title: Opposition still dragging heels on passing total budget

people: 王鴻薇 賴清德

content_text:
By Su Yung-yao, Liu Wan-lin and Esme Yeh / Staff reporters

The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) plan to review and pass part of the central government’s general budget would be “a good job half done” if the rest of the budget remains shelved, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.

The KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party reportedly planned to transfer several budget bills relevant to people’s livelihoods such as the TPass program or birth subsidies to legislative committees for review, after the total budget proposed by the central government for this fiscal year had been put on hold at the legislature due to dissatisfaction from the opposition parties that the Executive Yuan did not “properly” adjust military and police pay.

In response to media queries for comment, Lai yesterday said it is good for the KMT to realize the significance of the central government’s budget to people’s livelihoods.

Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers hold up placards urging review of the central government’s general budget at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Friday. Photo: CNA

However, it would be a good job half done if only portions of the budget are reviewed and passed, as they are interconnected, he said.

Economic developments would come to a halt if there is no defense budget to sustain national security, while public finance and people’s livelihoods would be affected if funding for economic developments is removed, Lai said.

The KMT should allow all the central government’s budget bills to be reviewed by relevant legislative committees and facilitate their passage at the legislature as soon as possible, he said.

Asked about the NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.6 billion) special defense budget bill — which was blocked for the sixth time by opposition parties at a legislative meeting on Friday and could not enter committee meetings — Lai expressed gratitude to American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene for visiting opposition party leaders to help break the deadlock at the legislature.

That shows the international community values the security of Taiwan and cross-strait peace and stability, Lai said, adding that he hopes Greene’s effort was not a waste of time and the KMT would realize the importance of the defense budget.

KMT Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) said the opposition is at least doing a good job half done while Lai “is far from good by doing nothing.”

“Have you [Lai] made an effort to negotiate with opposition parties to facilitate the passage of the total budget? Or that you just have been obsessed with political manipulation and blaming opposition parties every day?” she said.


content_text:
LEASE FOCUS:  The ministry is struggling to find land in prime areas, the minister of the interior said, adding housing in distant areas would struggle to attract residents

Fewer social housing units are being built due to land scarcity, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said yesterday, adding that it is shifting focus to accelerating lease and management services.

President William Lai (賴清德) during his 2024 presidential campaign pledged to launch a “1 million renter household support program,” aiming to build 250,000 social housing units by 2032 — an additional 130,000 units on top of the 120,000 social housing units under former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — place 250,000 units in the lease and management program, and provide 500,000 households with rent subsidies.

The government’s lease and management program aims to facilitate the rental of otherwise unused and empty properties to disadvantaged families, students and workers.

As of the end of last month, 122,680 units of new social welfare housing had been built, 104,803 units had been leased under the government’s lease program, and 913,867 people had applied for rental subsidies, ministry statistics showed.

The ministry in a release said that the government plans to expand the lease and management program to 320,000 units, adding that its goal of supporting 1 million renter households remains unchanged.

As a result of the targets set by the Presidential Office’s Climate Change Committee, the residential and commercial sectors’ carbon emissions must be reduced by 35 percent by 2030, the ministry said.

The adoption of the lease and management program is 30 to 40 percent more effective in reducing carbon emissions than building social housing, it said.

The program could help meet housing needs while supporting carbon reduction goals and environmental protection, it said.

Due to slow construction of social housing, scarce land and slow acquisition, fewer social housing units would be built, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said yesterday.

The ministry would focus on accelerating the lease and management program, she said.

The Tsai administration planned 120,000 social housing units, and the Lai administration is moving in the same direction, she said, adding that progress has been slow due to land scarcity, and existing projects would not be completed in the next two years.

The government is struggling to find plots of land in prime real-estate areas, Liu said.

If social welfare housing is built outside prime areas, it would struggle to attract residents, she added.

“The number of households to benefit from the three strategies combined would add up to 1 million,” she said.

Taiwan has about 910,000 vacant homes, she said.

The ministry has a goal for the lease and management program to reach 320,000 units, Liu said.

Deputy Minister of the Interior Dong Jian-hong (董建宏) said the ministry would work with local governments to provide housing for temporary residents such as students.

The government would also explore encouraging community-driven urban renewal programs and introducing old housing life-extension programs, he said.

people: 賴清德 董建宏 劉世芳 蔡英文

title: Lack of land curbs social housing: MOI


content_text:
A recent Microsoft survey ranked Taiwan 23rd in the world in artificial intelligence (AI) use, with 28.4 percent of Taiwanese reporting that they use the technology.

The Microsoft Al Economy Institute in a release on Thursday said that 16.3 percent of the global population used AI tools last year, showing the technology’s accelerating adoption worldwide.

In Taiwan, AI use last year increased to 28.4 percent, from 26.4 percent, overtaking the US (28.3 percent) by a small margin.

Logos of artificial intelligence apps including ChatGPT, center, are displayed on a phone screen in Vaasa, Finland, on June 6, 2023. Photo: AFP

Although the US is the world’s leading country in AI research and development, the technology’s spread in the workforce has been slower than medium and small economies with a higher level of reliance on AI technology and digitization, the institute said.

The poll identified a divide between developed and developing economies, with AI usage rates of 24.7 percent and 14.1 percent respectively.

The United Arab Emirates had an AI usage rate of 54 percent, the highest in the world, the institute said.

Abu Dhabi in 2017 established the Emirati Ministry of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, boosting public trust in the technology to 67 percent, compared with 32 percent in the US, it said.

South Korea last year recorded the biggest increase in AI utilization, moving from 25th to 18th, the institute said.

The change can be attributed to an increase in algorithmic models’ Korean-language capabilities, it said.

Seoul’s passage of an AI basic law and creation of a strategic office to govern the technology and the trend of using ChatGPT to generate anime images resembling Studio Ghibli’s style have also played a role in increasing the technology’s popularity in the nation, it said.

China’s open-source AI DeepSeek successfully garnered a large number of users in its own territories, along with Russia, Belarus and Iran, it said.

The main challenge for the industry is spreading the benefits of AI to more regions to bridge the diffusion gap between nations, it added.

title: Taiwan ranks 23rd in AI use


title: Economist warns of ‘K’-shaped growth amid AI boom

content_text:
IMBALANCE: ’K’-shaped growth refers to a divergence of performance in different sectors, with some moving higher and some lower, with the graph resembling a ‘K’

Despite Taiwan’s per capita GDP forecast to top US$40,000 this year amid the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, an economist warned of “K”-shaped industrial growth, which would result in low wages in certain domestic demand-oriented industries.

Dachrahn Wu (吳大任), director of National Central University’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development, said that Taiwan’s economy is largely driven by exports in the AI era, but the performance has diverged in a “K” shape.

“K”-shaped growth refers to a divergence of performance of different sectors with some moving higher, but others lower, in a graph of the economy resembling the arms of the letter “K.”

Taiwan’s GDP per capita is expected to hit US$40,951 this year, up from US$38,748 estimated for last year, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

The local economy is expected to have grown 7.37 percent last year, a 15-year high, boosted by robust exports, and would grow an additional 3.54 percent this year, the DGBAS’ forecast in November last year said.

Among the 11 million people employed in Taiwan, the services sector employed more than 7 million in relatively low-paying jobs, while the electronics industry, the major AI beneficiary, employed only 1 million, including 300,000 in the semiconductor segment, which tended to offer higher pay, Wu said.

The DGBAS data indicated that average aggregate earnings, which include regular wages and nonregular wages such as bonuses, in the electronics industry hit NT$1.12 million (US$35,447) from January to October last year, while the figure for the computer/optoelectronics industry reached NT$939,550.

In the service sector, average aggregate earnings of the hospitality and food-and-beverage industry stood at NT$391,440, and the figure in the support services industry, which is comprised of travel agencies, was NT$414,710 during the same period, the data showed.

As the service sector serves as the largest employer in Taiwan, with the “K”-shaped development continuing, the impact on the sector would run deeper, Wu said.

The first priority is to turn the service sector around, he said.

The government should try hard to create business opportunities for the sector by boosting demand to solve the low wage problem and improve Taiwan’s wage structure, he added.

National Development Council Deputy Minister Kao Shien-quey (高仙桂) in a recent legislative hearing said that while the government would maintain Taiwan’s lead in the global AI and semiconductor competition, it would also take advantage of AI to help old-economy industries and the service sector to upgrade their operations.

Such efforts are needed to support domestic demand-oriented industries to have the entire industrial development tilt toward a balance, Kao said.


title: Trio sentenced for torturing Taichung man to death

content_text:
By Hsu Kuo-chen, Chen Chien-chih and Jason Pan / Staff reporters

Taichung gaming business owner Liu Shih-hui (劉世惠) was on Friday sentenced by citizen judges to life in prison for kidnapping and torturing a man to death.

In the case, which was heard in the Taichung District Court, the citizen judges reviewed evidence, including videos taken by perpetrators.

Liu, 32, and three accomplices were found guilty of “carrying weapons to confine and torture the man to death.”

The entrance to the Taichung District Court is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times

In addition to the life sentence, Liu was deprived of his civil rights for life, while the citizen judges handed his accomplices sentences of more than 10 years each.

REPEATED ASSAULTS

Before the case was uncovered, Liu had served as the deputy head of a local branch of the “Friends of Police Association,” a mainly civilian organization headed by community leaders that provides local law enforcement with financial support and other resources.

A Taichung prosecutor said that the victim, surnamed Hsu (許), 28, was assaulted repeatedly, and his body was covered with wounds and bruises.

Liu in 2020 hired Hsu as assistant, but due to financial disputes, the duo often had arguments, the prosecutor said.

Liu on Oct. 18, 2024, brought Hsu and his two accomplices to a mansion in Taichung, where they confined Hsu and tortured him, the prosecutor said.

The perpetrators used various tools to torture Hsu, forced him to drink liquids containing narcotics and filmed their actions, the prosecutor said.

‘NO REMORSE’

Hsu’s autopsy report indicated that beating and torture caused his death, they said.

The perpetrators filmed themselves torturing Hsu, the prosecutor said, adding that they stripped him naked and used tools such as a hammer, a baseball bat, leather belts, knives, wrenches, a blowtorch, electroshock device and air gun.

They also poured alcohol and hot sauce on Hsu’s wounds, the prosecutor said.

“Liu exhibited no remorse [after Hsu’s death] and tried to cover up his crime, and he still has not settled on the amount of compensation to Hsu’s family,” the prosecutor said.

The citizen judges handed down the maximum punishment for the perpetrators. While Liu was sentenced to life in prison, Shih Ting-chang (石庭彰), 19, was sentenced to 12 years, and Liu Chi-yun (劉季昀), 37, was sentenced to 13 years and six months.

The verdict may be appealed.


content_text:
A man who allegedly set himself on fire at a fuel station in New Taipei City on Friday afternoon is in an intensive care unit, police said yesterday.

The New Taipei City Fire Department said that it at 5:44pm on Friday received a report that a man had self-immolated at a CPC Corp, Taiwan gas station on Minzu Road in Banciao District (板橋).

By the time firefighters arrived, station staff had extinguished the blaze, the department said.

Police cordon off an area of a filling station in New Taipei City’s Banciao District after a man allegedly set himself on fire on Friday afternoon. Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Police Department

The man was restrained at the scene and sustained second-degree burns, it said.

The fire also injured a bystander, who had burns. Both were conscious and taken to Far Eastern Memorial Hospital for treatment, it said.

The Haishan Police Precinct said no weapons or dangerous items were found at the scene.

The precinct said that, based on a preliminary investigation, the man who allegedly started the fire lunged at a nearby security guard surnamed Tseng (曾), causing him to also suffer burns.

However, it did not comment on whether the man set himself on fire.

An eyewitness said the man also lunged at firefighters as they sprayed him with a hose, but he was quickly restrained.

The motive for the incident is being investigated, police said.

A firefighter filed charges of injury and obstruction of official duties, police said, adding that Tseng also filed charges.

Tseng, receiving treatment and under observation at the hospital, in an interview yesterday said that he had finished his cash escort duty and was refueling his car when he noticed the suspect walking around the station holding a lighter.

He said that at the time, he did not know the suspect had been covered in gasoline or what his motive was, thinking he might have been in a conflict with someone.

Later, while he was waiting to pay for the fuel, the man suddenly lit a fire, Tseng said.

“The flames were huge; the man, fully on fire, lunged at me and grabbed my hand, knocking me down,” said Tseng, who suffered burns over approximately 15 percent of his skin, with injuries to his thighs, lower back and wrists, and required hospitalization and medical observation.

“This terrifying experience has caused me significant shock and trauma,” he said.

title: Man sets himself on fire at Banciao filling station


content_text:
More than 80,000 potential pesticide residue cases were tested via rapid screening with mass spectrometry over the past three years, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Agency said, adding that its annual screening capacity would be boosted to 50,000 cases this year.

Combined with fast pesticide extraction and mass spectrometry, the rapid screening technique uses computer-based algorithms to compare the mass spectrums of sample extracts with those of more than 200 established common pesticides, agency Deputy Secretary-General Chen Chi-jung (陳啟榮) said.

The technique can yield test results in 20 minutes, allowing sample submitters to get the report within a day, while traditional testing methods require five to seven days to produce results, he said, adding that rapid screening has reached up to 99 percent of the accuracy of traditional methods.

Farmers harvest mustard greens in Miaoli County in an undated photograph.

Photo: Tsai Cheng-min, Taipei Times

The agency aims to increase its annual screening capacity to 50,000 cases this year, after it passed its 40,000-case goal last year with the screening of 40,470 cases, Chen said.

Data from the agency showed that a total of 81,490 cases were tested via the technique from 2023 to last year, with 7,062 found to contain pesticide residue that required the postponement of the harvesting of crops.

Chen said 22 pretreatment stations have been set up at agricultural collection points near production areas to help collect samples from agricultural workers and transfer the samples to local screening centers, mobile screening vehicles, or the ministry’s Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute.

These pretreatment stations not only make it convenient for agricultural workers to use the screening service, but also facilitate the screening process by conducting pretreatments, including homogenization, shaking and extraction, he said.

While local screening centers and the institute would handle most cases, the five mobile screening vehicles would travel to remote areas to provide assistance, Chen said, adding that there would be 11 local centers providing the service this year.

Rapid screening test results can inform agricultural workers about the pesticide residue amounts before produce enters the market, the ministry said.

Submitters whose samples are found to have pesticide residues would be required to delay the harvest and undergo screening again, it said.

They would not be penalized for crops with excessive pesticide residues, but cannot release their produce to market until it passes the test, the ministry said.

For those required to postpone harvests, personnel from local agricultural research and extension stations, and plant doctors would be sent to assist agricultural workers in improving pesticide use and pest control strategies, it said.

title: Pesticide screening capacity to grow: ministry


title: Reptile race

content_text: Participants of the “Speediest Dinosaur” subevent at this year’s Kaohsiung Fubon Marathon line up on the tracks at Kaohsiung National Stadium in preparation for the start of the event yesterday. Participants included Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai.


title: Anime exhibition

content_text: From left, figurines of Nami, Roronoa Zoro and Monkey D. Luffy, some of the main characters in the manga and anime series “One Piece,” are on display at a 25th anniversary exhibition of the television series at the National Taiwan Science Education Center yesterday. The exhibition opened yesterday and is to run until April 6.


title: Italy backs EU-Mercosur trade deal after 25 years of talks

content_text:
Italy’s prime minister said that her government has always been in favor of the deal,as long as there are sufficient guarantees for farmers

Italy on Friday gave crucial support to plans by the EU to seal a huge free-trade deal with five South American nations neighboring Venezuela that has been negotiated for more than 25 years.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was long seen as the key vote in the campaign by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to rally support for the trade deal with the Mercosur nations of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Von der Leyen said the successful vote sends “a strong signal” of the EU’s economic clout and stability “in the face of an increasingly hostile and transactional world.”

She said she would travel to Paraguay soon, where Mercosur nations are meeting next week.

The European Parliament would vote on it before it enters into force.

“At a time when trade and dependencies are being weaponized, and the dangerous, transactional nature of the reality we live in becomes increasingly stark, this historic trade deal is further proof that Europe charts its own course and stands as a reliable partner,” Von der Leyen said.

Rome confirmed its support for the deal on Friday, with Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani hailing it as “good news for Italy.”

“This agreement is destined to boost our exports, with the goal of reaching 700 billion euros [US$814 billion] in exports,” Tajani wrote on X.

Meloni said she never had “any ideological objections” to the Mercosur agreement.

“We have always said we will be in favor of it when there are sufficient guarantees for our farmers,” she told a news conference on Friday. “The agreement’s potential is good, but not at the expense of the excellence of our products.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the agreement “is a milestone in European trade policy and an important signal of our strategic sovereignty and ability to act.”

“With this agreement, we are strengthening our economy and trade relations with our partners in South America — which is good for Germany and for Europe,” Merz said in a statement.

The deal would create one of the world’s largest free-trade zones, covering about 780 million people from Uruguay to Romania and one-quarter of the globe’s GDP.

It also gives Brussels a diplomatic win at a time of economic upheaval, providing a stark counterpoint to the gunboat diplomacy of Washington and the coercive export controls of Beijing.

“Given [US President Donald] Trump’s policies of isolating the US from the rest of the world, it is an imperative for the EU to lead trade integration policies at the global level and to look for partners elsewhere,” said Antonio Fatas, a macroeconomist at the French business school INSEAD.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrated the agreement. His country’s economy, worth between US$2.1 billion and US$2.3 billion last year, is by far the most robust of the South American trade bloc.

“This is a historic day for multilateralism,” Lula said on social media. “In an international scene of growing protectionism and unilateralism, the [EU-Mercosur] deal is a favorable sign for international trade to be a factor for economic growth, with benefits for both blocs.”

In the wake of Trumps’ tariff wars, Brussels has sought to curtail its dependency on the US market with trade deals forged across the world. The EU has struck deals with Japan and Indonesia, and is working on one with India.

A delay last month to the signing of the Mercosur deal had infuriated Lula and led experts to worry that a last-minute stumble would wreck the EU’s credibility.

“For Europeans, the finalization of free-trade agreements with new partners stands among the best responses to US tariffs, growing protectionism and trade tensions with China,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The current EU reliance on China for some critical raw materials could be broken by tapping into Mercosur’s deposits, Demarais said.

Opposition to the deal was led by France and Poland, with riled-up farmers flooding streets and blocking roads with tractors from Brussels to Athens. Austria, Hungary and Ireland also voted against it.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on Thursday said in Shanghai during a state visit to China that “we don’t have confidence that [Irish farmers] wouldn’t be undercut by that,” Irish public broadcaster RTE reported.

Martin and French President Emmanuel Macron said that internal negotiations sparked by the political furor surrounding the deal had led to reforms that better protect European farmers.

However, such reforms were not enough to overcome domestic political pressure, they said.

Macron wrote on X on Thursday that three of France’s key demands were now being met: New safeguards to an “emergency brake” of imports if they are found to undercut EU prices by 5 percent or more; the mirroring of EU food safety regulations in the Mercosur bloc; and an increase of inspections of agrifood imports at EU ports and beyond.

Still, Macron said the potential economic gains of the Mercosur deal are limited and do not justify the risks it poses to EU agriculture.

His office said that the deal would only add 77 billion euros by 2040 — 0.5 percent of the EU’s GDP.

Green members of the European Parliament had vowed to take the commission to court over the deal.

They said the agreement would accelerate deforestation in the Amazon and weaken the EU’s climate targets.

Frances Verkamp, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, described the deal as “toxic.”

Brussels is “playing a game of imperial dominance in global trade with China and the US that wins nothing for workers or consumers — and even less for nature and climate,” Verkamp said.


content_text:
Humanoid robots pour coffee, fold laundry, but very slowly

At the CES trade show in Las Vegas for the past week, robots poured coffee, played table tennis, dealt poker hands and folded laundry — all within a few meters of one another.

Human-inspired robots, aptly called humanoids, have emerged as the tech industry’s big bet on what comes next. They stand erect, like people, although they cannot always walk. And they can move through the world as people do, use the same tools and perform similar tasks — but ultimately more efficiently. Or at least that is the goal.

Companies are pitching the latest bots as home helpers and companions, but there is a long way to go on that front. Unleashing these machines in the controlled environment of a factory is hard enough; navigating the idiosyncrasies of the family home is another matter entirely. Humanoids will have to get a lot better and cheaper first.

An LG CLOiD robot stands on stage during an LG Electronics news conference at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Monday. Photo: Reuters

When LG Electronics Inc’s new robot, CLOiD, rolled onto the CES stage earlier this week, the real surprise was not its human form — it was that the company attempted a live demo at all. Humanoids are often kept tucked away in warehouses, with companies offering little proof that they work outside of closely managed experiments. Those that do attempt public presentations often find the risk outweighs the reward.

However, CLOiD — which stands at about 1.5m tall and has a digital display for eyes — trundled across the stage on wheels and waved to conference attendees with its two hands. It then slowly loaded a single piece of clothing into a washing machine — almost painfully slowly.

“LG’s AI home envisions a seamlessly connected flow between devices, spaces and human behavior, ultimately achieving our goal of a zero-labor home that saves both time and comfort,” LG executive Brandt Varner said during a press event on Monday, pitching a vision of domestic automation so seamless that CLOiD might one day toast a croissant for you before you head out to work.

The concept robot, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and vision-based technology to perform household tasks like laundry, is part of LG’s broader push into what it calls “ambient care” — the promise of machines quietly helping daily life flow more smoothly.

It is a bold attempt to reshape how robotics fit into the home, not necessarily through spectacle, but through mundane, repetitive chores.

LG was not the only player promising a future with less laundry: It was joined by others, including SwitchBot’s Onero H1, another task-focused robot on wheels.

For years, fine motor control, particularly involving thumbs, has been a major obstacle.

However, recent advances are making humanoids more nimble, allowing them to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

Humanoid robots were among the biggest draws this year at CES, which ended on Friday. The Consumer Technology Association, which organizes the annual show, dedicated an exhibition hall to robotics, reflecting how “physical AI” has become the tech industry’s next big phase. Beyond humanoids, many robotics on display were designed for business settings, including manufacturing, logistics and food service. Companies such as Artly Coffee and VenHub Global showcased AI-powered robotic cafes and convenience stores.

However, it was impossible to ignore the life-size humanoids. Nylo, a machine built by IntBot, greeted attendees and answered questions without human assistance. The company lured reporters and attendees to its booth with the promise of “real-world proof, not just a demo” in a press release.

Bigger companies also demonstrated their prowess in robotics. Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc used its CES booth to make the case that its processors and software form the backbone of physical AI, and are capable of powering household robots and full-size humanoids.

Boston Dynamics and majority-owner Hyundai Motor Co announced that testing is under way for a next-generation version of the humanoid Atlas robot used at the automaker’s factory in Ellabell, Georgia.

Boston Dynamics is already considered a leader in advanced robotics, thanks to the success of its robotic dog Spot and a mobile robotic arm known as Stretch for restocking warehouses.

Money has been flooding into robotics, but significant challenges remain before humanoids are deemed sufficiently safe, mobile and cheap to be commercially viable.

Some companies have moved away from legged robots, which can be unstable, in favor of bots on wheels and other designs.

Home environments can be difficult for robots to navigate because they are unpredictable and often cluttered. And although bots loading washing machines might stun on stage, it is hard to justify paying tens of thousands of dollars to save a few minutes on laundry day.

More compelling uses might present themselves in settings such as hospitals, where robots could handle repetitive laundry work at scale.

Robots must also move beyond step-by-step instructions — “the boxes need to be in the van” — and figure out what to do themselves, said Bill Ray, chief of research at market firm Gartner.

For now, the near future will likely be dominated by robots built for specific jobs, like mowing the lawn and yes, doing laundry, rather than humanoids trying to do everything at once.

For all these reasons, deployment will accelerate more quickly in factories, where robots are often separated from their human colleagues, but it will likely be years before they are commonplace in ordinary homes.

“We’ve been saying for the last few years that the most practical application for a humanoid robot was to artificially inflate your share price,” Ray said. “They look great walking on stage, but are entirely impractical in use.”


title: EDITORIAL: Being experts amid cyberthreats

content_text:
Cyberattacks originating in China that targeted Taiwan’s critical energy infrastructure increased 10-fold last year, the National Security Bureau said on Sunday last week, underscoring the growing cyberthreat facing the nation’s essential services.

China’s cyberforces attempted an average of 2.63 million intrusions per day against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, with forays into the energy sector rising 1,000 percent from 2024, and those targeting emergency rescue services and hospitals up 54 percent, the bureau said in a report.

It identified four primary tactics: exploitation of hardware and software vulnerabilities, distributed denial-of-service attacks, social engineering and supply chain infiltration. Chinese hackers have exploited weaknesses in information and communications technology equipment produced by international suppliers or incorporated through government procurement joint supply contracts, vulnerabilities that often remain undetected until systems are fully deployed.

Social engineering remains a particularly effective tactic. Hackers frequently pose as business contacts or trusted partners, sending phishing e-mails designed to trick targets into clicking malicious links or opening infected attachments. More sophisticated operations involve coercing or recruiting people with legitimate system access by exploiting financial vulnerabilities or personal secrets.

To counter the threats, the bureau said that it has held information security dialogues and technical conferences with counterparts in more than 30 countries, while continuing to work closely with international partners to improve threat intelligence sharing and early warning capabilities.

Given what is known about the methods, many attacks could be mitigated through relatively straightforward defense measures. Mandatory cybersecurity training would help employees recognize social engineering attempts, while confidential reporting mechanisms can allow those facing coercion to seek help without fear of reprisal. Risk can also be reduced through greater compartmentalization of systems and data, limiting access privileges so that breaches have minimal effect.

Addressing hardware and software vulnerabilities is more challenging. Facilities designated as part of Taiwan’s critical infrastructure should be required to register their hardware and information systems with the National Institute of Cyber Security, which would enable authorities to track security updates and issue warnings when equipment must be patched, isolated or removed.

Questions are often asked about why hospitals and clinics need to be connected to the Internet given the cyberrisks involved. However, modern healthcare depends on digital connectivity. Medical imaging is frequently sent to offsite specialists for diagnosis and patients commonly receive care across multiple facilities that must share records in real time. Disconnecting hospitals from the Internet would delay treatment and increase the risk of medical errors.

Moreover, keeping hospitals offline would not guarantee security. Modern medical equipment requires regular software updates and can be compromised regardless of how updates are delivered. Many diagnostic systems rely on artificial intelligence, which is typically processed offsite, while telemedicine has become essential for patients in remote or underserved areas. Hospitals also depend on online systems for ordering medicines and supplies, managing blood banks and organ transplant logistics, and handling billing, insurance and regulatory compliance.

Despite the constraints, healthcare institutions could significantly reduce risk through network segmentation, separating clinical devices from administrative and Internet-facing systems. Strict access controls and zero-trust architecture — under which no device or user is automatically trusted — can improve defenses, alongside limiting Internet access, whitelisting vendor connections and implementing one-way data flows where feasible.

Taiwan faces an unusually high volume of cyberattacks compared with other developed economies, but it provides an opportunity to properly test defensive technologies and train people to be aware of the risks. The government should deepen international cooperation by inviting foreign experts to study Chinese cyberoperations firsthand and jointly develop countermeasures.

While cyberthreats continue to escalate, defensive technologies are advancing in parallel and public awareness of malicious activity is improving. Taiwan’s precarious geopolitical position makes it a frequent target, but it also presents a unique opportunity to be a global leader in cybersecurity. To do so, the government must continue investing in workforce training, supply chain security and international collaboration to safeguard the systems that underpin modern society.


content_text:
In 1979, US band Sister Sledge sang We Are Family.

Whether Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is a fan of the four-sister group of the late disco era is unknown, but he echoed that sentiment in a New Year’s speech last week, extolling the concept of the state as a benevolent, loving and kind large family made of up of striving and dedicated smaller families.

We Are Family is a much-loved wedding floor-filler, but it is not exactly new. Similarly, the political concept of state as a family made up of families is not exactly groundbreaking — the family as a stabilizing influence on the state is a large part of Confucianism.

“When every small family is warm and thriving, China as the big family will prosper,” Xi said.

After outlining some big family achievements — such as the Tianwen-2 mission starting a new era of space exploration, new aircraft carriers, and Chinese progress in artificial intelligence and chip development — he turned to how the big family helps the small, such as in education, employment for young people and medical care for elderly people.

He described a symbiotic relationship between families in China doing well and the large, benevolent family of big government also doing well.

Xi has also included the concept of happiness in many of his recent speeches, saying that happiness of the people should be a top priority of the state. Xi appears to be offering a Jeffersonian life and happiness, but without liberty.

What about the happiness — and liberty — of the people across the Taiwan Strait? Are they in the family to which Xi is referring?

Presumably they are, as he regards Taiwan as a “province of China.”

That would make Taiwanese the black sheep, the prodigal sons and daughters ready to be welcomed back. The father threatens punishment — as evidenced by military exercises close to Taiwan — but is willing to stretch a welcoming hand on their return, along with a list of new house rules.

Since my arrival in Taiwan 25 years ago, I have witnessed the rise of a Taiwanese identity. Starting in the south of Taiwan around the turn of the millennium with the first Democratic Progressive Party administration, the identity is founded on an eclectic mix of geography, democracy and progressiveness. “I am Taiwanese” is proudly declared by most junior-high school students today. Is this just to be contrary to someone from China who says “I am Chinese”?

Has Taiwanese identity really solved the Chinese family conundrum?

Are the only Chinese those now living in China?

Most Taiwanese are ethnically Han Chinese and are literate in Mandarin in traditional characters (as opposed to the lobotomized simplified script across the Strait). So, are they not also Chinese?

Entering this debate in October last year was Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), saying: “Let Taiwanese people proudly say I am Chinese.”

This, of course, started a lively debate in Taiwan. It was perhaps also not unnoticed across the Taiwan Strait. If Taiwanese are Chinese, then their small, striving families could be easily welcomed back into the big family.

Whether they would wish this to happen is another question.

The other question to consider in the “good neighbor” realpolitik created by what happened to deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro might be: Is anyone going to ask them at all?

John Robert Jamieson, an economics graduate of Cambridge University, has been a teacher in Taiwan for 25 years. He lives in Miaoli City.

title: Xi Jinping says ‘We Are Family’

people: 鄭麗文 習近平


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Taiwan has been living on borrowed time according to outside predictions for longer than most countries have existed. Every decade brings new analysis about why this will be the one where Taiwan’s separate status finally ends, where the military imbalance becomes too great to counter, where acceptance of unification becomes the only rational choice.

The analysts change, the specific arguments evolve, but the underlying certainty remains constant: Taiwan’s existence is temporary and everyone should start preparing for its inevitable end.

These predictions have been wrong for 70 years, but that does not stop them from appearing with fresh certainty.

What they usually miss is that Taiwan’s resilience comes from historical memory about what happens when you accept someone else’s version of your inevitable future.

The latest version arrived in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) New Year’s address, in which he declared Taiwan’s unification “unstoppable,” and invoked bonds of blood and kinship between the people of China and Taiwan.

The speech came right after China launched military drills called “Justice Mission 2025,” two days of exercises simulating blockades around Taiwan and training to prevent foreign forces access to the area.

The message was clear: Resistance is pointless, your separate existence is temporary and accepting unification is the only rational response to overwhelming power. It is the same argument colonial powers and authoritarian regimes have always made and it misses the same thing they all missed about how people actually respond to threats.

Taiwan spent 50 years under Japanese colonial rule after the Qing Dynasty ceded it in 1895. Then came decades under the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) authoritarian control, including the 228 Incident in 1947, when government troops massacred thousands of civilians who were protesting corruption.

The period known as the White Terror came next, 38 years of martial law during which more than 100,000 people were imprisoned and more than 1,000 executed for political thoughts the government deemed dangerous.

These are not just dates in Taiwan’s history. They are lived experiences that shaped how an entire society understands what authoritarian rule actually means when it arrives claiming legitimacy through shared culture or historical destiny.

The Japanese colonial period taught Taiwan what it means when a foreign power asserts that its control is permanent and beneficial.

The White Terror taught them what happens when a government with shared ethnic heritage decides certain opinions justify imprisonment or execution. Both regimes were confident about Taiwan’s destiny. Both claimed resistance was pointless. Both regimes lost power — the Japanese after defeat in World War II and the KMT through democratization — not because their departure was inevitable, but because Taiwanese refused to accept what those in power claimed was predetermined.

When Xi invokes blood and kinship as justification for unification, Taiwanese already know what those appeals are worth. Shared ancestry did not prevent the KMT from killing people in the night for 38 years. Shared cultural claims did not make Japanese assimilation policies less brutal. The pattern is clear: Authoritarian governments always have sophisticated reasons for their control being natural and right, and those reasons never prevent them from brutalizing the people they claimed kinship with.

The remarkable thing is how that historical trauma shaped Taiwan’s response to current threats. You would expect a society that experienced that much violence and oppression to either submit more easily or fracture under pressure. Instead, Taiwan’s identity has gotten stronger precisely because of China’s increasing aggression.

Research tracking public opinion from 2018 to 2020 found that as Beijing expanded military threats and showed what it was doing in Hong Kong, Taiwanese shifted significantly toward identifying as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Now, 67 percent see themselves as primarily Taiwanese. Only 3 percent identify as primarily Chinese. Support for unification “as soon as possible” dropped to 0.7 percent, which is essentially nobody.

Beijing’s approach seems to assume that enough military pressure would eventually convince Taiwanese that resistance is pointless, that the cost of defiance would outweigh the value of autonomy.

This badly misreads how historical memory functions in a democratic society.

Each military drill does not make unification seem more inevitable, but rather confirms why Taiwan spent decades fighting for the right to determine its own future.

There is psychological research showing that collective trauma processed socially rather than individually can build resilience instead of breaking people. Taiwan is living proof of that. There is no panic about China’s military drills and no denial that the threat exists. The response is closer to recognition, the kind that comes from having seen threats before and survived them.

That is the lesson Taiwan carries. When China frames unification as unstoppable, Taiwanese remember every other power that made similar claims.

Taiwan has already survived what China is threatening, in different forms and under different names.

The colonization, the massacres, the decades of authoritarian rule, all of it was supposed to be permanent and inevitable, too.

The fact that Taiwan is still here, and has in recent decades become a democratic society with its own identity, proves that inevitability is just another word powerful countries use when they want something and cannot get it through persuasion. Taiwan learned that lesson the hard way, and it is not a lesson you forget.

Historical memory like that matters more than military exercises.

Noa Wynn is a researcher and journalist focusing on international security, social dynamics and the forces shaping modern societies. He has reported on political and social issues across multiple regions, with a particular interest in how global pressures shape local realities.

title: China’s ‘inevitable’ not accepted


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The issue of societal resilience has become increasingly prevalent in the past few years, particularly as international political and economic conditions have been changing at a rapid pace. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was a wake-up call that, in today’s highly developed civilization, the threat posed by large-scale infectious diseases is perhaps greater than ever before.

The establishment of societal resilience relies on the government’s capacity for mobilization — especially its ability to grasp and integrate resources from all sectors of society — to allow that mobilization and coordination to be carried out effectively. For the public, it depends on the degree of cooperation with the mobilization. The government and civilians are indispensable parts of the response, as only through effective public-private collaboration can the goal of societal resilience be achieved.

The pandemic was a major test of societal resilience for all nations. As the president of the Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists’ Associations, I was deeply grateful for the trust that the government and all sectors of society placed in pharmacists, entrusting them with the critical responsibility of distributing key supplies such as masks and rapid test kits. I am even more thankful for the collective commitment of pharmacists across the nation, who together demonstrated their professionalism and performed brilliantly to meet the challenges posed by COVID-19.

However, beyond mutual trust, resilience and the collective cooperation of Taiwanese, the success was also informed by the painful lessons learned from the SARS outbreak of 2003. The hard-won experience of that successful mobilization should not be forgotten. Rather, it should be studied carefully and the lessons institutionalized to facilitate an effective response when new challenges arise.

Last year, eastern Taiwan was hit by multiple natural disasters, which at times disrupted communications with the outside world and hindered the flow of supplies. For many local residents — particularly elderly people and those with limited mobility due to chronic illnesses — there was serious risks, including interruptions to access to medication. To address such situations, a system must be designed to ensure smooth supply and access to medicine regardless of the situation. A system could be designed to authorize local pharmacists to provide emergency wound care and pharmaceutical services for people with stable chronic conditions or minor injuries in specific emergency situations. Local pharmacies, which are deeply embedded in people’s daily lives, could also serve as emergency coordination centers during extraordinary circumstances.

At the end of 2024, I proposed policies such as encouraging pharmacists to obtain emergency medical technician certification and relaxing regulations so that trained pharmacists could be classified as emergency medical responders under the Emergency Medical Services Act (緊急醫療救護法).

It should be reiterated that pharmacists are not only indispensable personnel for a healthy Taiwan, but also the guardians of a resilient nation, enabling medical supplies to reach the public regardless of the situation.

Huang Jin-shun is president of the Federation of Taiwan Pharmacists’ Associations.

Translated by Kyra Gustavsen

title: Pharmacy workers key to societal resilience


title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

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We are used to hearing that whenever something happens, it means Taiwan is about to fall to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot change the color of his socks without China experts claiming it means an invasion is imminent. So, it is no surprise that what happened in Venezuela over the weekend triggered the knee-jerk reaction of saying that Taiwan is next.That is not an opinion on whether US President Donald Trump was right to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the way he did or if it is good for Venezuela and the world. There are other, more qualified

By JulienOeuillet 曾樂昂Richard D. Fisher, Jr. On Taiwan: 2026: The Year To Lose Our Fear Of China

This should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting.For 2025, stoking regional and global fear was a major goal for the CCP and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA), following on Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Little Red Book admonition, “We must be ruthless to our enemies; we must overpower and annihilate them.”But on Dec. 17, 2025, the Trump Administration demonstrated direct defiance of CCP terror with its record US$11.1 billion arms

The immediate response in Taiwan to the extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the US over the weekend was to say that it was an example of violence by a major power against a smaller nation and that, as such, it gave Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) carte blanche to invade Taiwan. That assessment is vastly oversimplistic and, on more sober reflection, likely incorrect.Generally speaking, there are three basic interpretations from commentators in Taiwan.The first is that the US is no longer interested in what is happening beyond its own backyard, and no longer preoccupied with regions in other


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The end of China’s one-child policy, 10 years later

Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize.

It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the grain shortages they wrongly believed loomed. It was not until the following year, after missile scientist Song Jian (宋健) and economist Tian Xueyuan (田雪原) warned that China’s population was on track to reach 4.26 billion by 2080, that they decided to implement it.

Given the skepticism of senior leaders toward the proposal, it was announced and introduced not through legislation, but through an “open letter.” A two-child policy was piloted in multiple regions starting in 1985.

After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Song, who had by then been promoted to State Councilor, convinced China’s newly appointed president, Jiang Zemin (江澤民), to strengthen the one-child policy. Within two years, the fertility rate fell below replacement level (2.1 births per woman). Far from ending the policy, Peng, in her capacity as head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, expanded the “one-vote veto” system, which directly tied officials’ career prospects to family-planning outcomes.

This motivated authorities throughout China to embrace increasingly brutal tactics. When Shandong province carried out its ruthless “Hundred Childless Days” campaign in 1991, rounding up women and subjecting them to forced abortions or induced labor, Peng praised its efforts and urged others to emulate them. During her tenure (1988-98), 110 million women received intrauterine devices, 41 million were sterilized and 110 million underwent abortions — often coerced. Overall fertility dropped from 2.3 births per woman in 1990 to 1.22 in 2000, at which point there were only 40 percent as many six-year-olds as ten-year-olds in Shandong province.

Peng continued to receive promotions. In 1998, she became vice chairperson of the National People’s Congress and Chair of the All-China Women’s Federation, whose local cadres assisted with family-planning enforcement. In 2001, together with Jiang Zhenghua (蔣正華), another vice chairperson of the National People’s Congress, she persuaded president Jiang to enact the Family Planning Law in 2001, ending the “illegal” status of the policy. (Before 2001, not only the one-child policy but the entire family-planning policy, including the two-child and three-child policies of the 1970s, were “illegal.”)

Crucially, Peng also served as president of the China Population Association from 1994 to 2007 and honorary president from 2007 to 2018 — a position that enabled her to ensure that China’s demographic research was ideologically correct, rather than factually accurate. For example, though the 2000 census showed a fertility rate of only 1.22, the figure was revised upward to 1.8. After all, as Yu Xuejun (於學軍), the spokesman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission, pointed out in 2007, a fertility rate of 1.2 would render family-planning policies unnecessary.

When observers credit Peng as a reformer, they typically refer to the proposal on loosening the one-child policy that she submitted in 2004 on behalf of official demographers. However, the proposal called for the gradual rollout of a two-child policy, not an accelerated rollback of family-planning rules. It defended this position with dubious data: the authors added more than 26 million people to the population determined by the 2000 census, revised the fertility rate upward (from 1.2 to 1.6) and warned that a universal two-child policy would push China’s population beyond the “alert line” (1.6 billion).

This assessment contrasted sharply with mine. In 2000-07, I published a series of articles, reports and a book predicting that even if family-planning controls were abolished, fertility would not reach the replacement level before beginning to fall again, reaching 1.47 births per woman in 2023. China’s population, moreover, would peak below 1.4 billion. Far from heeding my warnings, decision-makers banned my book.

Predictably, fertility rates continued to decline and officials continued to revise them upward. For example, the rate of 1.18 births per woman shown by the 2010 census was later revised to 1.63. Meanwhile, senior family-planning officials including Yu and Zhai Zhenwu (翟振武) recommended that the politburo “earnestly maintain a low birth rate.”

The projections proved prescient, so in 2012, the government invited me to publish a 50,000-word report that would be circulated only among China’s top leaders. Again, my estimates clashed with the inflated forecasts of official demographers, 17 of whom inexplicably said that allowing two births per household nationwide would cause the fertility rate to surge beyond 4.4 births per woman. The government went with their assessment, implementing the two-child policy selectively in 2014.

Once that policy, too, proved a failure, a publisher under the Chinese State Council scheduled to publish a new edition of my book and a “Special Forum on Population Policy,” focusing on my findings, was planned. However, the National Health and Family Planning Commission was not having it and sent an official letter to block the book’s release. It was only in 2016 — when official forecasts predicted that fertility would stabilize at 1.8 births per woman through 2030 before the population began to decline — that the two-child policy was implemented across the country.

While Peng did engage in some self-reflection in her later years, even inviting me to meet with her (I declined), the damage was done. Officials now acknowledge that the population began shrinking in 2022 and the fertility rate last year probably amounted to just 0.9 births per woman. Demographic collapse is a distinct possibility.

This saga exemplifies a fatal flaw in Chinese governance: the failure of policies backed by high-level officials can be obscured for far too long, not least through wrong or manipulated data. It stands in stark contrast to the experience of democratic India, where then-prime minister Indira Gandhi imposed coercive family-planning measures in 1975, only to be voted out — with the policy quickly abolished — two years later.

Yi Fuxian (易富賢), a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spearheaded the movement against China’s one-child policy. His book Big Country With an Empty Nest, initially banned, ranks first in China Publishing Today’s 100 Best Books of 2013 in China.

Copyright: Project Syndicate


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The Greenland alarm is sounding. Europe needs to listen

Denmark was worried about US intentions toward Greenland even before US President Donald Trump sent his troops and bombers into Venezuela last week, but now the Danes are truly alarmed — and so they should be. Even if its vast island territory is not the next item on Trump’s acquisition list (which surely features Colombia), he seems determined to take it before leaving office.

The reasons for Denmark’s concern go beyond even Trump’s repeated demands to hand the island over, made all the more real just before Christmas by the appointment of Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as his special envoy for making it happen. The message was not subtle: Louisiana gave its name to a vast US purchase of territory from France in 1803, and Landry stated clearly that he had volunteered “to make Greenland part of the US.”

The problem for Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is the same as for Europe writ large: They have few cards to play in the world of might-makes-right that Trump is ushering in. They built their entire economic and security postures around the rules and alliance-based order that the US created for its friends after World War II. They are too dependent on US arms to resist as he tears it down, with a strong assist from the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Frederiksen has tried hard to push back against Trump’s latest claims to Greenland, but the language she used is telling. She pointed out that the US has no right under international law to seize Danish territory, that the two nations are close allies, that Trump does not need to own the island to ensure US security, and that he would be acting against the democratic will of the autonomous Danish territory’s roughly 57,000 people if he tried. This is all true. It also entirely ignores what Trump’s weekend action in Venezuela so clearly crystallized — he does not care about any of those things.

This is not to rule out the possibility that Trump’s actions in removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would not work out well for that country — the bar the dictator had set for improvement was criminally low. That would hardly be true of Greenland. In fact, it might be more useful to think of its case in terms of Crimea rather than Venezuela.

Crimea is the peninsula Putin seized from Ukraine in 2014, using every method short of a declared war and citing every possible reason for doing so but the truest. Those motivations were to project Russian power in a region that Moscow sees as its rightful sphere of influence, if not imperial possession, and to control resources including the oil and gas fields under Crimea’s territorial waters.

Trump has made similarly misleading claims about his aims, saying he acted in Venezuela because of Maduro’s involvement in trafficking drugs to the US (even though Venezuela’s a small player in that trade at best), and that he needs to own Greenland for reasons of national security. If the latter were true, he would already have increased the number of US troops in Greenland from the skeleton crew of 150 to 200; during the Cold War, there were as many as 6,000 US soldiers there. Denmark has said it is open to negotiations to accommodate any proposed increase.

US Air Force staff and other personnel operate at the Pituffik Space Base on Greenland’s northwestern coast under a 1951 treaty that is contingent on both countries remaining allies within the NATO. Trump does not care about alliances and security is not his primary goal in Greenland. As in Venezuela, and echoing Putin in Crimea, what he cares about is access to resources and reestablishing an exclusive sphere of influence in the western hemisphere.

Greenland has a landmass three times the size of Texas under which there are thought to be large quantities of untapped, if hard to access, rare earths, among other minerals that Trump wants. This vast island has oil and gas beneath its undisputed territorial waters, and more within the near-Venezuela-size territorial claim to the Arctic — including the North Pole — that Denmark has filed at the UN’s Commission on the Limit of the Continental Shelf. The Danish application conflicts to varying degrees with competing ones from Canada, Norway, Russia and the US.

For a possible timeline to US action on Greenland, assume it might come before November’s midterm elections to Congress. As for the method, Trump might not even know that yet, just as sending special forces to extract Maduro was not his first choice for getting what he wanted there (he first tried a negotiated exit for the Venezuelan dictator). What seems more likely for Greenland is some combination of the hybrid use of force, money, political pressure and disinformation Putin used to seize Crimea with hardly a shot fired.

The White House could pay as much as US$1 million to each of the island’s inhabitants to first vote for independence and then join the US, which would cost about the same as the US State Department’s annual budget. It is very unlikely to need to go to that expense. Denmark lacks the means to compete either militarily or economically with the US — which Frederiksen knows. Copenhagen is, like the rest of Europe, exposed to US retaliation on trade, support for Ukraine and its own security more broadly, making a showdown with Washington unaffordable.

What is emerging ever more clearly is that Europe is vulnerable because it remains dependent on the old US-led world order in ways that much of the rest of the world does not; lopsided trade deals, manipulations over Ukraine and now Trump’s threats to take Greenland are simply test cases that prove the point. At the same time, we do not yet have a replacement world “order,” just the grisly death throes of the last one. It seems clear that we are heading back to some form of 19th century great power competition, but without — as yet — any mechanism similar to the post-Napoleonic Concert of Europe to limit the rivalry and propensity to war that this would entail.

There are countless questions for such an arrangement to resolve. How much of Europe, for example, should be in Russia’s sphere of control? Where in the Pacific or Himalayas should China’s sphere end and US’ and India’s begin? What of Taiwan and its vital chip industry? And what would be the fallout in the Western Balkans, where in the 1990s the US and Europe prevented Serbia, the dominant regional power, from changing borders with its neighbors by force of arms and ethnic cleansing? Would the EU — the rule-based international order par excellence — be able to rearm and remain sufficiently unified to survive in a recognizable form?

None of these questions are fully answerable for the time being, because the Ukraine war is ongoing and Trump’s attempt to impose a new “Donroe Doctrine” in the US’ backyard does not yet amount to a new international order. All of those issues and more are very much in play.

Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. 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.


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AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE: Sabalenka aims to follow up with a third Australian Open win, while Taiwanese Joanna Garland claimed a WTA 125 title in Canberra

Aryna Sabalenka beat Karolina Muchova in straight sets to reach her third Brisbane International final in a row yesterday, a week ahead of the Australian Open.

Sabalenka looked in great touch against the tricky Czech, who had won their last three meetings and went into the match as one of the few players with a winning record over the world No. 1.

However, Sabalenka showed her class and power as she broke Muchova once in each set to take the semi-final 6-3, 6-4 in 89 minutes to face Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the final.

Tennis players Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, center, left, and Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan, center, right, hold their trophy after winning the women’s doubles final at the Brisbane International tennis tournament yesterday. Photo: AFP

“I struggled against her a couple of times [in the past],” Sabalenka, the defending champion, said of Muchova.

“I’m happy that today I was focused from the beginning and I was able to show such great tennis and put her under so much pressure and get the win in straight sets,” she said. “That’s just super great.”

The 27-year-old Belarusian said she could feel her level getting better with every match in Brisbane, where she is yet to drop a set.

She said that with seven of the world’s top 10 having entered, it was ideal preparation for the Australian Open, which begins in Melbourne on Sunday next week.

Sabalenka is aiming to win a third Australian Open in four years.

“I definitely feel that compared to the first match here, I’m playing better and better,” she said.

“That’s really important heading to Melbourne, to build that level, and to play some great matches against great opponents,” she said. “So I’m super happy with the performance so far and cannot wait to play my final match here.”

Kostyuk, who entered the week ranked 26th in the world, swept past world No. 6 Jessica Pegula 6-0, 6-3 in just 55 minutes in a stunning display of power and aggression.

Kostyuk’s demolition of the American made it three wins over top 10 players in succession.

She beat world number three Amanda Anisimova in the third round and ninth-ranked Mirra Andreeva in the quarter-finals.

“I think it was one of those days today when everything you touch turns into gold,” Kostyuk said. “Personally, I didn’t have many matches like this in my career, especially against top-10 players, so it’s a great bonus to have such a match because it’s not easy conditions in Brisbane. It’s very hot, very humid.”

Kostyuk has never beaten Sabalenka in four previous meetings, but said the pressure was all on her opponent.

“The pressure is not on me — I want to go out there and put on a good show for the crowd,” she said. “I really have nothing to lose.”

Meanwhile, Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko cruised to an easy finish to capture the Brisbane International women’s doubles title yesterday.

The top-seeded pair dominated the final, defeating Ellen Perez of Australia and Cristina Bucsa of Spain in straight sets.

In the first set, Hsieh and Ostapenko easily took control, breaking early to take a 3-0 lead and saving three break points before closing it 6-2.

Carrying their momentum into the second set, they raced to a 4-0 lead and sealed the match 6-1.

The victory at the Brisbane tournament also marked the first time Hsieh won a title alongside Ostapenko and gave the 40-year-old added confidence ahead of the Australian Open.

Before that, Hsieh had won a total of 36 women’s doubles titles on the WTA Tour with nine different partners, enjoying her most success with China’s Peng Shuai with 12 titles, and Barbora Strycova with 10.

Ostapenko became the 10th person to lift a WTA trophy with Hsieh, further cementing the latter’s reputation as a versatile doubles specialist.

Elsewhere in Australia, Taiwanese Joanna Garland claimed the singles title at the WTA Workday Canberra International, defeating Uzbekistan’s Polina Kudermetova, the No. 3 seed, 6-4, 6-2 in straight sets yesterday.

The tournament is part of the WTA 125 series.

In a match that lasted 1 hour, 24 minutes, 24-year-old Garland, the world no. 129 and Taiwan’s highest-ranked female singles player, maintained an attacking stance and broke serve in the pivotal seventh game to claim the opening set.

She dominated the next game, scoring four consecutive points. Although her opponent tried to fight back, Garland secured the victory at the Canberra Tennis Centre.

After six attempts since 2012, Garland became the first Taiwanese woman to win a WTA 125 singles title.

She is also the fourth Taiwanese player to reach a WTA 125 singles final after Kelly Chang, Latisha Chan and Hsieh Su-wei.

Garland won the Taiwan national U18 tennis championship in 2016 and began competing on the professional circuit in 2019.

She closed out 2024 with a 29-match winning streak on the ITF Circuit, including five consecutive titles.

Garland carried that momentum into last year, adding three more ITF singles crowns and reaching a career-high of No. 120 in the world on Nov. 3 last year, according to the WTA.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese tennis veteran Hsieh Su-wei and her Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko cruised to an easy finish to capture the Brisbane International women’s doubles title yesterday.

The top-seeded pair dominated the final, defeating Ellen Perez of Australia and Cristina Bucsa of Spain in straight sets.

In the first set, Hsieh and Ostapenko easily took control, breaking early to take a 3-0 lead and saving three break points before closing it 6-2.

Carrying their momentum into the second set, they raced to a 4-0 lead and sealed the match 6-1.

The victory at the Brisbane tournament also marked the first time Hsieh won a title alongside Ostapenko and gave the 40-year-old added confidence ahead of the Australian Open.

Before that, Hsieh had won a total of 36 women’s doubles titles on the WTA Tour with nine different partners, enjoying her most success with China’s Peng Shuai with 12 titles, and Barbora Strycova with 10.

Ostapenko became the 10th person to lift a WTA trophy with Hsieh, further cementing the latter’s reputation as a versatile doubles specialist.

title: Sabalenka reaches third Brisbane final


title: Thunder rally to edge Grizzlies

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Jalen Williams scored 26 points and Kenrich Williams added 21 as NBA champions the Oklahoma City Thunder erased a 21-point third-quarter deficit to edge the Memphis Grizzlies 117-116 on Friday.

Kenrich Williams delivered a go-ahead three-pointer with 1 minute, 7 seconds remaining and Alex Caruso blocked a last-gasp attempt by Grizzlies guard Cedric Coward in the final second as the Thunder triumphed despite the absence of reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and center Chet Holmgren.

Gilgeous-Alexander was sidelined by a sprained ankle, while Holmgren was nursing sore shins, both joining Isaiah Hartenstein and Jaylin Williams on OKC’s injured list.

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Jalen Williams, left, shoots as Memphis Grizzlies center Jock Landale defends during their NBA game in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday. Photo: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

“Great resilience by the team,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “There were just so many moments of that game where we were trying to break through and something would happen that put the wind in our face again.”

“And yet the team just kept competing,” Daigneault added after the Thunder improved their league-best record to 32-7.

Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 23 points and grabbed seven rebounds to lead Memphis, who had the Thunder on the ropes much of the night despite the continued absence of Ja Morant and any uncertainty sparked by the trade rumors swirling around their star guard.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo dunks for the basket against the Los Angeles Lakers during their NBA game in Los Angeles on Friday. Photo: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Morant missed his fourth straight game with a calf injury amid reports the Grizzlies would consider trade offers for him.

Coach Tuomas Iisalo declined to comment on the reports before the contest, saying the team was fully focused on the clash with the reigning champions.

Iisalo said the Grizzlies just did not maintain their level in the second half.

“They’re a very experienced team,” he said. “They’ve been in a lot of pressure situations and they also know how to turn those to their advantage and we are learning that.”

The Milwaukee Bucks came through in the clutch for a 105-101 victory over the Lakers in Los Angeles.

Kevin Porter Jr. scored 22 points, including four free-throws in the final 16.2 seconds.

Giannis Antetokounmpo added 21 points, and in the waning seconds came up with a big block on LeBron James and a crucial steal of a James pass to help seal the win.

James scored 26 points to lead the Lakers and Luka Doncic added 24 before fouling out with 16.2 seconds remaining, when his foul on Porter’s three-point attempt sent Porter to the line, where he made two of three to put the Bucks up 103-101.

After Antetokounmpo poked the ball away from James, Porter added two more free-throws for insurance.

In Portland, Oregon, the Trail Blazers spoiled a milestone night for Houston star Kevin Durant with a 111-105 victory over the Rockets.

Durant passed Wilt Chamberlain for seventh on the NBA’s all-time scoring list when he drilled a three-pointer in the third quarter. Durant went into the game needing 15 points to eclipse Chamberlain’s 31,419 points and finished with a game-high 30.

In a game that featured 24 lead changes the Rockets could not hang onto the 13-point lead they took into the final quarter.

Golden State star Stephen Curry scored 27 points and handed out 10 of the Warriors’ 39 assists in a dominant 137-103 home victory over Sacramento.

In Boston, the Celtics led by as many as 20 points on the way to a 125-117 victory over the Toronto Raptors, who came into the contest on a three-game winning streak that had pulled them within one game of Boston for third place in the East.

Payton Pritchard scored 27 points to lead six Celtics players in double figures. Jaylen Brown added 25 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.


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Stan Wawrinka lost in three sets in grueling Sydney heat of more than 40°C, but Switzerland beat Belgium yesterday to reach their first United Cup final.

Switzerland won 2-1, with Belinda Bencic playing a starring role, and will face either holders the US or Poland in today’s decider.

The Olympic champion Bencic put Switzerland on their way in the semi-finals with a battling 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7/0) win over Elise Mertens in 2 hours, 37 minutes.

Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka returns against Belgium’s Zizou Bergs during their United Cup semi-final Sydney yesterday. Photo: EPA

“It feels like 170 kilos fell off my shoulders — I was so stressed, I really wanted to do well and today I felt so much pressure to not let my team down,” Bencic said.

Then it was over to the 40-year-old Wawrinka, a three-time Grand Slam champion who was on Friday handed a wildcard to the Australian Open starting on Sunday next week.

Wawrinka, playing his final year before retirement, fought back to force a deciding set against Zizou Bergs, but the Belgian ultimately won 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 6-3 in two-and-a-half hours in the searing heat.

That meant the semi-final went down to the mixed doubles, with Bencic and Jakub Paul defeating Bergs and Mertens in another three-set battle.

“The team spirit is amazing and it starts with the captain,” Bencic said, referring to Wawrinka. “He’s supporting all throughout my match and then he goes out to play his own match and then he’s back to support the doubles.”

“It starts with him, but then with all the energy from our bench it gives us such a spirit to win,” he said.

Poland and the US were battling for the last spot in the final at press time last night, with Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz beating Taylor Fritz 7-6(1) 7-6(2), but the US coming back with Coco Gauff defeating Iga Swiatek 6-4, 6-2.

Additional reporting by staff writer

title: Switzerland make United Cup final in baking Sydney heat


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The big guns entered the FA Cup on Friday and one of them was shot down immediately.

Championship club Wrexham AFC knocked out Premier League side Nottingham Forest FC 4-3 on penalties after a thrilling match ended 3-3 after 90 minutes and extra time.

Wrexham keeper Arthur Okonkwo was the hero, saving twice to take his side into the fourth round.

Wrexham AFC players react after goalkeeper Arthur Okonkwo, right, made a save to win the penalty shoot-out during their FA Cup match against Nottingham Forest FC in Wrexham, Wales, on Friday. Photo: AFP

The Welsh side co-owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney was 2-0 up at the break thanks to goals from Liberato Cacace and Ollie Rathbone.

Igor Jesus pulled one back with a header after 64 minutes only for Dominic Hyam to restore Wrexham’s two-goal lead with a diving header 10 minutes later.

Forest substitute Callum Hudson-Odoi scored in the 76th and 89th minutes to force the game into extra time, but when neither side could get a winner, it went to penalties.

James MacLean missed for Wrexham, but Okonkwo saved from Igor Jesus and Omari Hutchinson to send the home fans into raptures.

“The manager spoke to us before the game, told us about the history of the club and how we’re able to beat teams who are way above us,” a jubilant Okonkwo said. “It was amazing to win the game in the end. We just have to enjoy the moment.”

The FA Cup kicked off in August last year with 446 clubs dreaming of a place in the famous final at Wembley Stadium, but teams from the top two tiers enter only at this third round.

Friday’s win was another memorable chapter in the rise of the Welsh club that was bought in 2021 by Hollywood pair Reynolds and McElhenney.

The stars have overseen Wrexham’s rapid ascent and watched three consecutive promotions. It sits ninth in the Championship and Friday’s win was its fifth in a row in all competitions.

title: Wrexham shut down top-tier Forest’s FA Cup run


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New Eintracht Frankfurt striker Younes Ebnoutalib crowned a dream Bundesliga debut with a second-half goal in a rollercoaster 3-3 draw with Borussia Dortmund on Friday. Frankfurt-born Ebnoutalib only signed for his hometown club last week, completing a fairytale rise from the fourth-tier to the Bundesliga in the space of a year.

The 22-year-old has been billed as one of the most exciting talents in German football and he showed why in a thrilling game against Dortmund. Thrown into the starting eleven on his debut, Ebnoutalib smashed home an ice-cool finish midway through the second half before the drama continued with two goals in stoppage time.

“It’s like a dream, I’m still a bit speechless,” Ebnoutalib said. “It’s a really crazy feeling to score on debut. I’m grateful to the coach for giving me the chance to play from the beginning.”

Frankfurt forward Younes Ebnoutalib jumps to head the ball next to Dortmund defender Waldemar Anton during their Bundesliga soccer match in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on Friday. Photo: AFP

Frankfurt coach Dino Toppmoeller said that he had decided a day before the game to put Ebnoutalib in the starting line-up.

“I told him he should go and leave his heart on the pitch. This is something he has dreamed of his whole life,” he said.

Frankfurt have one of the leakiest defenses in the league this season, and it took Dortmund just 10 minutes to unlock it. After picking up a brilliant diagonal ball from Nico Schlotterbeck, right-back Julian Ryerson whipped a cross into the front post, where Maximilian Beier turned in a first-time finish.

Dortmund failed to press home their advantage, and let the hosts back into the game when Serhou Guirassy gave away a penalty with a careless foul on Robin Koch. Can Uzun slotted home the penalty for Frankfurt, ending a personal goal drought which stretched back to September last year.

Ebnoutalib headed a good chance wide just after the break as Frankfurt took control of the game in the second half. Yet the hosts were left stunned when a deflected Felix Nmecha shot trickled inside the post to restore Dortmund’s lead at 68 minutes.

Only minutes later, Ebnoutalib seized his moment. Breaking free of the back line, the 22-year-old picked up a through-ball from fellow debutant Arnaud Kaliumendo and smashed the ball past Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel. Dortmund hit the woodwork in stoppage time, before Mo Dahoud curled the ball into the top corner to put Frankfurt in front.

Yet hopes of a home win were dashed at the last minute as Dortmund’s Carney Chukwuemeka prodded home a late equalizer.

The draw leaves Frankfurt three points adrift of the UEFA Champions League spots in seventh overnight, while Dortmund are now eight points behind league leaders Bayern Munich in second. Bayern have the chance to pull further ahead when they host Wolfsburg today.

Two of yesterday’s Bundesliga fixtures were called off due to extreme winter weather in the north of the country.

St. Pauli’s game against RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim’s visit to Werder Bremen were both postponed after heavy snowfall had led to school closures and major interruptions to public transport in Hamburg and Bremen this week.

title: Ebnoutalib savors ‘dream’ debut win


content_text: Spanish rider Tosha Schareina competes with a Honda Crf 450 in Stage 6 of the 48th Dakar Rally, between Hail and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Friday. Schareina finished second in the bike stage, 1 minute, 14 seconds behind stage winner Ricky Brabec, and sits in fourth in the general bike ranking.

title: Just dune it


title: N Korea vows response to South drones

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DENIAL:  Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited

North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.”

Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang.

North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town.

Fragments of a drone lie on the ground in Muksan-ri, North Korea, in a picture released by the Korean Central News Agency yesterday. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement.

South Korea infiltrated another drone into North Korean airspace on Sept. 27 last year before it was forced to crash following electronic strikes by North Korea, the statement said, adding that authorities found the drone also contained videos of major objects in North Korea.

“We strongly denounce the hooligans’ serial outrageous encroachment upon our sovereignty and undisguised provocative acts against us,” it said. “The ROK military warmongers will be surely forced to pay a dear price for their unpardonable hysteria.”

The ROK is the abbreviation of the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.

The South Korean Ministry of National Defense said it did not operate drones on the dates cited by North Korea and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung ordered a thorough investigation of the claim.

Since taking office in June, Lee’s government has pushed hard to reopen talks with North Korea and reconcile, but Pyongyang has steadfastly rebuffed his overture.

Pyongyang has shunned talks with Seoul and Washington since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with US President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019 due to wrangling over international sanctions.

North Korea has since focused on building more powerful nuclear weapons and declared a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to terminate relations with South Korea.

Drone flights are a source of animosity between the two Koreas, with the rivals accusing each other of flying drones into their respective territories in recent years.

North Korea accused South Korea in October 2024 of flying drones over Pyongyang to drop propaganda leaflets three times.

South Korea’s military said it could not confirm whether the North’s claim was true.

Tensions rose sharply at the time, as North Korea threatened to respond with force, but neither side took any major action and tensions gradually subsided.

South Korea also has accused North Korea of occasionally flying drones over South Korea.

In December 2022, South Korea announced it fired warning shots, scrambled fighter jets and flew surveillance drones over North Korea in response to what it called North Korea’s first drone flights across the border in five years.


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Rescuers detected signs of life in an avalanche of garbage on Thursday that killed at least four workers and left more than 30 missing in a Philippine landfill, and plan to intensify search efforts, an official said yesterday.

Twelve workers have been rescued with injuries from the huge mound of garbage that collapsed among the low-slung buildings of a waste management facility in the village of Binaliw in Cebu City, authorities said.

Dozens of rescuers have raced against time to find more survivors in dangerous conditions in the rubble of twisted tin roofs, iron bars, and combustible heaps of garbage and debris.

Emergency response personnel conduct search operations at the site of a collapse at a waste landfill in Binaliw village in Cebu City, Philippines, yesterday. Photo: EPA

“Authorities confirmed the presence of detected signs of life in specific areas, requiring continued careful excavation and the deployment of a more advanced 50-tonne crane, which is enroute with police escort,” Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival said. “Safety of responders remains paramount due to hazards such as unstable debris and acetylene risks, prompting adjustments to the security perimeter and controlled access.”

The four dead, including an engineer and a female office worker, were all employees of the landfill and waste management facility, which had a staff of 110, according to the mayor and police.

The list of victims on Friday included two dead and 36 missing, which increased yesterday to four dead, Archival said.

He did not provide an updated number of people missing.

The cause of the collapse of the mountain of garbage remains unclear, but a survivor said it happened in an instant without any warning despite fairly good weather at the time.

Jaylord Antigua, a 31-year-old office worker at the landfill, said the wall of garbage cascaded down and destroyed the administrative office he was in. He extricated himself with bruises on his face and arms by crawling in darkness in the rubble and debris.

“I saw a light and crawled toward it in a hurry, because I feared there will be more landslides,” Antigua said. “It was traumatic. I feared that it was my end, so this is my second life.”

It is unclear how the accident would affect garbage disposal in the landfill in Cebu, a bustling port city of nearly 1 million people that serves as a regional hub for trade, commerce and tourism.

Preparations “are also underway to manage the looming garbage collection issue,” Archival said.

Such landfills and open dumpsites have long been a source of safety and health concerns in the Philippines, especially in areas close to poor communities where many residents scavenge for junk and leftover food in the garbage heaps.

title: Signs of life detected in Philippine landfill avalanche


title: Venezuela says it launched talks with US to restore ties

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Venezuela on Friday said it had launched talks with the US on restoring diplomatic ties, days after US forces deposed Nicolas Maduro as its president.

It was the latest sign of cooperation following Maduro’s capture and US President Donald Trump’s claim to be “in charge” of the South American country.

Officials said US diplomats were in Caracas to discuss reopening the country’s embassy, while Trump met with oil companies in Washington over his plans to access Venezuela’s huge crude reserves.

Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez, center, attends a ceremony in Caracas on Thursday honoring Venezuelan and Cuban military and security personnel who died during a US operation to capture then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Photo: Reuters

The government of Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez “has decided to initiate an exploratory diplomatic process with the government of the United States of America, aimed at re-establishing diplomatic missions in both countries,” Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Yvan Gil said.

John McNamara, the top US’ diplomat in Colombia, and other personnel “traveled to Caracas to conduct an initial assessment for a potential phased resumption of operations,” a US official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Venezuela said it would be reciprocating by sending a delegation to Washington.

Rodriguez condemned “the serious, criminal, illegal and illegitimate attack” by the US and said “Venezuela will continue to confront this aggression through the diplomatic route.”

Trump said he had called off a second wave of attacks on Venezuela due to the prisoner releases, and suggested he might use force again to get his way in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

He pressed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela’s reserves, but was met with a cautious reception — with ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods dismissing the country as “uninvestable” without sweeping reforms.

Foreign firms had enjoyed no meaningful protections under Maduro, “but now you have total security. It’s a whole different Venezuela,” Trump said, adding that companies would only deal with Washington, not Caracas, when exploiting Venezuela’s oil resources.

Trump earlier said that oil companies promised to invest US$100 billion in Venezuela, whose oil infrastructure is creaky after years of mismanagement and sanctions.

He had earlier announced a plan for the US to sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, with the money to be used at his discretion.

Trump promised any funds sent to Caracas would be used to buy only US-made products.

Washington has also maintained maritime pressure on oil tankers in the Caribbean, where it seized a fifth tanker carrying Venezuelan crude — oil that would be sold, Trump said.

State-owned oil company PDVSA confirmed that one vessel was returning to Venezuelan waters, describing it as the “first successful joint operation” with Washington.


title: Rare comic introducing Superman sells for US$15m

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A rare copy of the comic book that introduced the world to Superman and also was once stolen from the home of actor Nicolas Cage has been sold for a record US$15 million.

The private deal for Action Comics No. 1 was announced on Friday. It eclipsed the previous record price for a comic book, set in November last year when a copy of Superman No. 1 was sold at auction for US$9.12 million.

The Action Comics sale was negotiated by Manhattan-based Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect, which said the comic book’s owner and the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect president Vincent Zurzolo poses with Action Comics No. 1 in New York on Monday. Photo Andrew Wilson/Metropolis Collectibles Inc via AP

The comic — which sold for US$0.10 when it came out in 1938 — was an anthology of tales about mostly now little-known characters. Over a few panels, it told the origin story of Superman’s birth on a dying planet, his journey to Earth and his decision as an adult to “turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind.”

Its publication marked the beginning of the superhero genre. About 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are known to exist, Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect president Vincent Zurzolo said.

“This is among the Holy Grail of comic books. Without Superman and his popularity, there would be no Batman or other superhero comic book legends,” Zurzolo said. “It’s importance in the comic book community shows with his deal, as it obliterates the previous record.”

The comic book was stolen from Cage’s Los Angeles home in 2000, but was recovered in 2011 when it was found by a man who had purchased the contents of a storage locker in southern California.

It was eventually returned to Cage, who had bought it in 1996 for US$150,000. Six months after it was returned to him, he sold it at auction for US$2.2 million.

Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect CEO Stephen Fishler said the theft eventually played a big role in boosting the comic’s value.

“During that 11-year period [it was missing], it skyrocketed in value,” Fishler said. “The thief made Nicolas Cage a lot of money by stealing it.”

Fishler compared it to the theft of Mona Lisa, which was stolen from the Louvre in Paris in 1911.

“It was kept under the thief’s bed for two years,” Fishler said. “The recovery of the painting made the Mona Lisa go from being just a great Da Vinci painting to a world icon — and that’s what Action No. 1 is — an icon of American pop culture.”


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The US Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal by Cisco Systems in which the tech company and US President Donald Trump’s administration are asking the justices to limit the reach of a federal law that has been used to hold corporations liable for human rights abuses committed abroad.

Cisco has appealed a 2023 ruling that breathed new life into a 2011 lawsuit that accused the it of knowingly developing technology that allowed China’s government to surveil and persecute members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

The company called the lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages, unfounded and offensive, saying it sold technology to China that is expressly legal under US trade policy.

The lawsuit was premised on the Alien Tort Statute, which lawyers use to bring international human rights cases in US courts.

Cisco, with backing from the Trump administration, is asking the court to use the case as an opportunity to limit the reach of the statute.

The lawsuit also alleged a contravention of the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for the filing of civil suits in US courts against foreign officials who commit torture.

The Falun Gong plaintiffs alleged Cisco executives had facilitated torture on the part of Chinese officials, and therefore could be held liable under the statute and the act through “aiding and abetting.”

A Cisco spokesperson said the company is pleased with the court’s decision to hear the case and looks forward to oral arguments.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments and rule by the end of June.

Falun Gong combines meditation, slow-motion exercises and moral teachings based on Buddhism, Taoism and leader Li Hongzhi’s (李洪志) sometimes unorthodox theories, such as his belief that aliens have started to take over the world.

The Chinese Communist Party saw the group’s growing popularity as a challenge to its rule and banned it after 10,000 practitioners silently protested in Beijing in 1999, calling it an “evil cult” that threatened national stability and imprisoning some of its members.

The Human Rights Law Foundation sued Cisco in 2011 on behalf of a group of Falun Gong members, accusing the company of designing and implementing the “Golden Shield,” an Internet surveillance system used by the Chinese Communist Party to locate and detain Falun Gong practitioners and other dissidents..

In a 2023 ruling, a panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs plausibly alleged “that Cisco provided essential technical assistance to the douzheng [crackdown] of Falun Gong with awareness that the international law violations of torture, arbitrary detention, disappearance and extrajudicial killing were substantially likely to take place.”

The panel said aiding and abetting claims could be brought under both statutes invoked by the plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court said it would focus arguments on whether that holding was correct.

title: US Supreme Court to hear Cisco appeal on Falun Gong suit