Young Cubans spurn roles as revolutionaries
Young Cubans spurn roles as revolutionariesAFP, HAVANAIn Cuba, thousands of neighborhood cells set up as the eyes and ears of Fidel Castro’s communist revolution are trying to find ways to lure young people who have little interest in the cause. Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution national coordinator Gerardo Hernandez speaks during an interview in Havana on Tuesday last week. The defense committees are particularly visible during elections, presiding over neighborhood meetings and scrupulously controlling citizens’ participation. Manuel Cuesta Morua is a dissident who faced “acts of repudiation” in the 2000s, when large groups of CDR members would verbally and physically abuse opponents. Every year, on the night of Sept. 27, CDR members get together in their neighborhood for a party around a stew cooked on an open fire.
Source:Taipei Times
October 08, 2023 05:28 UTC
Pakistan overcome De Leede; Bangladesh win
Pakistan overcome De Leede; Bangladesh winAFP, HYDERABAD and DHARAMSALA, IndiaBangladesh beat Afghanistan at the Cricket World Cup in India yesterday, while Pakistan on Friday opened their campaign with a comfortable 81-run win against the Netherlands, overcoming an impressive performance from all-rounder Bas de Leede. “Credit to the bowlers, we started well and took wickets in the middle. De Leede then anchored his team’s innings with a polished 68-ball 67 spiced with two sixes and six fours. Bangladesh’s Najmul Hossain Shanto plays a shot during their ICC Cricket World Cup match against Afghanistan in Dharamsala, India, yesterday. Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan, left, runs out Roelof van der Merwe of the Netherlands during their ICC Cricket World Cup match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, India, on Friday.
Source:Taipei Times
October 07, 2023 22:48 UTC
Polls, values bog down possible KMT-TPP pact
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate for president, second right, poses for a picture with supporters during a visit to Taichung’s Shuinan Market yesterday. Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei TimesThe KMT and TPP have been in talks for months over a possible joint presidential ticket to challenge Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, who is leading in polls. In addition, the core values of each party, its policies and goals should be clearly defined in a covenant or guidelines, Hou said. Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je, right, greets supporters as he returns from a visit to the US at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday. “I feel sorry for the publisher, as it has already finished printing the books,” Ko said yesterday.
Source:Taipei Times
October 07, 2023 21:42 UTC
Four cases opened over submarine secret leaks
Four cases opened over submarine secret leaksTREASON? Admiral Huang Shu-kuang (黃曙光), who heads the Indigenous Defense Submarine program, on Thursday last week said that “certain legislators” were making it difficult for the program to purchase critical equipment. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei TimesMa allegedly leaked files from the submarine program to the Chinese Communist Party and the South Korean Mission in Taipei, Kuo added. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said that the High Prosecutors’ Office would lead treason investigations. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office yesterday instructed the Kaohsiung office to continue its investigation.
Source:Taipei Times
October 07, 2023 15:51 UTC
Biden planning to meet China’s Xi
Biden planning to meet China’s XiReuters, WASHINGTONThe White House is making plans for a face-to-face meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in San Francisco next month as the two nations seek to stabilize troubled relations, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Photo: Reuters“We’re beginning the process” of planning, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper. Biden and Xi’s last meeting was on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November last year, which was their first in-person meeting since Biden became president. China’s top security agency hinted last month that any meeting between Xi and Biden would depend on the US “showing sufficient sincerity.”San Francisco is to host an APEC summit next month that Xi might attend. Xi last month skipped a G20 summit in New Delhi that Biden attended.
Source:Taipei Times
October 07, 2023 15:51 UTC
Grand opening
Software, apps overheat iPhone: AppleINCOMING FIX: While a date for updates has not been given, Apple said that the latest overheating incidents might be the result of apps and account data transfers Apple Inc on Saturday said that recent claims of new iPhones getting too hot to the touch are due to software and app-related bugs, and that fixes are coming soon. The company said the device can get warm in the first few days as it works overtime to get set up and restore a user’s data, due to a bug in the latest iOS 17 software, and because of some third-party apps overloading the system. Apple told Bloomberg it is working with developers behind the apps causing the iPhone to overheat and that fixes are in the process of being released.
Source:Taipei Times
October 06, 2023 23:00 UTC
Critical tech list to help stop leaks
Critical tech list to help stop leaksSafeguarding security: The National Science and Technology Council is to release a list of core technologies to stop technical know-how leakage to ChinaBy Lisa Wang / Staff ReporterThe National Science and Technology Council is slated to reveal a critical technologies list soon to safeguard Taiwan’s technological competitive edges and national security in the wake of the US’ warning about mounting risk from China, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday. “The National Science and Technology Council is to release the list regarding critical technologies soon. Taiwan is to impose severe curbs on those technologies,” Wang said. Photo: CNAThe ministry has recognized foundry, semiconductor packaging and testing, as well as LCD technologies as some of the nation’s critical technologies with strategic importance. Semiconductors, agriculture, aerospace, and information and communications technology are expected to be on the list, National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) told Nikkei Asia earlier this week.
Source:Taipei Times
October 06, 2023 21:38 UTC
Norway’s Jon Fosse wins Nobel Prize in Literature
Norway’s Jon Fosse wins Nobel Prize in LiteratureAP, STOCKHOLMNorwegian writer Jon Fosse won the Nobel Prize in Literature yesterday, for plays and prose that “give voice to the unsayable,” the Swedish Academy said. Nobel literature committee chair Anders Olsson said Fosse’s work is rooted “in the language and nature of his Norwegian background.”Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse poses for a photo at the Norwegian Theater in Oslo on Sept. 6, 2019. Photo:AFPSwedish Academy permanent secretary Mats Malm, who announced the prize, reached Fosse by telephone to inform him of the win. Ernaux was just the 17th woman among the 119 Nobel literature laureates. The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers, as well as being too male-dominated.
Source:Taipei Times
October 06, 2023 12:47 UTC
State-of-the-art Taiwanese VR headset impresses at Van Gogh exhibit
State-of-the-art Taiwanese VR headset impresses at Van Gogh exhibitAFP, PARISAI Vincent Van Gogh is patient but unimpressed by yet another question about his chopped-off ear. The artificial intelligence Van Gogh appears on a video screen at the end of a blockbuster exhibition at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Van Gogh shot himself with a rusty pistol in 1890 aged 37. Photo: APBut the AI Vincent is surprisingly well-versed in 21st century therapy-speak. Asked about his favorite color, AI Vincent is very certain (yellow).
Source:Taipei Times
October 06, 2023 06:25 UTC
AI of the tiger: Tiny camera ‘protects’ predator — and people
AI of the tiger: Tiny camera ‘protects’ predator — and peopleAFP, PARISTiger populations are on the rise in the jungles of India and Nepal and the predators are roaming ever closer to villages, sparking a race among conservationists to find ways of avoiding conflict. A team of experts in May last year install an AI-enabled cameras in the forest corridor between Kanha Tiger Reserve and Pench Tiger Reserve near Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, India. A close up in May last year of a tiger in the forest corridor between Kanha Tiger Reserve and Pench Tiger Reserve near Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh, India. Researchers in Gabon are using AI to sift their camera trap images and are now trying a warning system for elephants. “In most cases, AI species identification is still in its infancy,” he said.
Source:Taipei Times
October 05, 2023 21:34 UTC
Floods kill 14, as more than 100 are missing in India
Floods kill 14, as more than 100 are missing in IndiaAP, NEW DELHIRescue workers were searching for more than 100 people yesterday after flash floods triggered by sudden heavy rainfall swamped several towns in northeastern India, killing at least 14 people, officials said. More than 2,000 people were rescued after Wednesday’s floods, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority said in a statement, adding that state authorities set up 26 relief camps for more than 22,000 people impacted by the floods. The Press Trust of India news agency reported that 102 people were missing and cited state government officials as saying 14 people died in the floods. Nearly 50 people died in flash floods and landslides in August in nearby Himachal Pradesh state. In February 2021, flash floods killed nearly 200 people and washed away houses in Uttarakhand state in northern India.
Source:Taipei Times
October 05, 2023 21:06 UTC
KMT accuses government over National Day phrase
KMT accuses government over National Day phraseTAIWAN EVENTS: The DPP said that attempts to cancel Double Ten National Day celebrations were divisive and threatened to ‘tear apart the nation and its citizens’By Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNAThe Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government is using Double Ten National Day to sow ideological division, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers said yesterday, calling on people to boycott state ceremonies. Their remarks came two days after former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he would not attend Double Ten National Day ceremonies to protest Taipei’s decision to call them “Taiwan National Day” events in English-language statements. An ice sculpture celebrating Double Ten National Day is pictured on Tuesday at festivities hosted by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Photo: CNAThe KMT urges patriotic civil servants and citizens who identify with the Republic of China (ROC) to refrain from taking part in this year’s Double Ten National Day ceremonies held by the Presidential Office, Lee told the news conference. “We are saddened at the remarks [from KMT colleagues], which cheapen the National Day celebrations by making them a tool to win elections,” DPP deputy secretary-general Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said.
Source:Taipei Times
October 05, 2023 03:27 UTC
Work, classes canceled for Koinu
Work, classes canceled for KoinuHEAVY WINDS: Level 13 winds on the Beaufort scale were recorded on Orchid Island, while authorities in Tainan reported that a temple structure had blown overBy Jake Chung and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff writers, with CNAAll administrative regions except for Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan canceled work and classes for today, as eastern and southern Taiwan braced for the heaviest impact of Typhoon Koinu. A man takes a picture of waves breaking on the shore near Taitung County’s Fugang Harbor yesterday, as Typhoon Koinu approached. Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, ReutersAs of 8:30pm, Koinu was 118km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and was moving westward at 10kph, CWA data showed. With a radius of 250km, the storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, forecasters said. More than 100 international and domestic flights had been canceled, while ferry services to outlying islands were suspended.
Source:Taipei Times
October 04, 2023 18:19 UTC
EDITORIAL: Subs too vital to be politicized
Moreover, the submarine program is not yet a fait accompli. Taiwan for a long time has needed to supplement its modest fleet of Chien Lung-class (Sword Dragon) submarines purchased from the Netherlands in the 1980s. Former US president George W. Bush approved the sale of eight diesel-electric submarines, but KMT legislators stalled the budget review 69 times. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) opposed purchasing submarines or initiating an indigenous program. There are legitimate reasons for members of the opposition to question the government’s indigenous submarine program.
Source:Taipei Times
October 04, 2023 18:19 UTC
EDITORIAL: A compromise Ma might accept
EDITORIAL: A compromise Ma might acceptFormer president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made it known that he does not plan to attend the official Double Ten National Day commemoration on Tuesday next week. For them, commemorating Taiwan National Day on a day linked to the establishment of the ROC makes little sense. This would be the third year that the government has used the English name Taiwan National Day. The government could allot a different day to celebrate a Taiwan National Day, stop celebrating the ROC founding day or have both. Perhaps he would be more amenable to following Tsai’s formulation of what Taiwan is, and use the English title “ROC on Taiwan National Day.”
Source:Taipei Times
October 04, 2023 03:39 UTC