title: DBS Foundation launches two flagship aging programs

content_text:
The DBS Foundation yesterday announced the launch of two flagship programs, “Silver Motion” and “Happier Caregiver, Healthier Seniors,” in partnership with CCILU Ltd, Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation and the Garden of Hope Foundation to help Taiwan face the challenges of a rapidly aging population.

The foundation said it would invest S$4.91 million (US$3.8 million) over three years to foster inclusion and resilience in an aging society.

“Aging may bring challenges, but it also brings opportunities. With many Asian markets rapidly becoming super-aged, the DBS Foundation is working with a regional ecosystem of like-minded partners across the private, public and people sectors to redefine aging and shape a future where everyone — regardless of age or circumstance — can age well with dignity, purpose and joy,” said Karen Ngui (魏洪英), head of DBS Foundation and DBS Group Strategic Marketing and Communications.

From left, CCILU Ltd chief executive officer Wilson Hsu, Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation executive director Lee Juo-chi, DBS Bank Taiwan general manager and CEO Ng Sier Han, DBS Foundation head Karen Ngui and Garden of Hope Foundation managing director Liao Biying pose for a photograph in Taipei yesterday. Photo courtesy of DBS Bank Taiwan

“For example, our micro-jobs initiative with Thye Hua Kwan Moral Charities in Singapore helps seniors to contribute meaningfully to society, enhance social connections, and live more purposefully and independently. In Hong Kong, we work with the Hong Kong Council of Social Service on initiatives that address key needs — such as enabling seniors to conveniently access essential support and social care from their homes or residential care facilities, and ensuring food security among the underprivileged through food rescue and distribution efforts. In China, we work with Huakang Health, an innovative enterprise that’s on the forefront of dementia and elderly care services,” she added.

DBS Bank Taiwan general manager and CEO Ng Sier Han (黃思翰) said: “As a bank deeply rooted in Asia, DBS recognizes that social inequality and population aging have become pressing issues across the region, especially in Taiwan. Hence, as the largest foreign bank in Taiwan, we aim to leverage our business and resources to create impact beyond banking. Together with DBS Foundation, we’re working with like-minded partners across sectors, including social enterprises, to create impact at scale, embodying our belief in ‘Doing Well by Doing Good.’”

The DBS Foundation has partnered with CCILU, Asia’s first B Corporation-certified footwear company, and the Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation to launch the three-year “Silver Motion Program.”

Centered on sports technology and community engagement, the initiative encourages seniors to build regular exercise habits through local community participation. By integrating data analytics through the Line messaging platform, the program provides personalized exercise recommendations and uses gamification to motivate seniors to maintain consistent walking routines.

The project also includes muscle endurance assessments and the distribution of health-tech insole gift sets for underprivileged seniors. Over three years, it aims to benefit 8,200 elderly people and train 250 professional coaches specializing in senior fitness and active aging.

To enhance Taiwan’s elderly care network, the DBS Foundation not only focuses on seniors’ well-being, but also recognizes that quality long-term care relies heavily on the mental and emotional resilience of caregivers.

Workforce Development Agency data showed that as of November last year, Taiwan had 248,680 migrant social welfare workers, more than 99 percent of whom were foreign domestic caregivers, underscoring their vital role in the nation’s long-term care system.

However, given the blurred boundaries between their work and personal lives, many caregivers experience high levels of psychological stress.

Extending its support to the mental health of this essential caregiving workforce, the DBS Foundation has partnered with the Garden of Hope Foundation to launch the “Happier Caregiver, Healthier Seniors Program.”

Centered on mental wellness and community-based support, the program offers multilingual psychoeducation, counseling and therapy services, integrating online and in-person community events and workshops to ensure accessibility.

It would also train social workers and volunteers to enhance cultural sensitivity and counselling skills. Over the next three years, the initiative aims to benefit more than 50,000 migrant domestic caregivers and reach 1,040 social workers, care recipients and family members, realizing the vision that quality eldercare begins with healthy caregivers.

The DBS Foundation is deeply committed to addressing Taiwan’s diverse and pressing challenges related to aging and vulnerable communities. Beginning this year, the foundation has committed nearly NT$260 million (US$8.5 million) within three years, partnering with five ecosystem partners to launch four flagship initiatives. The programs focus on providing essential needs and fostering financial inclusion, while building stronger connections across local communities.

In addition, the foundation’s Impact Beyond Award aims to supercharge innovative businesses with transformative solutions to pressing societal issues. This year’s installment is focused on aging societies; winning businesses stand to receive up to S$1 million each in prize funding to scale their work. More information is available at www.dbs.com/foundation/impact-beyond-award.html.


content_text:
Pegatron Corp yesterday said it plans to invest NT$700 million (US$22.86 million) over the next three years in its new research and development (R&D) base in Kaohsiung’s Asia New Bay Area (亞洲新灣區), which officially opened yesterday.

The base would comprise four major facilities: the Southern Research and Development Center, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computing Center, the Smart Manufacturing Co-creation Center and the Training and Results Exhibition Center, Pegatron said.

The base can provide corporations with a one-stop service environment covering product development, testing and verification phases, Pegatron chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) said on the sidelines of an opening ceremony.

People walk past Pegatron Corp’s research and development base in Kaohsiung’s Asia New Bay Area yesterday. Photo: CNA

However, it would mainly be used for fine-tuning at the manufacturing end and the implementation of smart manufacturing techniques, rather than large-scale product development, he said.

The company’s R&D team in Kaohsiung has about 200 people, and is likely to expand, he added.

Pegatron’s R&D base in Taipei is mainly responsible for developing core technologies, while the Kaohsiung facility would focus on meeting customers’ needs and providing technical support, Tung said.

The company also expects the Kaohsiung base to support its deployment in Southeast Asian markets, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, he said.

The base is equipped with 5G O-RAN structures, enabling quick deployment and adjustments for a digital communication environment, Tung said.

The base’s AI computing center would focus on researching how AI models can be applied in smart manufacturing and integrated with actual production lines to strengthen its automation capabilities, he added.

For example, the company uses robotic arms to produce some of its server models and has demonstrated automatic wire-insertion robotic arms to several clients, receiving positive feedback, Pegatron said.

The technology is to be verified in Taiwan before being deployed at its plant in Texas, the company said.

However, Pegatron is not planning to invest resources in developing large-scale AI models, but would focus on applying inference and edge technologies, the company said.

It would also cooperate with firms such as Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Intel Corp to integrate hardware design, it said.

title: Pegatron to invest NT$700m in new R&D facility


content_text:
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the largest contract electronics maker in the world, said on Monday that its board of directors has approved a NT$42 billion (US $1.371 billion) investment plan to purchase artificial intelligence (AI) equipment for a supercomputing center.

The company said in a regulatory filing that the self-financed investment will be made over a year, starting in December, with the goal of expanding its cloud computing services and accelerating the development of its three platforms — smart manufacturing, smart electric vehicles and smart cities.

Earlier this month, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said that the company was making plans for the next five years.

The logo of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, also known as Foxconn, is pictured on top of its office building in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District on May 29. Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, AFP

"AI applications are just beginning" and will reach into all kinds of industries, Young said.

Also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), Hon Hai has been investing in AI infrastructure in recent years, as it seeks new growth drivers beyond smartphones and traditional electronics manufacturing.

In March, the company announced the launch of its first traditional Chinese version of an advanced AI large language model to improve the analysis efficiency of its smart platforms.

In May, Hon Hai said it was partnering with US-based AI chip designer Nvidia Corp to build an AI factory supercomputing center in Taiwan.

On Oct. 14, Hon Hai said it planned to introduce Nvidia’s 800 VDC data center power architecture in its K-1 AI data center in Kaohsiung, making it a model site for its server, data center and renewable energy integration.

title: Hon Hai to invest NT$42 billion in AI computing equipment


content_text:
Amazon.com Inc said yesterday that it would reduce its global corporate workforce by about 14,000 people, with more cuts expected next year, in a major shakeup driven in part by adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) at the tech giant.

The online retailer began laying off employees across multiple divisions as part of a plan, first reported on Monday by Reuters, to cut as many as 30,000 employees. Amazon is working to compensate for over-hiring during the peak demand of the COVID-19 pandemic and limit costs.

The layoffs offer an early look at the broad effects that AI could have on workforces. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy flagged the possibility of such losses in June, saying increased use of AI tools and agents would lead to more corporate job cuts, particularly through automating routine tasks.

Amazon,com Inc’s logo is pictured outside its fulfilment center in Baldonnell Business Park in Dublin, Ireland, yesterday. Photo: Damien Eagers, Reuters

Amazon had about 1.56 million full-time and part-time employees at the end of last year. Its corporate workforce includes roughly 350,000 employees.

Workers told Reuters they learned their jobs were eliminated from letters sent to their personal email addresses early yesterday morning.

"You are no longer required to perform work on Amazon’s behalf," reads the email from Beth Galetti, senior vice president of People Experience and Technology, that was sent to impacted employees and seen by Reuters.

She said those workers would be given the option to meet with a human resources employee over video call. "Unfortunately, your role is being eliminated and your employment will end after a non-working period."

Amazon will offer most affected workers 90 days to look for a new role internally and said its recruiting teams would prioritize those candidates.

Departments affected by the job cuts include devices, advertising, Prime Video, HR and Amazon’s cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services (AWS), employees told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear over what period the full target of 30,000 job cuts will take place, but Galetti said in the note Amazon would continue hiring in certain areas and reducing headcount in other divisions heading into next year.

Over the past two years, the company has been carrying out piecemeal job cuts across divisions including books, devices and its Wondery podcast business. The layoffs so far have already helped teams move faster, Galetti said.

Galetti’s note reiterated Jassy’s push to reduce management layers and lean more on AI.

Corporations are increasingly using the technology to write code for their software and adopting AI agents to automate routine tasks, as they look to save costs and cut reliance on people.

"This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before," Galetti said.

Amazon is expected to shell out roughly US$118 billion in capital expenditures for the year, with much of it going towards building AI and cloud infrastructure. The company will report its third-quarter earnings on Thursday.

title: Amazon to cut about 14,000 corporate jobs in AI push


content_text: Chiayi County Commissioner Weng Chang-liang, left, and entertainer Orange Hsieh discuss the rich bird ecology in the county’s Dongshi and Budai townships at a news conference in Puzih City yesterday. The Chiayi County Culture and Tourism Bureau invites visitors to participate in the county-arranged birdwatching tours as Taiwan’s southwest coastal wetlands are on the route for migratory birds from this month to April.

title: For the birds


title: EDITORIAL: Nvidia holdup put growth at risk

content_text:
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development.

The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the life insurer. Nvidia last year approached Shin Kong to acquire the land-use rights to accommodate its growing operations in Taiwan, where its major partners, such as chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), are based. Nvidia’s memorandum of understanding with Shin Kong lapsed earlier this month after the city government rejected the proposal, as it would violate their contract and improperly benefit a private developer. Taipei insisted on terminating its contract with Shin Kong before leasing the land to Nvidia for the construction of its new Taiwan office, called “Constellation.” Under mounting public pressure, the life insurer said it would abandon the surface rights to the land “in the interest of the nation’s greater good,” to break the five-month-long impasse.

Shin Kong also made the about-face after the Taipei City Government and the Tainan and Kaohsiung city governments offered other land options.

Nvidia’s plans have been under a spotlight since they were announced in May last year as countries around the world are scrambling to build up their AI capabilities with the aid of the California-based company. It would be unwise for any government to abandon such an opportunity, amid reports that Nvidia is looking at India as a potential replacement for Taiwan.

Nvidia’s expansion project is particularly important for Taiwan, as the country aims to become an indispensable part of global AI supply chains, leveraging its strong semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. Closer collaborations with Nvidia would underscore Taiwan’s assertion that the nation is a strategic partner of the US in semiconductors and deserves lower tariffs.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) last year said in Taipei that the strong local ecosystem was one of the major factors behind the company’s decision to invest more in Taiwan. The strong work ethic of Taiwanese and Taiwan’s flexibility were also important elements, he said. In addition to TSMC, Taiwan has “incredible” chip testing providers, server makers, from Foxconn Technology Group to Quanta Computer Inc and Wiwynn Corp, and a lot more, Huang said. Nvidia planned to recruit about 1,000 engineers in Taiwan over five years for chip design, system design and software engineering, he said at the time.

Nvidia must have been stunned by the bureaucratic inertia of the Taipei City Government. It took more than five months for the US company to resolve the impasse, which might have been easily resolved in other countries that are eager to build up their AI industry. Taiwan is at risk of losing the chance to fortify its AI capabilities because of rigid rules, cumbersome legal procedures and government hesitance. With the endorsement of Nvidia, the central and local governments should work together to forge a more business-friendly environment to attract multinational AI companies to invest in Taiwan.


title: US-N Korea talks could help Taiwan

content_text:
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests.

The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul and Tokyo for a chance to engage with Pyongyang, while tightening the noose around Taiwan.

Should Washington reopen a direct channel with Pyongyang, Beijing’s influence monopoly would weaken, and so would its bargaining power. US-North Korea engagement would demonstrate that Washington can conduct diplomacy on its own terms.

The diplomatic leverage Beijing holds over North Korea creates operational risk. Every time Kim fires missiles, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo scramble surveillance aircraft, reposition missile defenses and pour intelligence assets into monitoring the provocations. The hours spent tracking North Korea are hours not spent watching Chinese maneuvers around Taiwan. That imbalance is precisely what Beijing counts on.

It also means that the US would face an impossible choice over how to allocate its resources if contingencies occur in both the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula.

Even limited steps to make Pyongyang more predictable, such as through hotlines or humanitarian channels, would free up US attention and resources to strengthen deterrence in the Strait. Lower tensions on the Korean Peninsula would also give Seoul more strategic room to step up in a Taiwan contingency, reinforcing regional deterrence. Washington’s engagement with Pyongyang helps lower the risk of the US and its allies overextending themselves in the region.

Trump’s overture toward Kim should be seen as an expression of his trademark personality-driven diplomacy, perhaps with an eye on the Nobel Peace Prize. Even modest dialogue with Pyongyang would shrink Beijing’s leverage in regional diplomacy and bolster stability from the Korean Peninsula to the Taiwan Strait, a win for peace across northeast Asia.

Alan Jeong is a student at Georgetown University in Washington.


title: Give elderly more job opportunities

content_text:
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market.

Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As a result, experienced workers often find themselves marginalized in the later stages of their careers.

Taiwan’s social security system is built on the assumption that people exit the labor market upon reaching retirement age. The labor insurance pension system even encourages early withdrawal. For older Taiwanese who wish to continue contributing, the system provides no support — only obstacles.

Cultural attitudes also affect the labor market. Retirement is widely seen as a sign that a person can enjoy their life in peace, and families often expect older family members to focus on leisure or caring for grandchildren, disregarding the social connections and psychological achievements that work can bring.

The supply of older adults in the workforce has been suppressed as a result, and society as a whole lacks a positive view of elderly re-employment.

By contrast, Japan in 2013 implemented the Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons, which requires companies to offer re-employment and develop policies that enable retirees to return to the workforce as consultants, part-time employees or skill transfer agents. The approach not only slows the decline of the labor force, but also allows older adults to share their valuable experience.

Taiwan is about to become a “super-aged” society, and its young labor force is steadily shrinking. If the issues surrounding hiring older adults are not addressed, labor shortages would only worsen.

Government and industry must work together to consider how to empower those aged 65 or older to freely choose whether to rejoin the labor market by easing regulations, reshaping workplace cultures and promoting skill retraining programs.

Retirement should not mark the end of a person’s career, but rather the beginning of a new stage of life defined by freedom of choice. It does not have to mean stepping away — rather, it can mean continuing to contribute in a different way. When society allows everyone to continue functioning according to their abilities and passions, old age can also become a source of productivity.

Dino Wei is an engineer.

Translated by Kyra Gustavsen


content_text:
Climate policy is no longer a distant debate. It is a test of geographic characteristics, governance and political will. Nowhere is such an aspect more evident than in Taiwan, where the nation’s geography reveals its climate vulnerabilities and its energy potential.

Taiwan’s natural diversity is striking. According to the renowned climate scientists Wladimir Koppen and Rudolf Geiger, Taiwan spans three major climate zones: tropical monsoon in the south, humid subtropical across the western plains, and oceanic in the central mountains and northeast. Within just a few hundred kilometers, the country experiences monsoon rains, typhoon storms, humid summers and cool winters.

The range is not just a scientific curiosity. It shapes the way energy is produced, distributed and consumed.

The humid subtropical belt that includes Taipei, Taichung and Tainan faces the brunt of heat waves and peak power demand. The tropical south, including Kaohsiung and Pingtung, receives abundant sunlight, but still underuses solar energy. The northeast, with its mountain rainfall, offers opportunities for hydropower and pumped storage. Taiwan’s challenge is to turn the climatic contrasts into a coordinated system — which draws strength from regional diversity rather than struggles against it.

Effective energy planning in Taiwan must begin with its geography — the renewable resources of sunlight, wind and water are shaped by the nation’s climate zones. The south, rich in sunlight, is perfect for rooftop solar and community solar farms; the windy coasts and offshore areas near Changhua and Miaoli counties suit wind power; and the rain-fed central mountains can support hydro and storage projects.

Aligning energy strategy precisely with these geographic realities would create a more resilient, regionally adaptive network.

Despite the potential, Taiwan remains energy insecure. More than 97 percent of its energy is imported, mostly coal, oil and natural gas. That dependence exposes the economy to global price shocks and supply risks while complicating its 2050 net zero target.

The growing impact of climate change adds new pressure. Typhoons, droughts and extreme heat are testing the power grid and the public. Coastal power plants face storm surges, while longer summers push electricity demand to record highs. Power shortages in the past few years have shown how closely energy security and climate adaptation are linked.

A smarter approach would be to use Taiwan’s own climate data to localize energy solutions. In the sun-rich south, solar-plus-storage systems could handle summer peaks. In the cloudier north, hybrid wind and hydro integration would stabilize power generation. Urban heat islands could be cooled with stricter building codes, better insulation and district cooling networks. In the mountains, protecting forests and watersheds should be treated as part of energy policy, as the ecosystems sustain hydropower and prevent disasters.

Connecting climate planning and energy strategy would not only advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals — clean energy and climate action — but also demonstrate why Taiwan must reject a generic, one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it needs a model built on geographic intelligence, grounded in the diversity of its regions.

Progress is visible. Offshore wind projects are expanding. Solar installations are rising. Taiwan Power Co is modernizing its grid. Yet much of the transition remains top-down and technology-driven. The next step is inclusion. Local governments, farmers and communities must play a larger role. Renewable projects that ignore local land use, ecosystems or social concerns risk inefficiency and resistance.

Open access to climate and energy data would help. When people can see how their local weather patterns affect power use, they can design microgrids, storage systems and smart housing that suit local needs. The transition would work best when driven from the ground up, not just from Taipei.

Geography has always shaped Taiwan’s destiny. Its mountains, coasts and monsoon winds have defined its economy and its vulnerabilities. The same features can define its climate resilience. The coastal winds that power typhoons can also drive turbines. The rains that flood rivers can fill hydro reservoirs. The path to sustainability lies in working with nature, not against it. If Taiwan allows its geography to inform its clean energy strategy, it can develop a climate policy as resilient as the nation itself.

Sutandra Singha is an independent researcher with a doctorate in international studies, specializing in climate change, from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

title: Reshaping Taiwan’s climate policy


title: Debunking dangerous green energy rumors

content_text:
Wushantou Reservoir’s (烏山頭水庫) floating solar panels have come under fire after reports suggested they were being cleaned with chemical agents that polluted the reservoir. The claims sound alarming, and yet they are entirely unfounded — a testament to the misinformation and disinformation surrounding Taiwan’s energy transition.

Solar panels neither contain liquid electrolytes that could leak, nor do they require chemicals for cleaning. Floating solar panels are typically cleaned with fresh water or the surrounding waters to remove debris and maintain efficiency. Chemical cleaning agents would corrode the panels’ modules and wiring, making such a practice neither technically nor economically viable.

Moreover, reservoirs routinely undergo water quality checks, the results of which are publicly available. Leveling accusations of pollution without any supporting evidence is not only misleading, but could even be defamation.

Floating solar farms are by no means unique to Taiwan. Examples of successful cases can be found worldwide, such as Dingzhang Reservoir in China’s Anhui Province, which has the world’s largest floating solar farm, while Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture and southern France have operated similar systems for years.

Far from harming water quality, studies show they can improve environmental outcomes. Research published in Nature Sustainability found that reservoirs with 30 percent of their surface area covered by solar panels experienced a 46 percent reduction in evaporation — helping conserve water and enhance overall efficiency.

Taiwan’s energy transition has increasingly been portrayed as damaging the environment and benefiting business and financial conglomerates. While the renewable energy sector might indeed have instances of corruption or improper intervention, such issues must be addressed separately from the technologies that underpin renewable energy development.

Some critics have deliberately conflated the two issues, using social media to manipulate public opinion so that people associate solar power with pollution and green energy with corruption. The incessant spread of disinformation has reached the point of eroding Taiwan’s social consensus on an energy transition.

From the US and Europe to Southeast Asia, reducing emissions and accelerating the transition to renewables have become baseline requirements for industrial and economic competitiveness. Should Taiwan succumb to politicized anti-green energy thinking, it risks undermining investor confidence and public trust in the project.

While continuing with the energy transition, the government should establish an official platform for sharing trustworthy information and dispelling misinformation in real time.

The government should also strengthen regional channels for communication and establish more effective feedback mechanisms. Only when local residents understand the tangible benefits of environmental protection — and are able to participate in its oversight — can misunderstandings and antagonization be eased.

The transition to renewable energy is not a trophy for a politician, but a collective social responsibility. Countering false narratives requires more than just rebuttal. It requires transparent governance and scientific evidence that let the facts speak for themselves.

There is a risk that misinformation would become a stumbling block for an energy transition, and for this, it is Taiwan that would pay the price.

Lin Ren-bin is an academic member of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union and an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at Chinese Culture University.

Translated by Gilda Knox Streader


title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

content_text:
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan.For decades,

By Meng Chih-cheng 蒙志成


title: Doom-scrolling is a vice that should be taxed

content_text:
A progressive levy on consumption of broadband Internet might prompt tech firms to shift away from low-value engagement and toward the many other things that can be done with digital technology

Americans are reading less, sleeping less and partying less. They have fewer marriages, fewer children and fewer friends than they used to. Their children are doing worse in school.

These are complicated phenomena on some level, but on another level it is pretty simple: Smartphones, social media and the Internet are transforming lives and culture in ways that are not all for the best. Streaming video is ubiquitous and some of the smartest people in the world have developed powerful recommendation engines to ensure that there is always an unlimited supply of customized content.

Technological progress has, in effect, supercharged television, and as a result people are passively watching more and actively doing less.

Yet rather than saying straightforwardly that this is an unhealthy trend and the US should enlist public policy to reverse it, many critics are focusing on a bank-shot idea: This is a competition policy problem related to the bigness of the largest technology companies. Others have gone full anti-capitalist and have slogans about the evils of tech billionaires.

None of this makes very much sense. Some of the biggest culprits for transforming the information superhighway into a giant time suck are companies such as TikTok and X, which are not particularly large. Some of the biggest technology companies, such as Nvidia, Oracle and Broadcom, are only incidentally involved in the content glut.

More to the point, the issue is not the classic antitrust problem of a monopolist restricting output to raise prices. There is too much content and the content is too cheap — in fact, it is generally free. Tech skeptics who acknowledge this point have, like Lina Khan in her star-making law review article “Amazon’s antitrust Paradox,” tended to retreat to convoluted theories about corporate power that manifests in non-price ways.

There is a better way to think about the issue of overconsumption of digital content: It is a vice.

The US has a long tradition of public policies designed to reduce the availability of vice products, from alcohol and tobacco to pornography. These industries are regulated not to create a better value proposition for consumers, but to make it worse. What motivates the regulation is not hostility to market capitalism or entrepreneurs, but respect for the power of free markets to create abundance, even of vice products.

Granted, the US has stepped away from vice regulation in recent years. More than half of Americans live in states where marijuana is legal and there is easy nationwide access to online sports gambling. At the same time, there has been a huge reduction in smoking in the past few decades, a reminder that public policy can constrain the consumption of undesirable goods.

In fact, Joel Wertheimer recently proposed in the online journal The Argument that the war on Big Tobacco is a model for tackling the technology industry.

I am not quite sure that works, for a few reasons. One is that that smoking is a real-life activity and the most effective policies against it were based on the harms of secondhand smoke. By focusing first on offices, and then on restaurants and bars, smoking bans eliminated a major nuisance for a majority of the population while also creating strong new incentives to quit or never start in the first place.

Social media does have network effects, of course, but it lacks the clear nuisance qualities of secondhand smoke that would rationalize the same approach.

The more fundamental difference is that smoking is just plain bad for you in a way that is not true of the Internet in general, or of streaming video in particular. Society derives a lot of legitimate value from the Internet, including forms that in their basic attributes are continuous with the harmful kinds.

I have logged on to YouTube and gotten useful instructions for everything from replacing a broken garbage disposal to seasoning a cast-iron griddle, but I have also followed that griddle-seasoning video down a rabbit hole of increasingly implausible recipes, then realized it was past midnight and I had to get up early.

It is not the end of the world, I realize. Yet it is also not healthy, for me or for society.

However, if the problem is that the industry has gotten too good at making compelling content, causing overconsumption, what is the solution?

That is a hard question, but the answer starts with accepting vice regulation as a framework for understanding what the problem with the Internet is.

One useful model is the trend toward banning phones in schools, which should be widely adopted. There also ought to be curbs on the marketing of apps toward children, enforceable age restrictions for social media accounts and other measures to get kids offline.

However, there is a need to go broader, especially in a world of growing fiscal deficits. Why not tax policy that discourages the all-you-can-stream ad-supported business model? How about a tax on digital advertising?

Subscription-based models work for content that people are proud to consume, while ad-supported ones reward quantity over quality. I might also consider a progressive levy on broadband consumption, creating something like a return to the early days of cellphones, when people used them, but had to be mindful of their minutes. That would allow people to use the Internet for valuable activities while discouraging zombie-like scrolling.

In such a world, the tech industry would still be very powerful, tech companies would still be very large and tech entrepreneurs would still be very rich, but the overall direction of entrepreneurial activity would shift away from low-value engagement and toward the many other things that can be done with digital technology.

And Americans might spend less time watching streaming video and more time doing something more productive — which is to say, basically anything else.

Matthew Yglesias is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A cofounder of and former columnist for Vox, he writes the Slow Boring blog and newsletter. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


content_text:
Robot dogs, drones might be how China uses DeepSeekThe Chinese military is researching the use of artificial intelligence for autonomous target recognition and battlefield decision support

China’s state-owned defense giant Norinco in February unveiled a military vehicle capable of autonomously conducting combat-support operations at 50kph. It was powered by DeepSeek, the company whose artificial intelligence (AI) model is the pride of China’s tech sector.

The Norinco P60’s release was touted by Chinese Communist Party officials in statements as an early showcase of how Beijing is using DeepSeek and AI to catch up in its arms race with the US at a time when leaders in both countries have urged their militaries to prepare for conflict.

A Reuters review of hundreds of research papers, patents and procurement records gives a snapshot of the systematic effort by Beijing to harness AI to gain a military advantage.

Specifics of how the systems behind China’s next-generation weapons work and the extent to which it has deployed them are a state secret, but procurement records and patents offer clues into Beijing’s progress toward capabilities such as autonomous target recognition and real-time battlefield decision support in a way that mirrors US efforts.

Reuters could not establish if all the products had been built and patents do not necessarily indicate operational technology.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and affiliates continue to use and look for Nvidia chips, including models under US export controls, according to the papers, tenders and patents.

Reuters could not determine if those chips were stockpiled before Washington imposed restrictions, as the documents do not detail when the hardware used was exported.

Patents filed as recently as June show their use by military-linked research institutes. In September 2022, the US Department of Commerce banned exports to China of Nvidia’s popular A100 and H100 chips.

Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said in a statement to Reuters that while the firm cannot track individual resales of previously sold products, “recycling small quantities of old, second-hand products doesn’t enable anything new or raise any national security concern. Using restricted products for military applications would be a nonstarter, without support, software or maintenance.”

The US departments of the treasury and commerce did not respond to questions about Reuters’ findings.

The Chinese military this year has also increased its use of contractors that claim to exclusively use domestically made hardware such as Huawei AI chips, said Sunny Cheung (張崑陽), a fellow at the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation defense policy think tank, who analyzed several hundred tenders issued from the PLA Procurement Network over six months this year.

Reuters could not independently confirm Cheung’s assertion, but the shift would coincide with a public pressure campaign by Beijing on domestic firms to use China-made technology.

The news agency’s review of procurement notices and patents filed to China’s patent office found demand for and use of Huawei chips by PLA affiliates, but it was not able to verify all the tenders seen by Jamestown, which on Monday released a report titled “DeepSeek use in PRC military and public security systems” — referring to the People’s Republic of China — that it provided early to Reuters.

Huawei declined to comment when asked about military deployment of its chips.

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense, DeepSeek and Norinco did not return requests for comment about their use of AI for military applications.

The universities and defense firms that filed the patents and research papers seen by Reuters also did not respond to similar questions.

Use of DeepSeek models was indicated in a dozen tenders from PLA entities filed this year and seen by Reuters, while just one referenced Alibaba’s Qwen, a major domestic rival.

Alibaba did not return a request for comment about military use of Qwen.

DeepSeek-related procurement notices have accelerated throughout this year, with new military applications appearing regularly on the PLA network, the Jamestown report said.

DeepSeek’s popularity with the PLA also reflects China’s pursuit of what Beijing calls “algorithmic sovereignty” — reducing dependence on Western technology while strengthening control over critical digital infrastructure.

The US Department of Defense declined to comment about the PLA’s use of AI.

A US Department of State spokesperson said in response to Reuters’ questions that “DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations.”

Washington would “pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” the spokesperson added.

China is looking at AI-powered robot dogs that scout in packs and drone swarms that autonomously track targets, as well as visually immersive command centers and advanced war game simulations, the documents said.

In November last year, the PLA issued a sci-fi-esque tender for AI-powered robot dogs that would scout together for threats and clear explosive hazards.

Reuters could not identify whether the tender was fulfilled.

China has previously deployed armed robot dogs from AI robotics manufacturer Unitree in military drills, according to images released in state media.

Unitree did not respond to queries about its PLA work.

The review of patents, tenders and research papers published in the past two years shows how PLA and affiliated entities are looking to AI to improve military planning, including developing technology to quickly analyze images taken by satellites and drones.

Researchers at Landship Information Technology, a Chinese company that integrates AI systems into military vehicles, including Norinco’s, said in a February white paper released to promote its services that its technology built on Huawei chips can rapidly identify targets from satellite imagery, while coordinating with radars and aircraft to execute operations.

The time taken for military planners to shift from finding and identifying a target to executing an operation has also been shortened by AI, according to Xian Technological University.

Researchers at the institute said in a summary of their findings released in May that their DeepSeek-powered system was able to assess 10,000 battlefield scenarios — each with different variables, terrain and force deployments — in 48 seconds.

Such a task would have taken a conventional team of military planners 48 hours to complete, they said.

Reuters could not independently verify the researchers’ claims.

Chinese military entities are investing in increasingly autonomous battlefield technology, the documents suggest.

Two dozen of the tenders and patents seen by Reuters showed the military attempting to integrate AI into drones so they can recognize and track targets, as well as work together in formations with little human intervention.

Beihang University, known for its military aviation research, is using DeepSeek to improve drone swarm decisionmaking when targeting “low, slow, small” threats — military shorthand for drones and light aircraft — according to a patent filing this year.

Chinese defense leaders have publicly committed to maintaining human control over weapons systems amid growing concern that a conflict between Beijing and Washington could lead to the unchecked deployment of AI-powered munitions.

The US military, which is also investing in AI, is aiming to deploy thousands of autonomous drones by the end of this year in what officials say is an attempt to counter China’s numerical advantage in uncrewed aerial vehicles.

Chinese defense contractors such as Shanxi 100 Trust Information Technology have touted in marketing materials their reliance on domestically produced components such as Huawei’s Ascend chips, which allow AI models to operate.

The firm did not respond to questions about its relationship with Huawei and the PLA.

Despite the move to domestic processors, Nvidia hardware continues to be frequently cited in research by military-affiliated academics, according to a review of patent filings from the past two years.

Reuters identified 35 applications referencing use of Nvidia’s A100 chips by academics at the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and at the “Seven Sons” — a group of Chinese universities under US sanctions and with a history of conducting defense-related research for Beijing.

Those entities in the same time period filed 15 patents related to AI applications that cited Huawei Ascend hardware, which was designed as a substitute to Nvidia chips.

As recently as June, the PLA Rocket Force University of Engineering separately filed a patent for a remote-sensing target detection system, which it said used A100 chips for model training.

Chinese Senior Colonel Zhu Qichao (朱啟超), who leads a NUDT research center, last year told Reuters that US restrictions have affected their AI research “to some degree,” although they were determined to narrow the technological gap.

Nvidia’s Rizzo played down PLA demand for Nvidia’s hardware, saying that China “has more than enough domestic chips for all of its military applications.”


content_text:
RECORD: Veteran Lin Hung-yu, at 39 years and 219 days old, became the oldest player to record four hits in a Taiwan Series game and was picked the Game MVP

The Rakuten Monkeys on Monday outlasted the CTBC Brothers 9-7 in Game 5 of the CPBL’s Taiwan Series in Taichung to capture the championship.

The title marked the Monkeys franchise’s eighth CPBL championship and the first since Rakuten took over the team in 2020. It was also only the second time in league history that a challenger defeated a half-season champion to claim the title.

The last team to accomplish that feat was the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions in 2007.

The Rakuten Monkeys players throw in the air manager Kenji Furukubo at the Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium on Monday after winning the CPBL’s Taiwan Series championship. Photo: CNA

Under CPBL rules, teams with the best record in either half of the season secure a post-season berth.

The team with the higher winning percentage between the two half-season champions advances directly to the Taiwan Series, while the other must play a best-of-five playoff series with a one-win advantage. The challenger spot goes to the team with the highest overall winning percentage across the full season.

Finishing the regular season with the second-best record in the six-team league, the Monkeys dropped their first playoff game to the Uni-Lions, but won the next three to advance to the Taiwan Series. They went on to lose only Game 3 against the Brothers in the championship series.

The Monkeys overcame a four-run deficit to force extra innings after tying the game at seven runs apiece. In the top of the 11th inning, with a runner on first, veteran Lin Hung-yu launched a two-run homer to deep left field, lifting the Monkeys to their fourth win in the best-of-seven series.

In addition to the decisive blast, Lin collected three singles and a walk for a total of four RBIs, earning Game Most Valuable Player (MVP) honor. At 39 years and 219 days old, he became the oldest player to record four hits in a Taiwan Series game.

The previous record was held by the league’s all-time home run leader, Ngayaw Ake, his former teammate, who achieved it at age 37 years and 285 days.

Monkeys closer Chu Cheng-yang also set a new record with four saves in the series.

The team’s Pedro Fernandez was named MVP of the Series after allowing just two runs over 13 innings across two appearances, striking out 15 batters.

title: Monkeys clinch Taiwan Series title


title: Dodgers down Blue Jays in MLB World Series epic

content_text:
Freddie Freeman on Monday blasted a walk-off home run in a record-equaling 18-inning MLB World Series classic to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 6-5 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Freeman — who smashed an iconic walk-off grand slam in the Dodgers’ World Series win over the New York Yankees last year — launched a mammoth solo shot to settle a marathon six-hour, 39-minute battle at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

The victory puts the Dodgers 2-1 up in the best-of-seven championship series with Game 4 being played this morning Taipei time in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman, left, watches his walk-off home run leave the park during the 18th inning in Game 3 of the MLB World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays in Los Angeles on Monday. Photo: AP

Freeman’s winning home-run crowned a night of extraordinary drama that saw both teams slug it out in a back-and-forth battle resembling a heavyweight boxing contest.

The game equaled the previous longest game in World Series history, the Dodgers’ 18-inning victory over the Boston Red Sox in the 2018 championship. That was also won via a walk-off.

“This one took a little longer, but this game was incredible,” said Freeman, the reigning World Series Most Valuable Player.

Freeman’s moment of magic — which makes him the only player in history with multiple walk-off World Series home runs — eclipsed an array of outstanding individual performances on both sides.

Shohei Ohtani had almost single-handedly hauled the Dodgers back into the contest, blasting two home runs and getting on base a record nine times.

Ohtani, the hitting and pitching superstar regarded by many as the greatest player in history, is due to lead the Dodgers from the pitching mound in game four.

“What matters the most is that we won, and what I accomplished today is in the context of this game, and what matters the most is we flipped the page and play the next game,” Ohtani said.

“I want to go to sleep as soon as possible, so I can get ready,” added Ohtani, who was intentionally walked by Toronto for a record four times.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described the game as “one of the greatest World Series games of all time.”

“I’m spent emotionally,” Roberts said, paying tribute to the Blue Jays. “They gave it everything they had. Unfortunately, somebody’s got to win that game, and fortunately for the Dodgers, we got Freddie Freeman on our team.”

With the teams essentially playing the equivalent of two games back-to-back without a rest, each side burned through almost their entire pitching staff.

Dodgers reliever Will Klein was the last available arm for the world champions as the tension mounted. Klein, who had not thrown more than 36 pitches in any of his previous appearances, threw 72 pitches as he navigated the final four innings superbly to shut down the Blue Jays bats.

“Our bullpen was absolutely incredible,” Freeman said. “Will Klein — absolutely incredible.”

Freeman, who had seen several deep fly balls fall just short of the wall earlier in the game, admitted he was unsure if his winning shot would carry.

“I was not sure just because of the other couple. My swings were getting better and better as the game was going on, so just glad I was able to get the opportunity again,” he said.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider vowed his team would be ready to bounce back despite the agonizing loss.

“This group is going to be ready to play tomorrow. Longest game in World Series history, whatever it is, tied for it. I mean, these guys are enjoying it. They were in the right mindset and the right head space the entire time,” Schneider said.

“It sucks that it’s late right now, we got to come back and do it again tomorrow, but these guys are going to be more than ready,” he said. “The Dodgers didn’t win the World Series today, they won a game. These guys are going to be ready to go tomorrow.”

Freeman’s winning solo shot broke up a run of 10 scoreless innings.

The Dodgers had earlier taken a 2-0 lead through home runs from Teoscar Hernandez and Ohtani before Toronto hit back with a three-run home run from catcher Alejandro Kirk.

The Blue Jays, who posed problems for Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow, added a sacrifice fly to go 4-2 up before Ohtani and Freeman drove in runs to level it at 4-4.

Bo Bichette put Toronto 5-4 up in the seventh inning before Ohtani leveled for the Dodgers with his second home run of the night to set up the extra-innings drama.


title: Turkish soccer referees face betting allegations

content_text:
Hundreds of Turkish soccer referees, including some officiating at national level, have bet on matches despite not being allowed to do so, the president of the country’s soccer federation said on Monday.

An investigation into 571 referees showed that “371 have betting accounts and 152 actively bet,” Turkish Football Federation president Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu said.

“We are determined to clean football of any trace of corruption. We will make no exception,” Haciosmanoglu said, vowing that “necessary sanctions” would be taken immediately.

Turkish Football Federation president Ibrahim Haciosmanoglu talks during a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, on Monday. Photo: AP

He said that 22 of the 371 referees (seven match referees and 15 assistants) officiate at the national level.

Neither the identities of the referees nor whether they had bet on their matches were revealed.

Each of the three Turkish soccer giants — Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas — released a statement urging the federation to name and shame the referees and the matches on which they had bet.

Issues of referee partiality are not new in Turkey. The federation has used foreign officials to operate video assistant referee in the Turkish Super Lig.

In February, a foreign referee was handed the whistle for the high-profile Istanbul derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce.


content_text:
One hundred days before the start of the Winter Olympics, it is too early for the weather forecast, but one thing is certain — there will be artificial snow, much to the dismay of environmental activists.

After three Winter Games criticized for being in traditionally non-ski areas — Sochi, Russia (2014), Pyeongchang, South Korea (2018) and Beijing (2022) — next year’s Olympics return to the Alps.

The Milano-Cortina Games are to be scattered across the mountains of northern Italy, with Cortina d’Ampezzo and Bormio hosting the alpine skiing, Anterselva the biathlon, Livigno the freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and Val di Fiemme the Nordic skiing.

Tofane Alpine Skiing Center in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, one of the venues of next year’s Winter Olympics, is pictured on Jan. 17. Photo: AP

These resorts — most of which are within the soaring Dolomites range — are perched 1,200 to 1,800m above sea level, a height that should ensure sufficient snow cover for the event which is to be held from Feb. 6 to 22 next year.

However, artificial snow is to play a key role in the fourth Olympics Italy will host.

“No matter what, even if there is completely sufficient snowfall ... there will also be some fake snow,” University of California Santa Barbara researcher Jake Ward said.

“These kind of high-level snow sport competitions at this point have started to move towards fake snow at least as a portion of the coverage,” he said.

Doing so allows them to “specify the track conditions and make everything kind of exactly how they want for the races,” he added.

The international federations that govern skiing and biathlon require organizers to have snow production equipment on hand, should it be needed.

The Winter Games’ committee has said it plans to make 2.4 million cubic meters of artificial snow, which would require 948,000 cubic meters of water.

That includes more than half, or 580,000 cubic meters, for the Livigno Mottolino site alone, whose features is to include a snow park with a half-pipe as well as a big air ramp.

The artificial snow planned for next year would certainly use far less water than that required during the Beijing Winter Olympics, when 890,000 cubic meters was used for the alpine skiing site at Yanqing and 1.9 million cubic meters for all other snow sports, according to Olympic statistics.

Artificial snow is made using snow cannons and guns, which spray water using a stream of compressed air into the cold air, turning it into fine snow. Environmentalists condemn the energy consumption required and the vast resources of water needed.

The International Commission for the Protection of the Alps says it takes 1 cubic meter of water to make about 2.5 cubic meters of snow.

In Italy, eight national environmental groups in 2023 denounced what they considered a lack of respect for the environment and local communities by the Milan-Cortina 2026 Foundation.

Italy is the European country that uses the most artificial snow, with more than 90 percent of Italy’s ski slopes using artificial snowmaking systems, an April report from Italian environmental group Legambiente showed.

For Vanda Bonardo of Legambiente’s Lombardy chapter, “the ever-increasing weight of this industry on the mountains” is worrying.

“We have to ask ourselves whether it still makes sense to organize major events and concentrate them in very fragile spaces like the Alps. Natural snow is practically becoming the exception,” Bonardo said.

The snow cover in the Italian Alps had decreased by half in the past 100 years, said a study published in the International Journal of Climatology in December last year.

The issue goes far beyond next year’s Winter Olympics, Italian Alpine Club president Antonio Montani said.

“The Games are the tip of the iceberg, they shine a light on the real problem, which is the hundreds of ski resorts that are only able to operate with artificial snow, with huge energy costs and funded by public subsidies, because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to open,” Montani said.

The International Olympic Committee itself has recognized a problem. According to its estimates, only 10 countries would still have the snow necessary to host the Winter Olympics in 2040.

title: Artificial snow to be used in Winter Olympics in the Alps


title: Afghan women’s team return to international stage

content_text:
An Afghan women’s refugee team on Sunday lost 6-1 to Chad in a FIFA-organized tournament in Morocco, but for the players the match itself represented a victory after being denied the chance to play the sport they love back home.

Women’s sport has been banned in Afghanistan since the Taliban government took over in 2021, prompting players to flee the country fearing persecution.

Prior to the Taliban’s takeover, Afghanistan had 25 female soccer players under contract, most of whom now live in Australia.

Afghan Women United players try on their official kits in Casablanca, Morocco, on Saturday. Photo: AP

The women’s national team last played an international match in 2021, losing 5-0 to Qatar, but in May world soccer’s governing body approved the creation of an Afghan women’s refugee team, with Pauline Hamill named as coach.

The team chose “Afghan Women United” as their official name following consultations with FIFA ahead of their loss to Chad, their first match of the four-team FIFA Unites: Women’s Series tournament, which also features Tunisia and Libya.

“That’s all we wanted all these years after trying so hard to get what we truly deserve as a woman. Our right to play and to represent our country,” captain Fatima Haidari said in the lead-up to the match.

“We are profoundly grateful that FIFA gave us this opportunity and this privilege to represent what women are capable of,” she said.

Afghan Women United opened the scoring through Melbourne-based striker Manozh Noori’s penalty, sparking wild celebrations among her teammates and on the sidelines.

However, Chad, who played their first match in 2019 and competed in qualifying for the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, recovered quickly and went on to record the comfortable win in Berrechid, 40km from Casablanca.

Afghan Women United’s next game is against Tunisia today before they take on Libya on Saturday.

The tournament was scheduled to be held in the United Arab Emirates, but was moved to Morocco last week.


content_text:
Juventus on Monday sacked coach Igor Tudor after the Italian Serie A club’s 1-0 defeat by SS Lazio meant they had accumulated just five points in their past five matches.

Men’s first team coach Massimiliano Brambilla is to be on the bench for the match against Udinese today, the Turin club said.

“Juventus FC announces that it has today relieved Igor Tudor of his duties as head coach of the men’s first team, along with his staff consisting of Ivan Javorcic, Tomislav Rogic and Riccardo Ragnacci,” it said. “The club thanks Igor Tudor and his entire staff for their professionalism and dedication over the past few months and wishes them all the best for their future careers.”

Juventus coach Igor Tudor looks on before their Italian Serie A match against Como at the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia in Como, Italy, on Oct. 19. Photo: AFP

Juventus sit eighth in Serie A six points behind leaders SSC Napoli. They are 25th out of 36 teams in the UEFA Champions League standings after drawing one and losing two of their first three games.

Ex-Croatia international centerback Tudor, 47, played for Juve in his career and took over from Thiago Motta as manager in March.

Juve have not won since Sept. 10 and are on a run of eight winless games, and have not scored in the last four.

Tudor’s overall Juventus record was 10 wins for eight draws and six defeats. One of the worst runs in the club’s recent history follows an active summer transfer window during which the club spent 130 millions euros (US$152 million). The recruits included wingers Francisco Conceicao, Nico Gonzalez and Edon Zhegrova and centerbacks Lloyd Kelly and Piere Kalu. One striker, Lois Openda, came on loan and another, Jonathan David, on a free transfer.

Sky Sport Italy reported that Juventus want former Napoli and Italy coach Luciano Spalletti to take over.

Spalletti was sacked by the Italian federation in June.

title: Juventus sack Igor Tudor after eight winless games


title: Man pleads guilty to killing Shinzo Abe

content_text:
SECRETIVE SECT:  Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m

The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world.

The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church.

“Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022.

Tetsuya Yamagami, the man accused of murdering former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, is transferred from Nara Nishi police station for psychiatric examination in Nara, Japan, on July 25, 2022. Photo: AFP

The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who was wearing a black T-shirt and had his long hair tied at the back, replied in a barely audible voice.

However, his lawyer said they would contest certain charges, including contraventions of arms control laws for allegedly using a handmade weapon.

Yamagami’s trial had been a long time coming after the discovery of a suspicious item — later found to be harmless — caused its last-minute cancelation and the evacuation of the Nara court building in 2023.

One issue central to the case was whether extenuating circumstances applied due to “religious abuse” in Yamagami’s childhood stemming from his mother’s extreme devotion to the Unification Church, local media reported.

Yamagami reportedly resented Abe for his perceived ties to the church, which was established in South Korea in 1954 and whose members are nicknamed “Moonies” after its founder Sun Myung Moon.

The church has been accused of fomenting child neglect among its members and financially exploiting them, claims it denies.

Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100 million (US$660,0000) as proof of her faith.

Investigations after Abe’s murder led to cascading revelations about close ties between the church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting four ministers to resign.

The Tokyo District Court earlier this year issued a dissolution order for the church’s Japanese arm, saying it caused “unprecedented damage” to society.

The assassination was also a wake-up call for a nation with some of the world’s strictest gun controls.

Gun violence is so rare in Japan that security officials at the scene failed to immediately identify the sound made by the first shot and came to Abe’s rescue too late, a police report after the attack said.

The debacle prompted lawmakers last year to pass a bill further strengthening arms controls to prevent people from making homemade guns.

Under the new rules, uploading tutorial videos on making firearms and propagating information about gun sales on social media can result in a fine or imprisonment of up to one year.


title: New climate plans to start cutting emissions: UN

content_text:
The latest climate pledges by governments would cause global greenhouse gas emissions to start to fall in the next 10 years, but not nearly fast enough to prevent worsening climate change and extreme weather, the UN said yesterday.

The analysis by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) suggested that, if countries’ plans for tackling climate change are carried out, the annual amount of planet-warming gases added to the atmosphere would decrease 10 percent by 2035, from 2019 levels.

The calculation marked the first time the UNFCCC has forecast a steady decline in global emissions, which have consistently increased since 1990.

Brazilian Minister of Finance Fernando Haddad, front, third left, speaks next to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, front, second left, and COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago, front, third right, during a preparatory meeting ahead of the COP30 Climate Summit in Brasilia, Brazil, on Oct. 13. Photo: Reuters

The projected 10 percent cut is far short of the 60 percent emissions drop needed by 2035 to limit global warming at 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures — the threshold beyond which scientists say it would unleash far more severe impacts.

That shortfall adds pressure ahead of next month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil for nations to step up their efforts — even as climate policies are rolled back under US President Donald Trump.

“Humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, although still not nearly fast enough,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said.

“It’s now for COP30 and for the world to respond and show how we are going to speed up,” Stiell said in a statement.

Many nations have been slow to submit more ambitious climate targets amid economic and geopolitical challenges.

The UNFCCC also published a detailed report of the 64 countries who met a September deadline to submit final climate plans, but those accounted for just 30 percent of global emissions. To offer a more complete assessment, the UNFCCC said it had produced the global analysis, including targets that have announced, but not yet formally submitted, such as from China and the EU.

That assessment still includes uncertainties. For example, it included last year’s US emissions-cutting pledge that Trump is expected to scrap, leaving the US emissions trajectory unclear.

China, which now produces about 29 percent of annual global emissions, pledged last month to cut emissions by 7 percent to 10 percent from their peak by 2035, but did not say when that peak would happen.

Some analysts suggested that Beijing could deliver far more.

“China tends to undercommit,” said Norah Zhang, climate policy analyst at the research group NewClimate Institute, adding that the nation met its 2030 target to expand wind and solar energy six years early.


content_text:
DEADLY PREDATORS:  In New South Wales, smart drumlines — anchored buoys with baited hooks — send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the sharks to be tagged

High above Sydney’s beaches, drones seek one of the world’s deadliest predators, scanning for the flick of a tail, the swish of a fin or a shadow slipping through the swell.

Australia’s oceans are teeming with sharks, with great whites topping the list of species that might fatally chomp a human.

Undeterred, Australians flock to the sea in huge numbers — with a survey last year showing that nearly two-thirds of the population made a total of 650 million coastal visits in a single year.

People walk along the shoreline after northern Sydney beaches were closed following a shark attack at Long Reef Beach on Sept. 6. Photo: AFP

Many beach lovers accept the risks.

When a shark killed surfer Mercury Psillakis off a northern Sydney beach last month, his grief-stricken family called it “a tragic and unavoidable accident.”

Increasingly crowded waters and rising ocean temperatures that appear to be swaying sharks’ migratory patterns might be contributing to an escalation in attacks, despite overfishing depleting some species, scientists say.

More than 1,280 shark incidents have been recorded around Australia since 1791 — about 260 of them fatal — according to a national database.

Though still relatively rare, fatal attacks do appear to be on the rise, with 56 reported deaths in the 25 years to this year, compared with 27 deaths in the previous quarter of a century, but how best to protect people from sharks is a sensitive topic in Australia.

Authorities have adopted a multilayered approach — deploying drones, fixing acoustic trackers to sharks so they can be detected by listening buoys near popular beaches, alerting people in real time with a mobile app and stringing up old-fashioned nets.

Drones have become a key resource, spotting more than 1,000 of the predators in the past year as they prowled New South Wales coastal waters.

“We err on the side of caution,” Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone pilot Oliver Heys said.

“If we see something, we drop down and zoom in to see if it is a dangerous shark or not,” he said. “When we see them, a jet ski or inflatable rescue boat shepherds the shark back out to sea.”

Pilots look for three species considered the most dangerous — great whites, tiger sharks and bull sharks.

Of these, the great white has accounted for 42 percent of shark attacks since 2000.

While shark nets are rolled out each summer in New South Wales and Queensland, their use is hotly debated.

Three local councils in New South Wales planned to remove the nets from some beaches in a trial this year, but scotched the move after last month’s fatal attack in Sydney.

Support for nets, which can be wider than a soccer field and up to 6m deep, has also broadly waned because sharks can swim around them and the mesh kills most of the marine life it ensnares, including endangered turtles, dolphins, fish and rays.

Nets are outdated and can act as a “dinner bell” when trapped carcasses attract the predators, said Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society.

Many scientists advocate more sophisticated techniques.

In New South Wales, smart drumlines — anchored buoys with baited hooks — send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the animals to be tagged.

A mobile app called Shark Smart then alerts swimmers, surfers, divers and fishers in real time when a tagged shark nears a listening buoy off their favorite beaches, but the technology only works if the aquatic hunter has been tagged or swims near a buoy that can detect it.

Other Australian states rely on wall-like structures that enclose headlands to protect swimmers.

“There is no silver bullet,” Guida said.

“We are not going to eliminate 100 percent of the risk, but we can mitigate that risk as much as possible,” he said.

Scientists are also trying to make shark encounters less deadly with measures such as bite-resistant materials and electronic deterrents.

Some bite-resistant wetsuits might reduce injuries and blood loss, the most common cause of death from a shark bite, according to New South Wales-funded research by Flinders University professor Charlie Huveneers and his team.

Huveneers’ previous research also found that an effective personal electronic device designed to repel sharks by interfering with their electro-sensory systems might reduce bites by about 60 percent.

“Australia is at the forefront of shark bite mitigation measures,” he said. “We can actually save lives.”

Researchers say shark lives, too, need protecting.

Globally, about 37 percent of oceanic shark and ray species are now listed as either endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global database for threatened species.

While sharks might instil trepidation in Australia’s waters, official data shows drowning is a far bigger risk, killing 357 people in the 12 months to June this year.

title: Australia fends off sharks with new, old tech


title: N Korea’s top diplomat meets Putin in Moscow

content_text:
North Korea’s top diplomat on Monday visited the Kremlin for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which followed last month’s meeting between the nations’ leaders.

The show of deepening ties came as US President Donald Trump visits Asia.

In a separate meeting with her Russian counterpart, North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui confirmed North Korea’s “unwavering understanding and support” for Putin’s war against Ukraine, North Korean state media said yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, front left, shakes hands with North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui, front left, in Moscow on Monday. Photo: Sputnik / Vyacheslav Prokofyev via Reuters

North Korea has sent thousands of troops and large quantities of military equipment to Russia to support its war effort, a growing alignment that has fueled leader Kim Jong-un’s increasingly assertive foreign policy as he seeks to break out of isolation and position his nation as part of a united front against the US-led West.

North Korea has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump fell apart in 2019 during the US president’s first term.

Putin and Kim met in Beijing in September after attending a major military parade in the heart of the Chinese capital that marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Putin on Monday asked Choe to convey his best wishes to Kim, adding that they had a very warm meeting, according to televised remarks at the start of the talks.

Before attending the Kremlin meeting with Putin, Choe held talks with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, who again hailed North Korean troops for fighting alongside the Russian military in the Kursk region after a surprise Ukrainian incursion.

“These heroic deeds will, of course, further strengthen the bonds of friendship and historical unity in our shared struggle for justice,” Lavrov said.

Choe noted “considerable progress” in relations between the two nations, and confirmed Pyongyang’s support for “all measures” taken by Russia to defend its security interests and “eliminate the root cause” of its conflict with Ukraine, Russian and North Korean media reported.

The Korean Central News Agency said that Russian officials, during their meeting with Choe, expressed Moscow’s support for all of Pyongyang’s efforts to “firmly defend its current status, security interests and sovereign rights.”

The two sides discussed expanding high-level exchanges and cooperation, and coordinating their diplomacy on unspecified “major issues of mutual concern,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent about 15,000 troops to Russia since the fall last year and also supplied large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, to support Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.

Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia’s Kursk region.

Kim has focused on expanding the capabilities of his nuclear-armed military since his diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019 due to disagreements over US-led economic sanctions.


content_text:
King Charles III on Monday dedicated Britain’s first national memorial to LGBT+ troops, 25 years after the UK ended a ban on homosexuality in the armed forces.

The king, who is the ceremonial head of the armed forces, laid flowers at the monument in the National Memorial Arboretum in central England at a service attended by scores of serving troops and veterans.

The sculpture takes the form of a crumpled bronze letter bearing words from personnel who were affected by the ban.

King Charles III lays flowers as he attends the LGBTQ+ Armed Forces Dedication ceremony at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, England, on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Between 1967 and 2000, military personnel who were — or were thought to be — gay or transgender were labeled unfit to serve and dismissed or discharged from the forces. Some were stripped of medals or lost their pension rights.

The British government lifted the ban after a 1999 ruling from the European Court of Human Rights.

A compensation program was established, with veterans who were dismissed from the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity receiving up to ￡70,000 (US$93,338) each.

LGBTQ+ military charity Fighting with Pride said the monument represents a “powerful step forward in recognizing and honoring the service and sacrifices” of the gay and transgender troops.

Claire Ashton, who was forced to leave the Royal Artillery in 1972, when she was 21, said it was “a moment I never believed would happen, a moment full of meaning and, finally, of pride.”

“I’m in my 70s now and have forever lived with the psychological scars of being kicked out — ‘medically discharged,’ as it was labeled on my records,” she said. “It means so much to be with others who’ve been through similar nightmares to me and, like me, are making peace with the past.”

Brigadier Clare Phillips told the ceremony that as “a gay woman who has served in the British Army for 30 years ... my career has taken me from a life of secrecy, fear and darkness to a career of pride, openness and joy.”

“For the serving community, today’s unveiling of this incredible memorial is about remembering that we stand on the shoulders of giants — those people who fought discrimination and persecution so we can now serve openly and proudly,” she said.

title: King dedicates UK’s first memorial to LGBTQ+ troops


title: Japanese governor urges military help against bear attacks

content_text:
A Japanese governor yesterday called for help from the military to deal with a spate of “truly dire” deadly bear attacks, which have risen to record levels this year in Japan.

Bears have killed 10 people this year, a government official said, surpassing the previous high of six in the fiscal year that ended in March last year.

The animals have been increasingly encroaching on towns due to factors including a declining human population and climate change.

A bear walks inside a supermarket in Numata, Japan, on Oct. 7. Photo: AFP / Gunma Prefectural Police via Jiji Press

Akita Prefecture Governor Kenta Suzuki told the Japanese minister of defense that “the lives of our citizens cannot be protected without the help of the Self-Defense Forces.”

“Attacks targeting the neck and face are extremely common, resulting in a truly dire situation,” he said.

Suzuki said bears now appear not only in the mountains, but also in urban areas.

It was “abnormal” for the daily lives of all residents to be so disrupted, he added.

Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said in response that the government would “make the utmost use of the capabilities and authority” to restore safety.

A Japanese ministry of the environment official who monitors bear attacks yesterday confirmed that the number of people killed “has reached 10.”

The latest victim was attacked along with three other people in a mountain village in Akita Prefecture last week, the official said.

The figure does not yet include more recent fatalities seemingly linked to other attacks, they said.

A woman was found dead on Monday near rice fields in Akita Prefecture, while a man and his dog were found deceased in the neighboring Iwate region, local media reported.

Both showed signs of having been attacked.

Bears have attacked tourists, entered stores, and appeared near schools and parks, particularly in northern regions.

Hungry because of a shortage of food such as acorns — which has been blamed on the influence of climate change — the animals are venturing more into towns where the human population is aging and dwindling.

Experts say that warmer weather is also affecting the hibernation patterns of the animals, which in the case of brown bears can weigh half a tonne and outrun a human.

Japan has two types of bear: Asian black bears — also known as moon bears — and the bigger brown bears that live on the main northern island of Hokkaido.

Many bears are shot every year, although Japan’s aging human population means that the number of hunters is declining.

Japanese Minister of the Environment Hirotaka Ishihara last week called bear attacks “a big problem, a serious problem.”

“We are committed to further strengthening various measures including securing and training government hunters, and managing the bear population,” he told a news conference.


content_text: Hindu devotees offer prayers to the Sun god on the occasion of the Chhath Puja festival along the banks of the River Brahmaputra in Guwahati, India, yesterday.

title: Bustling riverbank


content_text:
The nation needs to reconceptualize how it approaches AI, not as a static fortress, but one that offers a mobile, living strategy: adaptive, global and resilient

President William Lai (賴清德) has championed Taiwan as an “AI Island” — an artificial intelligence (AI) hub powering the global tech economy. But without major shifts in talent, funding and strategic direction, this vision risks becoming a static fortress: indispensable, yet immobile and vulnerable. It’s time to reframe Taiwan’s ambition. Time to move from a resource-rich AI island to an AI Armada.

Why change metaphors? Because choosing the right metaphor shapes both understanding and strategy.

The “AI Island” frames our national ambition as a static fortress that, while valuable, is still vulnerable and reactive. Shifting our metaphor to an “AI Armada” is a cognitive reset, forcing us to think in terms of mobility, coordinated action and projecting power across the world’s digital oceans.

FROM FORTRESS TO FLEET

Taiwan is the backbone of global AI hardware. It fabricates over 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90 percent of advanced AI chips used by Nvidia, Google and Microsoft. This dominance brings both pride and risk. One cyberattack, earthquake or cross-strait blockade could fracture the global supply chain overnight.

To be fair, President Lai’s full vision is broader. His “10 new AI infrastructure initiatives” go beyond hardware to include building national supercomputers, developing a “sovereign AI” with Taiwan’s own foundational models and investing in next-generation R&D like silicon photonics and robotics. But without a corresponding strategy for capital and talent, these initiatives will simply build a better fortress, not a mobile fleet.

Inspiring as the “AI Island” story is, it’s also limited. It reinforces Taiwan’s historic role as a contract manufacturer: essential, but reactive.

“Taiwan doesn’t really have an AI [software] industry,” says Sega Cheng (程世嘉), CEO of leading Taiwanese AI software company iKala, “We are part of the AI industry chain, primarily offering the computing power for AI applications worldwide.”

If Taiwan aims to shape the future of AI, and not just supply it, it needs an armada: a coordinated fleet of carriers, escorts and scouts that moves, adapts and projects influence globally.

THE FLEET

The carriers are Taiwan’s hardware giants: TSMC, Foxconn, Quanta. These vessels project power but must also incubate new ventures through shared R&D and investment.

The escorts are AI-foundry and edge-computing startups like Kneron and Speedio — hybrids that merge hardware with software intelligence. Kneron, for example, secured US$97 million from Foxconn to co-develop ultra-light NPU chips for secure, decentralized AI.

The scouts are global software startups. Firms like Appier and Perfect Corp reached billion-dollar valuations before listing in Tokyo and New York — proof Taiwan can produce software built for the world, not retrofitted for it.

But every fleet also needs harbors for ship building, fueling and maintaining, and crew to steer and navigate the ships.

HEADWINDS AND COURSE CORRECTIONS

Taiwan’s AI Armada faces three headwinds: the gravitational pull of hardware, a shallow capital ecosystem and a shortage of crew and mentorship. Each threatens to keep the nation’s AI ambitions anchored too close to shore.

The first is the pull of hardware. Taiwan’s unmatched semiconductor dominance is also a constraint.

“‘Why risk a startup when you can work for TSMC?’ is a real dilemma,” says journalist Matthew Chen (陳君毅), who has chronicled the island’s startup scene for nearly a decade.

The gravitational security of corporate roles draws engineers back to the carrier decks, leaving the exploration fleet undermanned.

“Taiwan’s startup ecosystem is unique in its central paradox,” Chen says. “We have a weakness in brand-building but an unparalleled strength in hardware–software integration.”

Still, a shift is underway. A “fourth wave” of founders, Chen says, is skipping local waters entirely and launching directly into Japanese or US accelerators like Y Combinator. The instinct of companies like Appier and Perfect Corp is clear: set sail in deeper seas.

The government can and must accelerate this trend. It already has the right hulls in the water, such as the National Development Council’s “Startup Island TAIWAN” brand, which acts as a global promotion arm, and the Employment Gold Card, designed to attract foreign captains. But these efforts must be supercharged, moving from simple promotion to becoming full-service logistics bases for the scout fleet, with dedicated launchpads in key markets like the US, Japan and Europe.

CAPITAL

The second is the shallow harbor of capital.

From 2016 to last year, Taiwan produced just four AI startups per year on average, with fewer than 50 funded to date, and only three reaching Series A. In 2023, 77.3 percent of startup funding stopped at the seed stage, and 44.3 percent of founders cited lack of growth capital as their biggest challenge.

Despite a surge in AI startups since 2022, most remain unfunded. Total VC investment last year reached just NT$9.8 billion. This is less than half the funding in Singapore, which attracts 91 percent of Southeast Asia’s deep tech funding and boasts over 650 AI startups including 32 unicorns.

Although the Ministry of Digital Affairs’ NT$10 billion “AI startup fund” aims to address this gap over the next decade, it pales in comparison to the immediate scale required and risks being too little to deepen the harbor sufficiently.

‘MENTORING MECHANISM’

The third is the crew gap. Taiwan will need to train 200,000 AI professionals in the next four years and recruit 25,000 students annually.

While the Ministry of Education has responded to this need by launching the “Taiwan AI College Alliance” to create standardized AI programs across 55 universities, and the “AI Taiwan Action Plan 2.0” to cultivate thousands of new specialists, this will not meet the talent shortfall.

Even though Taiwan produces thousands of AI graduates every year, many go to better-paying markets abroad. Salaries in Taiwan remain a third of US levels, and the long-hours culture discourages entrepreneurial risk.

“The real challenge” says Chang Yung-chun (張詠淳), Director of the Graduate Institute of Data Science at Taipei Medical University, “is talent retention.”

Even those who stay often find themselves adrift.

“We need a mentoring mechanism where experienced firms guide younger ones,” Chang adds. “But that’s tricky because competitors don’t naturally share knowledge, and the bigger players aren’t always the most innovative.”

Without structured mentorship, young captains repeat old mistakes, and the fleet stalls close to shore. The result are zombie startups, ghost ships set adrift.

Fellowship programs, equity-based pay and founder guilds could help keep new talent aboard and learning.

THE HORIZON

Taiwan’s semiconductor carriers remain the pride of its fleet, but for how long? Without scouts, escorts, harbors and crew, the island risks being stranded at the lower rungs of the AI value chain.

The AI Armada offers a mobile, living strategy: adaptive, global, and resilient. Taiwan’s future can’t be measured in wafers alone, but in the ability of its startups to sail, scale and lead across the world’s digital oceans.

title: Taiwan doesn’t need an AI island — it needs an AI Armada


content_text:
Finland warns defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine key to stability in Indo-PacificDefense minister says Xi Jinping should note resolve to stay the course by global democratic alliance, including Australia

Defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is critical to restraining China in the Indo-Pacific, Finland’s defence minister has said, warning Europe and democratic partners, including Australia, face a fight of global consequences.

Antti Hakkanen praised Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on two Russian oil companies last week, calling the move a major sign of resolve by the US president against Vladimir Putin’s three-year long war.

Hakkanen said the West’s willingness to stay the course in opposing Russia’s aggression would be closely scrutinized.

A serviceman of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade of Unmanned Systems named after Yakov Handziuk of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Oct. 6 launches a reconnaissance drone, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

“China is watching. Does the West have a muscle and resilience, when the autocrats and dictators think they can wage war for another year, and the democratic countries will become fed up?

“No. We have to show that we are even more putting stronger support against violence. It’s not only on Ukraine. It’s against violence, against war, and that’s a signal also for China and the Indo-Pacific area.”

Ending the Ukraine conflict required a three-pillar approach, he said: tougher sanctions on the Russian economy and energy exports; stronger military assistance to Ukraine; and the use of long-range weapons to destroy factories for drones and missiles.

But Trump has resisted pressure to allow Ukraine to use American Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia. Despite lobbying from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and calls for long-range capabilities on Friday from the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, Trump has argued the weapons are too complex and require years of training.

Hakkanen said any weakness in resolve would embolden China.

“If there will be some kind of military conflict in the Indo-Pacific area, caused by China, Russia will be somehow involved, through supporting China or something like that,” he said.

“We see now that Russia, by their own resources, cannot continue this kind of warfare, but China is helping them a great deal. They are giving a lot of money to support their economy, from energy exports, and giving them a lot of military components and industrial cooperation.”

Finland shares a land border of more than 1,300km with Russia and considers Putin a permanent threat to European security. The country joined the NATO alliance in 2023 and its president, Alexander Stubb, has secured close ties with Trump.

Hakkanen said China’s president, Xi Jinping (習近平), should take note of the resolve shown by the global democratic alliance, including the “coalition of the willing,” of which Australia is a member.

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and foreign policy experts believe Beijing is aiming to be capable of making a military move against its independence as early as 2027, amid increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

While criticizing countries not pulling their weight with Ukraine, Hakkanen said he was optimistic about possible peace.

“European countries have in the last month or so chosen really good steps in supporting Ukraine, investing heavily in our own defiance.”

Cooperation on the war could have broader flow-on effects for Australia’s trade ties with Europe.

Finland is seeking to expand defense industrial and space ties with Australia. Its political state secretary for foreign affairs, Pasi Rajala, has visited Australia and New Zealand in recent months.

Hakkanen, who has met the defense minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had played a “tremendous” role as one of the biggest non-NATO contributors supporting Ukraine.

“It’s a big political message here in Europe, that Australia has been a part of the support,” he said. “That will send the signal that if Australia has some challenges in security or defense, Europe knows that we have to be in the same family.”