Foxconn Founder Set to Run for President Terry Gou, founder of electronics giant Foxconn Technology Co., in April declared at a temple that Mazu, the goddess of the sea, had recently appeared to him in a dream. “She told me to come out and do something,” he recounted. That something was running for president on the…
DPP Retains 2 Seats In By-elections Following the thrashing of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the municipal elections in November at the hands of the Kuomintang (KMT), the DPP managed a slight comeback in by-elections for four vacant seats in mid-March. It retained two seats in electorates in New Taipei City and Tainan…
2019 Lantern Festival Spotlights Pingtung This year’s national lantern festival was hosted by the southern county of Pingtung and held in the national scenic area of Dapeng Bay. The event highlighted the foods, products, and landscape of Pingtung. Normally the main lantern features the animal on the Chinese zodaic for which the year is named…
Another Chapter in NTU Presidency Saga It appeared in December that the prolonged standoff between National Taiwan University and the Ministry of Education over the NTU faculty’s election of economist Kuan Chung-ming as university president had finally been resolved. Education Minister Yeh Jiunn-rong, who was moved over from the Interior Ministry specifically to bring the…
Changes in regulatory approaches are expected to cut deeply into the home sharing platform’s Taiwan business. Home sharing is a great way to experience Taiwan. During my two trips last year to Kinmen, the Taiwan-governed archipelago off the coast of China’s Fujian Province, I stayed in the same bed and breakfast, Shangheryuan. In between sightseeing…
Referendum Extends Use of Nuclear Energy In one of the 10 referendums that were also on the November 24 ballot, a substantial majority voted to overturn an article in the Electricity Act requiring Taiwan to terminate all nuclear power generation by 2025. Executive Yuan spokesperson Kolas Yotaka said that in accordance with that result, the…
Investigations Continue of Railway Accident In the worst railroad accident in Taiwan in many years, 18 passengers were killed and nearly 200 injured when a Puyama Express train jumped the tracks in Yilan County, overturning five of the eight cars. It appeared that the train was going at too high a speed around a curve,…
More Budget Sought for F-16 Upgrades Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced plans September 7 to raise the budget for upgrading the air force’s fleet of U.S.-procured F-16 multi-role combat aircraft from NT$129.6 billion (US$4.21 billion) to NT$140.2 billion (US$4.56 billion). The fleet of 115 F-16 jets is being upgraded by Lockheed Martin from the…
Torrential Rains Pummel Kaohsiung, Pingtung Late August brought severe flooding to much of southern Taiwan. As of August 26 – with continued heavy rainfall still forecast – seven people were reported to have died due to the floods, with another 116 injured and nearly 600 temporarily housed in shelters. The Central Emergency Operation Center estimated…
Delays for Two Key Infrastructure Projects Despite strong support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee of the Environmental Protection Administration in early July rejected plans by the state-run CPC Corp. Taiwan to build Taiwan’s third liquefied natural gas receiving terminal project at Datan in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District. Increased reliance…
