…
Cathay Life Insurance won the reverse auction to acquire troubled firms Global Life Insurance Co. and Singfor Life Insurance Co., with a bid of NT$30.3 billion (about US$1 billion) – meaning that is the amount it will receive from the government to take over the two companies. Both of the acquired firms were taken into…
Food safety issues emerged once again last month with the revelation that potentially radioactive food has been imported into Taiwan. Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) announced on April 16 that it will tighten rules on food imports from Japan after it was revealed that bogus labels on certain products misidentified the origin of the…
The Cloud Gate Dance Troupe, considered among the world’s top contemporary dance troupes, inaugurated a new theater on April 19, nearly seven years after a fire destroyed its original home. The new site, located in the Tamsui District of New Taipei City, will not only showcase Cloud Gate productions but also works by young artists,…
Following heavy rains in northern Taiwan in early May, phase-three water rationing in Taoyuan and parts of New Taipei City and Hsinchu County has been suspended until at least mid-May. Since early April, water supply to households in the affected areas has been cut off two days per week on a rotational basis. This year…
Four people were killed and four others injured in Taichung when a massive steel girder suspended over an MRT construction site fell the height of three stories, crushing a car and killing its driver and three construction workers. The four injured were also construction workers. Witnesses said that no traffic control was in place at…
An earthquake registering at 6.3 on the Richter scale shook northern Taiwan on the morning of April 20, followed shortly afterward by a 5.0-magnitude aftershock and that evening by a number of smaller tremors. The Central Weather Bureau said the earthquake epicenter was off the coast of Hualien, and categorized it as a shallow earthquake…
Saying she is determined to “turn tears to laughter” for her supporters after her failed 2012 bid, DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen on April 15 formally accepted her party’s nomination for the 2016 presidential elections. Tsai Ing-wen announced her candidacy in February and ran for the party nomination unopposed. Although the KMT has not yet chosen…
Taipei Deputy Mayor Charles Lin said that either the Taipei Dome or the shopping mall being constructed beside it will need to be torn down in light of safety evaluations revealing that the site could not be evacuated within the necessary 15 minutes. The project – a multi-use stadium complex that includes a shopping mall,…
Eric Chu, chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT), met with China’s President Xi Jinping in Xi’s capacity as leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on May 4 at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Chu was in China as leader of his party’s delegation to a KMT-CCP forum held in Shanghai. The two party heads…
