A bright sight
The France-based gourmet publication began evaluating restaurants in Taipei in 2018, with eateries in Taichung included in 2020. Michelin Guide inspectors expanded their culinary search this year by also evaluating restaurants in Tainan and Kaohsiung. Michelin yesterday morning unveiled its list for this year of 38 starred restaurants in Taiwan at the Mandarin Hotel in Taipei. Tainan was the only one of the four cities that did not have a restaurant with a star rating. Instead of expressing disappointment, peopleBy Shelley Shan
Source:Taipei Times
September 06, 2022 02:39 UTC
華語簡易通 EASY CHINESE FOR YOU!
華語簡易通 EASY CHINESE FOR YOU! (II)對話 Dialogues玉玲：我打算做宮保雞丁。有沒有人不敢吃辣的？大雄：我最愛吃宮保雞丁，越辣越好吃。玉玲：靜香，妳能不能做一個湯？靜香：當然可以，你們想喝什麼湯？酸辣湯，怎麼樣？玉玲：呣！酸辣湯不錯。大雄：那，我帶一瓶紹興酒和水果。Yuling: I’d like to make Gongbao chicken. Daxiong: I love Gongbao chicken most. How about Sour and Hot Soup? Yuling: Hmm, Sour and Hot Soup sounds good.
Source:Taipei Times
September 05, 2022 22:05 UTC
Radar extension aims to maintain performance: experts
Radar extension aims to maintain performance: expertsStaff writer, with CNAA proposal by the US government to extend a contract for an early warning facility in Hsinchu County aims to ensure that the system performs well, a military source said. The proposal involves Leshan Radar Station in Wufeng Township (五峰), the source said, but declined to comment on whether the package would involve upgrades to the system. It is worth watching whether the contract extension will involve upgrades, Lin said. The Leshan station sits at an altitude of 2,620m and can detect missiles fired within a range of 5,000km. It can also track cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones and ships within a 2,000km range.
Source:Taipei Times
September 05, 2022 04:15 UTC
Gasoline, diesel prices to fall as oil price declines
Gasoline, diesel prices to fall as oil price declinesBy Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporterState-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it would lower gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.1 and NT$0.2 per liter respectively, after a drop in global crude oil prices reduced the cost of oil imports. It is the third price reduction that CPC has announced in the past three weeks. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC stations are to fall to NT$29.1, NT$30.6 and NT$32.6 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while the price of premium diesel is to be NT$26.8 per liter, CPC said. Reports that OPEC has yet to discuss a potential output cut, and that oil exports from Iran and Iraq remain normal despite domestic difficulties, also weighed on oil prices last week, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said. Formosa’s prices for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline are to drop to NT$29.1, NT$30.6 and NT$32.6 per liter respectively, while the price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$26.6 per liter.
Source:Taipei Times
September 04, 2022 23:29 UTC
Chinese air force incursions spike dramatically
Chinese air force incursions spike dramaticallyESCALATION: Last month’s 446 incursions were more than the number recorded in 2020, with Bonnie Glaser saying China is trying to wear down Taiwan’s pilotsBy William Hetherington / Staff writer with CNAThe Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force last month made 446 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the Defense Post reported on Thursday. Last month’s incursions far surpassed the number recorded during the whole of 2020, the report said. A Taiwanese F-16 jet, left, flies alongside a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force H-6K bomber on May 11, 2018. The army’s Combined Arms Battalion, snipers, tanks, armored vehicles and mortars would be tested during the four-day live-fire exercises, the source said. It is the armed forces’ second-largest drill, following the annual Han Kuang exercises that involve all branches of the military.
Source:Taipei Times
September 04, 2022 22:17 UTC
Combat China through India ties
Combat China through India tiesBy P.R. Beijing knows that India is emerging as the global alternative to China if it is allowed to grow unimpeded. That many countries, including India, do not formally recognize Taiwan is a political hindrance to forming a united front against China. At the outset, political exchanges between India and Taiwan must be increased so that the latter is not politically isolated. Innovative ways to enhance political, economic, diplomatic and military cooperation with Taiwan must be found to tackle a common threat: China.
Source:Taipei Times
September 04, 2022 04:36 UTC
Google’s immersive Street View offers glimpse of ‘metaverse’
Google’s immersive Street View offers glimpse of ‘metaverse’By Glenn CHAPMAN / AFP, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CaliforniaFifteen years after its launch, a Google Maps feature that lets people explore faraway places as though standing right there is providing a glimpse of the “metaverse” being heralded as the future of the Internet. Google global communications associate Sofia Abdirizak, left, measures a Street View camera for a journalist during a press event at the Google Street View Garage in Mountain View, California, on Monday. “He was talking to some of his colleagues at the time, saying: ‘I bet we can do something with this.’ That was the start of Street View,” Silverman said. Street View lets people click on locations in Google Maps to see what it might look like were they at that spot, and even look around. Now, the Internet behemoth is introducing an “immersive view” that fuses Street View images with artificial intelligence to create “a rich, digital model of the world,” Google Maps experiences vice president Miriam Daniel wrote online.
Source:Taipei Times
September 03, 2022 20:30 UTC
Textile designer is bringing back Mughal patterns
Textile designer is bringing back Mughal patternsBy Laurence Thomann / AFP, AMBER, IndiaTextiles designer Brigitte Singh lovingly lays out a piece of cloth embossed with a red poppy plant she said was probably designed for Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, four centuries ago. A worker uses a hand block printing technique on a cotton fabric at the workshop of textile designer Brigitte Singh in Amber, India, on June 2. Photo: AFP“I was the first to give a renaissance to this kind of Mughal design,” Singh said in her traditional printing workshop in Rajasthan. Textile designer Brigitte Singh, right, watches as a worker uses a hand block printing technique on a cotton fabric at her workshop in Amber, India, on June 2. A worker carves a design on wood to make a block used in hand block printing at the workshop of textile designer Brigitte Singh in Amber, India, on June 2.
Source:Taipei Times
September 03, 2022 20:30 UTC
India commissions second aircraft carrier
India commissions second aircraft carrierAP, NEW DELHIIndia yesterday commissioned its first home-built aircraft carrier as it seeks to counter regional rival China’s much larger and growing fleet, and expand its own indigenous shipbuilding capabilities. The INS Vikrant, whose name is a Sanskrit word for “powerful” or “courageous,” is India’s second operational aircraft carrier, joining the Soviet-era INS Vikramaditya, which it purchased from Russia in 2004. People gather on the deck of the INS Vikrant during the aircraft carrier’s commissioning in Kochi, India, yesterday. Until then, it would rely on the Russian aircraft borrowed from India’s other carrier, said Rahul Bedi, a defense expert. Modi yesterday said security concerns in the Indo-Pacific region and the Indian Ocean have been ignored for too long.
Source:Taipei Times
September 02, 2022 22:13 UTC
Tibetan democracy feted in Taipei at legislature event
Tibetan democracy feted in Taipei at legislature eventBy Yang Cheng-yu and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writerTaiwan and Tibet share a democratic way of governance, and China’s oppression cannot make Tibetans abandon their belief in democracy, the Central Tibetan Administration’s Sikyong Penpa Tsering said in a pre-recorded message at an event yesterday marking the 62nd anniversary of the founding of Tibet’s government-in-exile. Tsering’s pre-recorded comments were played at an event at the legislature in Taipei jointly held by the Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association, the Dalai Lama’s Tibet Education Foundation and the Taiwan Parliament Group for Tibet to mark the founding of the Tibetan parliament in exile. People sing the Tibetan anthem yesterday during an event at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of Tibet’s government-in-exile. Independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said at the event that the Tibetan efforts over the past two decades had not been wasted, citing the first democratic election of the Central Tibetan Administration’s sikyong Lobsang Sangay in 2012. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) said that many support a democratic Tibetan government, adding that she hopes Tibetans continue their fight against the tyranny of the Chinese.
Source:Taipei Times
September 02, 2022 22:13 UTC
Farms under water
TSMC says three fabs to start production in 2024ADVANCED PROCESSES: The company expects to start producing 3-nanometer chips in Tainan in the second half and 2-nanometer chips at new factories in Hsinchu Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that three new plants in Kaohsiung, Japan and the US would start production in 2024, as it accelerates its capacity expansion to cope with growing semiconductor demand. Apart from the two fabs that are under construction in Arizona and in Kumamoto, Japan, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker plans to start building a new fab in Kaohsiung in the second half of this year, TSMC vice president Y.L. Wang (王英郎) said at the firm’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu. The Kaohsiung fab, dubbed Fab 22, would produce 7-nanometer and 28-nanometer chips once it beginsBy Lisa Wang
Source:Taipei Times
September 02, 2022 03:57 UTC
Google defends Meta deal, ad empire from US states’ antitrust threat
Google defends Meta deal, ad empire from US states’ antitrust threatBloombergA 2018 advertising pact between Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc does not contravene antitrust law because it does not restrict Facebook from using rival ad exchanges, Google’s attorney told a federal judge. Google and Meta, which is not a defendant in the case, have defended the agreement and denied any wrongdoing. The deal expanded competition because it allows Facebook to bid on ads being sold through Google’s ad exchange on behalf of Web sites or mobile apps within its Facebook Audience Network, he said. In exchange, the social media company abandoned plans to adopt a new type of technology that would have undercut Google’s online advertising monopoly, he said. Lawyers for the US Department of Justice — which sued Google in 2020 for allegedly monopolizing the search market and is separately probing the company’s ad tech business — attended Wednesday’s hearing.
Source:Taipei Times
September 01, 2022 23:29 UTC
Toyota to invest ￥730bn in batteries
Toyota to invest ￥730bn in batteriesEV BOOST: Toyota’s plan to invest ￥325 billion in the US follows the passage of a US law offering tax credits for buying vehicles with batteries made in North AmericaAP, TOKYOToyota Motor Corp is investing ￥730 billion (US$5.26 billion) in Japan and the US to boost production of batteries for electric vehicles (EV), the Japanese automaker said yesterday. In the US, about ￥325 billion would be invested in Toyota Battery Manufacturing in North Carolina, the company said. Toyota has scored success with the Prius and other hybrid models, which have an engine as well as a battery-driven electric motor, and so the company has at times been seen as a laggard on electric vehicles. People inspect a Toyota Motor Corp Lexus NX plug-in hybrid electric vehicle at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show in Tangerang, Indonesia, on Aug. 18. Photo: BloombergHowever, the global demand for electric vehicles is expected to grow in coming years as fuel prices rise and concerns grow about the environment.
Source:Taipei Times
September 01, 2022 03:58 UTC
Buffett’s BYD sale fuels fears of more to come
Buffett’s BYD sale fuels fears of more to comeBloombergTraders rushed to sell BYD Co (比亞迪) after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc trimmed its stake in the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker, fearing that the legendary investor might be gearing up for an eventual exit after a decade as the company’s most notable backer. BYD shares yesterday plunged as much as 13 percent in Hong Kong, the most in seven weeks and the worst performance on the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The investment has also proved hugely lucrative as BYD shares have soared more than 2,000 percent since his initial purchase. Investors view BYD, China’s biggest EV maker, as a bellwether for the sector. A BYD official, in comments to China’s 21st Century Business Herald, said there is “no need to overinterpret” the stake sale, and added that the company’s operations remain normal.
Source:Taipei Times
September 01, 2022 03:58 UTC
EU to intervene in energy market as winter looms
EU to intervene in energy market as winter loomsBloombergThe EU is preparing to step into its energy market, intervening in the short term to dampen soaring power costs as the continent braces for the economic hit of energy shortages this winter. Introducing a maximum regulated price in an emergency would be limited to its duration and the market price should be used as long as possible. “Skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design,” Von der Leyen said earlier on Monday at the Bled Strategic Summit in Slovenia. European natural gas prices on Monday plunged the most since March after Germany said its gas stores are filling up faster than planned. “We will look very carefully at what instruments we have that we can use to bring down electricity prices,” Scholz said.
Source:Taipei Times
August 31, 2022 10:55 UTC