The Spanish complained in 1632 that northern Taiwan lacked rowers from Africa for their ships. Cheng was known to have brought African slaves to Taiwan. While a large number of slaves sent to northern Taiwan were Africans, the majority were from the Philippines, an important source of slaves. Fang writes that African slaves found the weather in northern Taiwan difficult and some tried to escape (recall that it frosted in northern Taiwan regularly until the end of the Japanese period as the globe warmed). Koxinga brought Africans to Taiwan when he tossed out the Dutch, now a key component of the legends surrounding the pirate lord of Formosa.

Former Nepalese prime minister Oli charged over deathsAP, KATHMANDUPolice in Nepal early yesterday arrested former Nepalese prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli over the deaths of dozens of people during violent protests in September last year that toppled the government and resulted in new elections. Authorities arrested the Communist Party leader at his residence on the outskirts of Kathmandu. They also arrested former minister of home affairs Ramesh Lekhak, who has been accused of ordering authorities to fire on protesters. Former Nepalese prime minister Khadga Prasad Oli gestures after his detention in Kathmandu yesterday. We have taken former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak under control,” Nepalese Minister of Home Affairs Sudan Gurung said on social media.

How the Iran war could split the AI boom in twoBy Parmy Olson / Bloomberg OpinionThe Iran war has laid bare a paradox: Gulf money is helping underwrite the US’ effort to win the artificial intelligence (AI) race, and now the US has started a conflict that could destabilize those investments. Some estimates have projected US$2 trillion in long-term pledges from Middle Eastern nations to the AI boom, money that now looks precarious. Among the architects of the latter component, Anthropic has chugged along rather well with annualized revenue more than doubling in the last three months to US$19 billion, while OpenAI revenue is at around US$25 billion. For all the worries about OpenAI’s high cash-burn rate, the AI labs also benefit from sticky enterprise contracts. Energy and cash from the Gulf have helped fuel the AI boom.

Japan considering Hormuz minesweepLAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,

Fishy trades spark insider trading allegationsAFP, NEW YORKUnusual bursts of trading on the oil and stock markets this week, just minutes before social media posts on the Iran war by US President Donald Trump, have added to suspicions of insider trading linked to his administration. So far, there is no evidence to suggest that Trump or White House officials are linked in any way to these transactions. “Any insinuation, without evidence, that a member of the government engaged in these acts is baseless and irresponsible,” a White House spokesperson told several media outlets. Someone in the White House? “Someone needs to be publicly shamed for insider trading,” said Republican Jeremy Munson, a candidate for the Minnesota Senate.

What would Adam Smith think of today’s global economy? Smith would almost certainly view today’s increasingly siloed economic order as a drag on efficiency, growth, and prosperity. While the industrial revolution generated immense wealth, Smith did not anticipate its significant negative externalities, most notably pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. While Smith would welcome AI’s potential to boost productivity and economic growth, he would be troubled by the growing market power of major tech companies. Dambisa Moyo, an international economist, is the author of Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth — and How to Fix It.

Astronaut’s medical scare remains a space mysteryAP, CAPE CANAVERAL, FloridaThe astronaut who prompted NASA’s first medical evacuation earlier this year said on Friday that doctors still do not know why he suddenly fell sick at the International Space Station. The space agency wants to make sure that other astronauts do not feel that their medical privacy would be compromised if something happens to them, he said. NASA is poring through other astronauts’ medical records to see if any related instances might have happened in space, he said. This was space, right?” his colleagues assured him. “You didn’t let anybody down.”Ever the optimist, he is holding out hope that he can return to space one day.

Ko’s full awareness of his crime self-evidentBy Yeh Yu-cheng 葉昱呈In Taiwan’s judicial practice, it is not easy to establish the crime of corruption. Firstly, in the case of the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project, there was no alleged cognitive gap. Because such cases lack awareness of illegality, they generally do not constitute a crime of seeking unlawful gains. The relevant claims in this case had already been rejected through administrative appeal and failed in administrative litigation, so the legal judgement was not undetermined. In summary, the Core Pacific City corruption case was not a mere error in administrative judgement.

However, that would be the wrong way to look at this pivotal moment in big tech accountability. The case of Kaley G.M., and a similar case that went against Meta just a day earlier in New Mexico, may well be an inflection point. The day before the Los Angeles verdict, a jury in New Mexico found Meta liable for US$375 million in damages for not protecting young people from online harm, such as sexual predators, in breach of the state’s consumer protection laws. On the stand in Los Angeles, Mark Zuckerberg said it was against the company’s interests to put out an app that its users did not feel good using. “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” said one document from 2018.

Chinese dominates OED’s updateHugo Tseng 曾泰元This month, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) released its first quarterly update of the year, adding more than 500 new words while revising nearly 1,000 existing entries. When the update dropped, the “Overview” confirmed new additions from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Ireland. Cantonese dominates in Hong Kong, while Hokkien has left deep imprints across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its structure highlights the influence of Chinese grammatical reduplication, with features typical of Chinese Pidgin English. Significantly, all eight words come from Chinese dialects in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia — none from Standard Chinese as spoken in Taiwan or China.

His expression is not one of contrition, but of defiance in the face of the verdict, which was the theme of the news conference. It has been the theme of his response to the charges ever since he was originally indicted on Dec. 26, 2024. Ko sat between his lawyer Cheng Shen-yuan (鄭深元) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌). The strategy playing out at the news conference was accurately predicted in that editorial. If Ko and Huang continue to insist on levying these accusations, it is incumbent upon them to provide evidence for them.

Japan’s Chinese population growing amid souring tiesROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to JapanBloombergThe number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. The data on residents comes as Chinese tourist numbers plunge following government warnings to steer clear of Japan. The overall number of foreign residents in Japan climbed 9.5 percent from the previous year to 4.13 million, compared with Japan’s total population of about 123 million.

China starts trade probes against USRIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official saidBloombergChina has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11. US President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30 last year. “We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains and trade in green products. Relations are also dogged by lingering issues including China’s record trade surplus and US arms sales to Taiwan.

Impact of Nepal’s election on ChinaBy Sumit KumarThis year’s parliamentary election in Nepal — the first after the Gen Z-led violent protest that toppled the previous government in September last year — were marked by a foundational shift in Nepal’s domestic politics. The complete turnaround in Nepal’s political environment could undermine China’s game plan in South Asia. Over the years, China has sought to turn Nepal into a strategic asset in South Asia. The presence of Chinese companies in Nepal’s strategic sectors — infrastructure, energy and others — has expanded. However, the new government’s coming to power in Kathmandu is seen as an unprecedented blow to China’s Nepal policy.

Pro-Iran hackers leak Kash Patel’s e-mails, photosBloombergA pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. FBI Director Kash Patel speaks after being sworn in in Washington on Feb. 21 last year. Photo: Reuters“The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on Friday. “The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information.”Reuters previously reported the breach of Patel’s e-mails. The targeting of Patel’s e-mails marks the latest in a string of high-profile cyberincidents playing out alongside the US and Israeli war against Iran.