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墨新聞｜記者游宏琦／高雄報導

撰文｜物理治療師 許云菁/文字編輯｜游宏琦

過年期間，許多人被Panchi邁著「六親不認」步伐的模樣圈粉。牠短暫直立、微彎膝蓋、重心前傾的姿態，看似逗趣可愛，卻也無意間替我們上了一堂生動的「脊椎力學課」。

事實上，人類與猴子的脊椎設計，本質上截然不同。

一、演化分歧：S型與C型的根本差異

在漫長演化過程中，人類選擇了雙足直立行走的路線，因此脊椎發展為S型結構，包含四個生理彎曲：

頸椎前凸胸椎後凸腰椎前凸薦椎後凸

這樣的結構，使脊椎在承受垂直重力時，能有效分散壓力並維持平衡。

反觀大多數靈長類動物，脊椎呈現較連續的C型或J型弧度，主要適應四足行走與攀爬活動。牠們的椎體形狀相對均勻，適合均勻弧度的負重模式。

寵貓物理治療師 -許云菁因此，當猴子短暫直立行走時，脊椎無法像人類般承受純垂直負重，只能透過彎膝與重心前移來代償——這也正是Panchi那「六親不認」步伐的生物力學來源。

二、如果人活成猴子的脊椎曲度，會發生什麼事？

問題來了——

當我們長時間低頭滑手機、久坐駝背、窩在沙發裡當「沙發馬鈴薯」，其實正是在把原本設計為S型支撐的脊椎，強行壓成C型。

從解剖學角度來看，人類腰椎椎體呈現「前高後低」的楔形結構，天生就是為了維持前凸弧度。一旦長期失去這個曲度：

椎間盤後側壓力增加神經通道受壓風險提升核心肌群逐漸失去張力結構代償與慢性疼痛形成

可以想像椎間盤如同一顆果凍，當前側被長期擠壓，內部壓力便向後方推移——這便是椎間盤突出常見的力學機轉之一。

短時間放鬆，未必有感；但長時間錯置姿勢，身體會默默記帳。

三、身為直立物種，我們如何平衡脊椎壓力？

人類是地球上少數長時間直立行走的物種，因此日常的自我修復與放鬆顯得格外重要。

以下分享物理治療師許云菁平時常用、簡單有效的脊椎放鬆方式：

四、實用動作：躺姿屈膝扭轉（Spinal Supine Twist）

動作方式：

仰躺於地面，雙膝彎曲、雙腳踩地。雙手自然張開呈T字型。利用下半身帶動雙膝左右緩慢擺動。當膝蓋接近地面時，刻意吐氣加深延展。感受身體想延伸的方向，可自然延展成伸懶腰姿態。

動作原理：

活化副交感神經系統釋放胸腰椎旋轉張力促進腹腔臟器循環重建脊椎中軸覺知

交感與副交感神經皆沿著脊椎分布，中軸的活動度改善，往往連帶改善內臟功能與壓力反應。

五、最重要的一件事：尊重身體當下的界線

每個人的柔軟度、結構與既往傷害不同。請記住：

不追求幅度不勉強疼痛用呼吸帶領自己

當你能在當下感受到極限而不逾越，那就是身心最平衡的時刻。

保持覺知，感受其中，身心愉悅，目標自然達成。

結語

Panchi的步伐讓我們微笑，但也提醒我們——

物種的演化選擇了不同的脊椎設計。

若我們忽略自身結構的需求，長期活在錯誤姿勢中，身體終將用疼痛提醒我們。

直立，是人類的優勢；

維持S型曲度，是對身體最基本的尊重。

新聞免責聲明

此文為物理治療師 許云菁 撰文，提供《墨新聞》平台做資訊分享。

文中內容僅供健康知識參考，若有涉及醫療相關問題，請務必洽詢醫療院所或諮詢專業醫療人員，以獲得個別化評估與診療建議。

此篇文章最開始出處為: 「健康專欄」當Panchi「六親不認」地走路時——從猴子脊椎看人類的腰背危機與自我修復之道


title: 世界衝浪聯盟公布年度賽程　臺東金樽將舉辦QS 6,000 International賽事

taiwan-subdivisions: 臺東 臺東縣 新興 成功

countries: 巴西 菲律賓 臺灣

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記者池文中/臺東報導

世界衝浪聯盟（World Surf League, WSL）公布2026/27挑戰者系列（Challenger Series,CS）賽程及積分巡迴賽（Qualifying Series, QS）6,000 International站點，其中2026年QS 6,000三大賽站之一，確定今年11月14日至22日在臺東金樽漁港舉行。臺東縣政府表示，臺灣臺東金樽與巴西里約熱內盧Saquarema、菲律賓Siargao Cloud 9，並列全球三大QS 6,000 INTL賽事站點，屆時將迎來全球頂尖衝浪選手，持續提升臺東的國際能見度與城市品牌。

2026年WSL所公布新賽制，在原有的QS巡迴賽中新增6,000 INTL級別，讓各分區選手開放跨區比賽，並且除了原先QS的排名外，積分也列入CS的排名。WSL區域巡迴賽總監Will Hayden-Smith表示，全新QS6,000International納入賽事行事曆，不僅讓CS選手能在新地點累積積分，也讓區域QS選手在晉級前，有機會體驗接近CS等級的競賽。

臺東縣長饒慶鈴表示，臺東金樽自辦理國際衝浪賽事以來，賽事規模與等級逐年提升，從舉辦QS 3,000、QS 5,000，到國際青少年及長板總冠軍賽， 2025年首度升級為QS 6,000國際級最高積分巡迴賽之一，吸引世界各國頂尖選手來臺競技，且各國選手在競技體驗後，都對臺東金樽浪點高度肯定，今年更並列全球QS6000三大賽事，成功將臺東推向全球衝浪運動的重要舞台。

縣府觀光處指出，臺東縣擁有全國最高品質無汙染空品，有最優質的自然環境，具備各種賽事基礎與場域條件，縣府將以運動觀光定位發展方向。在既有鐵人三項、自行車及路跑等優勢基礎上，規劃導入更多元新興運動項目，擴大參與族群，並結合觀光遊程與地方產業資源，從賽事型活動延伸為常態化運動旅遊模式，提升整體產業效益與城市發展動能，逐步強化臺東運動觀光城市形象。


title: 平溪天燈節龍馬雙飛！侯友宜十分廣場施放20呎巨型主燈　象徵新北馬力全開

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記者黃俊育 / 新北報導

眾所矚目的「2026新北市平溪天燈節」壓軸場3日元宵節晚間在十分廣場盛大登場，為系列活動畫下圓滿句點。繼2月27日平溪國中場精彩揭開序幕後，元宵夜再掀高潮，以「龍馬精神 活力新北」為主題，由市市長侯友宜與貴賓共同施放全球首創2盞20呎高的「龍馬」神獸主燈，在萬眾矚目下冉冉升空，象徵新的一年昂首騰飛、充滿希望與活力，也將臺灣獨有的元宵祈福文化推向國際舞台。

▲新北市市長侯友宜與副市長朱惕之、觀光旅遊局局長楊宗珉、市府團隊及在地公所、里長共同施放龍馬主燈。(圖/新北市觀旅局 提供)

本屆天燈節首場於平溪國中施放「三馬同驫」主燈已驚豔全臺，壓軸場主燈設計更進一步升級。雙「龍馬」主燈在百盞天燈簇擁下騰空而起，氣勢磅礡。侯友宜與多位貴賓親筆題寫祝福，將對城市與市民的期許寄託於天燈之上。透過旅遊業者積極推廣，活動吸引來自世界各地的國際旅客專程參與，共同寫下心願、施放天燈，感受元宵節團圓祈福的文化魅力。

▲龍馬主燈在百燈簇擁下昂首飛向天際，藉此祈求新的一年平安順遂、國泰民安。(圖/新北市觀旅局 提供)

活動現場同樣熱鬧非凡，主辦單位精心規劃多元藝文演出，邀請黑金歲月舞蹈團、八青哥、尚融、陳瑋儒、DrunkMonk撞克茫客及AcQUA源少年等團隊輪番登台，以流行音樂與在地文化交融的形式，展現臺灣文化的多元與創新，為現場觀眾帶來視覺與聽覺兼具的節慶饗宴。

▲歡慶元宵！十分場由黑金歲月舞蹈團以曼妙舞姿揭開序幕。(圖/新北市觀旅局 提供)

在歡慶元宵的同時，新北市政府亦持續兼顧環境永續與傳統文化傳承。觀光旅遊局特別與十分國小合作，試行以全紙材作為基座支架的「永續天燈」，創新設計可於高空完全燃燒殆盡，大幅降低對山林環境的影響，為傳統天燈施放尋求更友善自然的轉型方向。

▲十分場越夜越熱鬧！八青哥登台飆唱，為元宵夜注入滿滿活力。(圖/新北市觀旅局 提供)

此外，為落實觀光與環保並行的理念，新北市觀光旅遊局將於3月8日與新北市山岳協會合作舉辦「淨山活動」，邀請百岳達人吳雲天與崔祖錫帶領民眾深入平溪山林，透過實際行動守護自然環境，深化民眾對生態保育的認識。

「2026新北市平溪天燈節」在璀璨燈火與滿滿祝福中圓滿落幕，不僅展現城市活力與文化底蘊，也透過創新與永續行動，為這項百年傳統注入嶄新意義，讓美麗的祈福文化得以長久傳承、閃耀國際。

taiwan-subdivisions: 新北 平溪 新北市


title: HiRO 亮相摩根大通醫療健康大會，推動跨境創新對話與亞洲融資策略

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新澤西州薩默塞特2026年3月3日 /美通社/ — 賀維斯特醫藥科技集團 Harvest Integrated Research Organization（HiRO）是一家專注於臨床研發策略規劃與跨境臨床試驗解決方案的全球臨床研究組織（CRO）。HiRO 近日出席於美國舊金山舉行的第44屆摩根大通醫療健康大會，並在同期舉辦的 RESI JPM 活動中參與多場討論，就亞洲資本與全球生技創新的協同發展展開交流。

在 RESI JPM 投資論壇上，HiRO 創辦人兼執行長 Karen Chu 博士擔任圓桌主持，與 ALSA Ventures 的 Robert Balfour 及 BERNINA BioInvest 的 Bettina Ernst 就細胞與基因治療領域的投資趨勢進行深入交流。與會嘉賓分享了技術與商業風險評估、加速研發的合作模式，以及未來資本布局方向，為創新藥企對接國際資本提供清晰洞見。

Karen Chu 博士亦主持題為「亞洲資本：投資偏好與策略路徑」的專題工作坊。會議結合2026年產業展望，梳理重點治療領域，解析 NewCo 模式在全球資產整合中的價值，並介紹亞洲創投機構評估生技項目的核心標準、聯合投資偏好及商業化預期。來自亞洲投資機構的多位嘉賓，包括鼎珮集團董事總經理兼創新藥負責人陳雅均博士、江遠投資合夥人兼醫療與大健康投資負責人李佳安、渶策資本執行董事佟茂蒙博士，圍繞跨境融資與合作落地分享策略建議。

（從左至右）：渶策資本執行董事佟茂蒙博士；江遠投資合夥人兼醫療與大健康投資負責人李佳安；鼎珮集團董事總經理兼創新藥負責人陳雅均博士；HiRO 創辦人兼執行長 Karen Chu 博士。

「亞洲資本市場正穩步回溫，優質項目供給持續增加。投資人更偏好可複製、資本效率高的創新路徑，例如透過 NewCo 模式將特定資產拆出成立新公司，由投資方入股、引入成熟管理團隊，並運用亞洲高效的臨床資源與產業生態，加速數據產出。此類方案可顯著降低全球開發風險，更易吸引跨國聯合投資。」陳雅均博士表示。

Karen Chu 博士指出：「臨床研發已進入高度跨區域協同時代，需要以統一策略貫穿全球布局。HiRO 在亞太、美國與歐洲建立成熟的跨境執行體系，透過整合法規路徑設計、研究中心遴選與運營管理，實現多區域數據的高效銜接，幫助客戶縮短研發周期、降低重複投入。憑藉在地化經驗、區域成本優勢與精準的合作網絡，我們致力協助創新項目更早取得高品質臨床數據，以更高資金效率推動融資與授權合作。」

關於賀維斯特醫藥科技集團 Harvest Integrated Research Organization (HiRO)

賀維斯特醫藥科技集團 (HiRO) 是一家面向全球的創新型臨床研究機構 (CRO)。憑藉全球運營和整合能力，HiRO 為客戶提供定制化的跨境解決方案和服務，包括早期臨床前戰略規劃、臨床試驗設計、法規事務、藥物警戒、統計學、數據管理、全方位項目管理以及臨床和醫學監查等服務。

作為新興的全球 CRO，HiRO 致力於成為市場領先的綜合臨床研究機構，與蒸蒸日上的生物技術和製藥公司合作，引領醫藥產品從實驗室走向市場。HiRO 將以「管家」服務精神，充分利用國際及當地臨床執行經驗，佐以真實世界數據支持，為全球患者提供更有效的解決方案。更多關於 HiRO 的信息，請訪問 www.harvestiro.com。

taiwan-subdivisions: 金山 新興

countries: 美國 澤西


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ESCALATION: The Israeli military yesterday said that it had moved additional troops into southern Lebanon and taken new positions at strategic points close to the border

Iran yesterday expanded its targets, striking the US embassy in Saudi Arabia as Washington began to pull many staff out of the Middle East. The US and Israel battered Iran with airstrikes in what US President Donald Trump suggested was just the start of a war that has severely disrupted the world’s supply of oil and gas, international shipping and air travel.

The conflict escalated further on its fourth day, with Israel sending new ground troops into Lebanon and explosions ringing out in Iran’s capital. Hundreds of people have been killed, the vast majority in Iran.

The spiraling nature of the war raised questions about when and how it would end. Trump said it could last four to five weeks, but that the US was prepared to go longer. He seemed to leave open the possibility for more extensive US military involvement, telling the New York Post on Monday that he was not ruling out the possibility of boots on the ground.

Still, the administration’s objectives remain unclear. The initial US-Israeli strikes killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government.

However, since then senior administration officials have said regime change was not the goal. Trump’s initial announcement of the strikes listed several grievances, from concerns about Iran’s nuclear and missile programs to its leadership.

An attack from two drones on the US embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire,” the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense said, as the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound. It followed an attack on the US embassy in Kuwait, which yesterday announced it had been closed until further notice.

The US Department of State ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In addition, the US has urged Americans to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, as have many other nations, though with much of the airspace closed many remained stranded.

The US-Israeli strikes have killed at least 787 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

In Israel, where Iranian missiles struck several locations, 11 people were killed. The Iran-supported militant group Hezbollah has also attacked Israel, whose retaliatory strikes killed 52 people in Lebanon.

The US military has confirmed six deaths of US service members.

Across Iran’s capital, explosions rang out throughout the night into yesterday, with aircraft heard overhead. Strikes caused two explosions at a broadcasting facility in Tehran, Iranian state TV said, adding that no one was injured.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site had sustained “some recent damage,” although there was “no radiological consequence expected.”

The US hit Natanz during the 12-day war in June last year, when Israeli and US strikes greatly weakened Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained that Iran was rebuilding “new sites, new places” underground for making nuclear bombs. He offered no evidence to support his claim.

“We had to take the action now and we did,” Netanyahu told Fox News Channel’s Hannity program.

Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June last year, although it has maintained its right to and says its nuclear program is peaceful.

Satellite photographs showed limited activity at two Iranian nuclear sites before the war. Analysts said Tehran was likely assessing damage from last year’s strikes and possibly salvaging what remained.

The expansion of Iranian retaliation across the Gulf and the intensity of the Israeli and US attacks, Khamenei’s killing and the lack of any apparent exit plan suggested the conflict could be prolonged.

Iran has hit many nations deemed safe havens in the Middle East in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes. Recent targets included two Amazon data centers in the UAE and one in Bahrain. The centers in the UAE were hit, while a drone struck near the one in Bahrain, causing damage, the company said.

Iran has also struck energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and attacked several ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of all oil traded passes, sending global oil and natural gas prices soaring.

“The Strait of Hormuz is closed,” said Iranian Brigadier General Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, vowing that any ships that passed through it would be set on fire.

Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Majed al-Ansari vowed that Iranian attacks on the gas-rich country “will not go unanswered.”

The conflict has spread to Lebanon, where Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate.

The Israeli military yesterday said that it had moved additional troops into southern Lebanon and taken new positions at several strategic points close to the border.

Israel also hit Beirut with more airstrikes, saying it was targeting “Hezbollah command centers and weapons storage facilities.”

Explosions could be heard and smoke seen in a southern suburb of Beirut.

title: Iranian drones strike US embassy in Saudi Arabia


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By Chen Yu-fu, Lin Che-yuan and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer

The Central Election Commission (CEC) reportedly plans to file a lawsuit to invalidate the election of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator-at-large Li Zhenxiu (李貞秀) on the grounds that Li was ineligible to run for office under cross-strait law, a source said yesterday.

Li, who was sworn into office last month, was born in China, but has been living in Taiwan for more than 30 years and holds a Taiwanese passport.

However, there is disagreement as to whether she is eligible to serve, as she has not provided recognized proof of renouncing her Chinese citizenship and might have submitted proof of renouncing her Chinese household registration too late to register as a candidate.

Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Li Zhenxiu shows her Republic of China passport at a news conference in Taipei on Feb. 3. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Before a 2004 amendment to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), spouses from China were required to submit proof that they had given up their Chinese residency within six months of the amendment’s promulgation, a source familiar with cross-strait law said on condition of anonymity.

However, Li had no record of submitting the document to the National Immigration Agency or the Straits Exchange Foundation before March last year, the source said.

Citing Article 21 of the act, the source said that naturalized Chinese spouses are only eligible to run for government office 10 years after they obtain Taiwanese citizenship.

The 10-year period begins after they submit proof of renouncing their Chinese residency, they said.

Li did not qualify to run in 2023, as she did not submit her papers before then, despite having been married to a Taiwanese since 1999, the source said.

The CEC at the time could not verify Li’s lack of qualification as it had only reviewed her national identification card and household registration data, they said.

However, household registration data do not state when the person renounced their Chinese citizenship, they added.

The government has also questioned whether Li is eligible to serve, given that the Nationality Act (國籍法) stipulates those who hold other nationalities are barred from holding public office.

The CEC yesterday said that it would resolve the Li case after a full committee can be convened.

The committee has only four sitting members, as the tenures of six members expired in November last year.

By law, at least five members are required to convene a session and the legislature has not yet ratified seven candidates proposed by the Executive Yuan.

If the committee believes Li’s election was invalid, it could not revoke Li’s status, but must file a lawsuit to invalidate her election.

TPP caucus director Vicky Chen (陳智菡) said that the issue highlights government officials’ ignorance of the law.

The Republic of China “does not recognize” the People’s Republic of China, she said, citing the Constitution.

Regulations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are the same: If a person’s residency is to be annulled, their national identity papers, as well as their passport, would also be nullified, she said.

There could not be an issue of “dual citizenship,” she added.

Additional reporting by Chen Chih-cheng

title: CEC mulls suing Li Zhenxiu: source


content_text:
By Chiu Chih-jou and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Taiwan emits an estimated 1.03 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually and is to cost NT$62.18 billion (US$1.97 billion) by next year, medical experts said yesterday, calling for stronger preventive healthcare.

Taiwan Society of Nephrology and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s Taiwan branch made the remarks at a news conference marking the publication of a joint study on the impact of CKD on Taiwan.

The research revealed that emissions from dialysis treatment for Taiwanese are the equivalent of 1,700 round-the-world flights by commercial jets, they said.

A person is treated by a medical professional in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Society of Nephrology

Taiwan has one of the highest CKD prevalence rates in the world, with 1.97 million patients with a Stage 1, 2 or 3 diagnosis, despite reducing dialysis recipients to 97,262 last year, Taiwan Society of Nephrology honorary chairman Wu Mai-szu (吳麥斯) said.

CKD perennially occupies a spot as one of the top 10 causes of mortality in Taiwan and its treatment costs more than any other disease for the National Health Insurance fund, he said.

The human, economic and environmental costs of the disease would only worsen if Taiwan continues to fail patients in the early stages of CKD, he added.

Citing the study, Wu said that CKD progression leads to a near exponential increase in medical burden and greenhouse gas emissions, as a person undergoing dialysis releases 1.7 times the emissions of an average Taiwanese, he said.

“The study shows CKD progression has an exponential toll on healthcare,” he said.

Taiwan’s healthcare providers should shift the focus of their efforts to treating CKD in its early stages to align with changes in global medical strategy that increasingly emphasize risk management and early intervention, Wu said.

CKD treatment should share resources with those diseases that also rely on managing blood sugar levels and blood pressure, such as cardiovascular conditions, Wu said.

Doctors should also promote outpatient treatment for patients with late-stage CKD to cut costs associated with transporting patients to and from hospital, he said.

Early diagnosis and medical intervention can effectively delay disease progression and sometimes prevent patients from needing high-powered dialysis altogether, saving up to 760,000 tonnes of emissions and lowering costs, he added.

The society’s recommendation is for a comprehensive strategy to deploy screening, treatment and care earlier, Wu said.

title: CKD contributing to climate change


title: New drone rules to protect seaports take effect

content_text:
SAFE SKIES:  New regulations prohibit drone operators from engaging in behavior that endangers lives, as well as racing, or using them to drop items or spray substances

Flying drones over the nation’s seaports without permission or operating them under the influence of alcohol or drugs is now punishable by a fine of up to NT$1.5 million (US$47,455) after the government last month began implementing amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法), the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday.

The government has designated seaports as key infrastructure that must be protected at all times.

Supporting guidelines of the act regulate drone activities in specific areas of seaports: the ports of Keelung, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Suao, Anping, Budai, Magong, Kinmen and Matsu, the bureau said.

A Skydio X10 drone is pictured in the atrium of the US Department of Transportation building in Washington on Aug. 5 last year. Photo: Bloomberg

Only drones operated by government agencies, and certain schools and legal entities are allowed in specific areas listed in the supporting guidelines, bureau Deputy Director-General Liu Chih-hung (劉志鴻) said.

The guidelines stipulate that applications for drone activities must be filed at least seven days ahead of the scheduled events, Liu said.

Government agencies or schools seeking to fly drones in seaports in Keelung, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Suao, Anping, Budai and Penghu should apply for permission from the Taiwan International Port Corp, while those seeking to fly drones in seaports in Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties must submit applications to the respective county governments, he said.

Under the new guidelines, drone operators are banned from engaging in behavior that endangers lives or risks damaging property, and cannot fly the devices while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, he said.

They are also prohibited from racing drones or using drones to drop items or spray substances, Liu added.

Drone operators must be on high alert and keep the devices at least 30m from sea vessels and port facilities to ensure they do not compromise port safety, he said.

In addition to the act and supporting guidelines, drone operators must abide by the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法) and Regulations of Drones (遙控無人機管理規則).

Prior to the amendments to the Commercial Port Act and supporting guidelines, drones were banned from seaports. The bureau recorded only one case in which a person was fined for flying a drone at a seaport without permission.

The amendments to the act raised the fine for flying drones without permission to NT$300,000 to NT$1.5 million from NT$100,000 to NT$500,000, the bureau said.

So far, no breach of regulations has been recorded since the new regulations were implemented, it said.


title: Starlux embraces WBC with baseball-themed flights

content_text:
Starlux Airlines passengers flying to Tokyo until Sunday would receive a World Baseball Classic (WBC)-themed tea bag as a gift and can watch sports-related movies on board, the Taipei-based airline said yesterday.

Taiwan is competing in Group C of the pool round of the tournament at the Tokyo Dome from tomorrow until Sunday.

The airline said that it has teamed up with Taiwanese tea brand Jing Sheng Yu to launch an “Aerial Cheer Squad” campaign, in which all passengers on flights from Taipei to Narita International Airport during the four-day period would receive an exclusive “Victory Blessing” tea bag as a gift.

A baseball and a baseball-themed tea bag lie on an airline seat in a photograph released yesterday by Starlux Airlines. Photo courtesy of Starlux Airlines

It has also prepared baseball-themed inflight entertainment, featuring sports films such as 42, Moneyball and The Rookie, the airline said.

Passengers could also watch the documentary Those Years: The Unsung Heroes of Professional Baseball (那些年，撐起職棒的他們) and a food-focused interview with Taiwan captain Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲), “After Work Eats — Chen Chieh-hsien / Lin An-ko” (下班去吃飯—陳傑憲／林安可), from the online variety show Muyao 4 Super Play (木曜4超玩), it said.

“They would also have exclusive access to the Dreams Come True Project (夢想好棒) podcast series, featuring in-depth conversations with documentary director Lungnan Isak Fangas and former professional baseball stars such as Lin Chih-sheng (林智勝), Wang Sheng-wei (王勝偉) and Huang Tsung-an (黃宗安), exploring their experience winning international games, and the resilience and grassroots development of baseball in Taiwan,” the airline said in a statement.

Former Major League Baseball pitcher and WBC veteran Kuo Hong-chih (郭泓志) joined Starlux to film social media videos in support of the national team.

Leveraging his wealth of international experience, Kuo rallies fans to unite in cheering on the Taiwanese team, the airline said.


content_text:
Breast screenings rose 36.3 percent last year, HPA says

The number of women who underwent breast cancer screenings last year rose 36.3 percent from the previous year, after eligibility for publicly funded breast cancer screenings was expanded, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said on Monday.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday, the agency is encouraging women to make their health a priority and invite their mothers, sisters and friends to get breast cancer screenings together.

Breast cancer had the highest standardized incidence rate among all cancers in women in 2023, and in 2024, it had the second-highest mortality rate among cancers in women, HPA and Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed.

To improve early detection and reduce mortality risk of breast cancer, the HPA expanded the eligibility of its publicly funded breast cancer screening program — a mammogram once every two years — to women aged 40 to 74, starting from Jan. 1 last year.

After the expansion, the number of women who underwent breast cancer screenings last year increased by 36.3 percent, the agency said.

About 326,000 people in the expanded eligibility — aged 40 to 44 and aged 70 to 74 — underwent a mammography last year, accounting for 25.9 percent of total screenings, it said.

Mammography is globally recognized as the most effective evidence-based breast cancer screening tool, as it can detect microcalcifications and early-stage tumors before symptoms appear, the HPA said.

The procedure is quick and involves low doses of radiation, and modern equipment has significantly reduced discomfort, it said.

Domestic and international studies have shown that getting mammograms regularly can reduce the incidence of late-stage breast cancer by about 30 percent and the mortality rate by about 41 percent, it said, adding that the five-year survival rate of early detected and treated breast cancer is more than 99 percent.

HPA cancer registry data for 2023 showed that 62.9 percent of cases detected through screenings were in the early stages (0 and 1), the agency said.

Among those who did not receive screenings, only 34.9 percent were diagnosed at an early stage, it added.

International Women’s Day is not only about celebrating women’s achievements, but also a reminder to women to view their health as a priority, the HPA said.

Many women delay breast cancer screenings due to busy daily schedules or concern about potential discomfort, resulting in delayed detection and late treatment, it said, adding that getting a screening with family members or friends can help ease stress and serve as a reminder to get tested regularly.


people: 許毓仁 賴清德

content_text:
‘POLITICAL UNITY’:  Jason Hsu told a US body that ‘resilience, resolve and backing commitments with action’ were required for Taiwan to see support from the world

The legislature should approve a defense funding bill, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁) told a US Senate security panel hearing on undersea cable security in Washington on Monday.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on Monday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on a panel about undersea infrastructure and strategic resources.

Speaking as a former lawmaker, the Hudson Institute senior fellow said that the Legislative Yuan must pass the defense budget.

An operator works during the mooring of an undersea fiber optic cable at Arrietara beach near Sopelana, Philippines, on June 13, 2017. Photo: AFP

Taiwan’s national security “cannot be a partisan issue,” Hsu said.

President William Lai (賴清德) in November last year announced a NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.55 billion) special defense budget to be allocated over eight years, including arms purchases from the US.

After repeatedly blocking the bill, the opposition-controlled legislature on Friday last week agreed to allow the Executive Yuan’s proposal to proceed to committee review, alongside a NT$400 billion version drafted by the Taiwan People’s Party and a planned version from the KMT.

Taiwan’s political parties must stand in unity when facing national security threats, Hsu said.

“Only by strengthening our own resilience, demonstrating resolve and backing commitments with action can we ask the world to stand with us,” he said.

Hsu told the panel that if China invaded Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout.

In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s cable repair capabilities are insufficient.

China has deliberately targeted Taiwan’s undersea cables as part of its expanding “gray zone” warfare toolkit, with a notable and alarming escalation since 2023, Hsu said.

It is one of the most urgent security challenges facing Taiwan and the broader Indo-Pacific region as a “gray zone” warfare tactic that is “calibrated, deniable and escalating,” he said.

Severing three cable clusters near the Bashi Channel could reduce Taiwan’s international bandwidth by up to 95 percent when combined with cyberoperations and satellite jamming, Hsu said.

Taiwan is connected to the global network through 24 undersea cables, 14 of which are international links to Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and the US, he said.

Any disruption to undersea cables would cost Taiwan up to US$55 million per day, before considering the wider implications of interrupting semiconductor supply chains, he said.

It would “paralyze financial markets, disrupt semiconductor manufacturing, and sever critical military and government communications,” Hsu said.

In peacetime, average cable repair time exceeds 40 days, he said, adding that Taiwan has no indigenous cable repair ships.

In wartime, repairs would be “nearly impossible,” while satellite data links would be insufficient, he said.

Hsu recommended actions to the US Congress, including passing the Taiwan Undersea Cable Resilience Initiative Act, introduced in July last year, investing in cable repair capacity and increasing sanctions on vessels that cut cables.

Taiwan should also build domestic cable repair capacity, ideally with Japan, and the Coast Guard Administration should expand vessel watch lists and patrols near critical cable corridors, he said.

Established in 2000, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission is a legislative branch commission of the US Congress assigned to monitor, investigate and report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the US and China.

title: Ex-lawmaker urges defense bill passage


people: 盧秀燕 羅廷瑋 韓國瑜 卓榮泰 賴清德 徐巧芯 鄭正鈐

content_text:
By Liu Wan-lin, Lin Hsin-han and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers yesterday agreed to deliberate on Friday the government’s military budget.

The move came following negotiations with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and might signal that the KMT-TPP alliance could pass President William Lai’s (賴清德) eight-year defense budget.

A memo from the KMT-run National Policy Foundation showed that the party is leaning on lawmakers to back a separate bill that would earmark NT$350 billion (US$11.07 billion) for defense procurements, with “punitive articles” for delays, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported on Friday last week.

Legislators stand in the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei in an undated photograph. Photo: Taipei Times

However, the response from KMT politicians suggests a rift between the party leadership and its rank-and-file, with some saying that NT$350 billion would not be enough for the armed forces.

Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) previously told KMT lawmakers that the US has expressed a preference for Taiwan to pass a NT$900 billion defense budget.

Former foundation executive Ling Tao (凌濤) wrote on Facebook yesterday that the nation needs NT$900 billion to pay for the equipment necessary for defense.

KMT Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) on Monday said that KMT Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) and several others support an NT$810 billion allocation instead of the leadership’s smaller proposal.

However, KMT Legislator Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐) backed the leadership’s proposal, saying that military spending should not involve “performative patriotism.”

The clashing visions would have to be resolved in the legislature, as only lawmakers, not party functionaries, have the authority to propose a budget to challenge the government’s bill.

Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday criticized the KMT leadership’s proposal, saying that the Cabinet’s NT$1.25 trillion bill is an integrated package without superfluous elements for bargaining.

The planned “T-Dome” air defense program, artificial intelligence boosted kill chains and an improved domestic defense industry cannot be achieved without the allocation, he said.

The KMT leadership’s “punitive articles” would harm national security, Cho said.

KMT Culture and Communication Committee deputy director Yin Nai-ching (尹乃菁) on Monday said the “punitive articles” would not be in the party’s bill, but proposed as separate legislation.

The KMT’s shift in policy came after 37 US congressional members in a joint statement on Feb. 12 called on the legislature to approve the defense budget.

When the Legislative Yuan convened on Tuesday last week, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) authorized inter-party negotiations on military spending and scheduled the Cabinet’s presentation on defense for Friday.

title: KMT and TPP agree to deliberations on bill on Friday


title: Trade deal waiting on US move, premier says

people: 鄭麗君 卓榮泰

content_text:
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade after the US Supreme Court ruled that US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs were unconstitutional, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told reporters at the legislature in Taipei yesterday.

Taiwan’s negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump’s global tariff policy, Cho said ahead of a legislative hearing.

“The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan,” Cho said when asked about doubts expressed by members of the opposition that the trade agreement was still valid.

Premier Cho Jung-tai speaks at the legislature in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times

“This is the most current update we have,” he said.

The trade deal, which was signed on Feb. 12, established a 15 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods and included provisions exempting 1,735 categories of goods from “reciprocal” duties.

Combined with another 337 categories exempted for all US trading partners under a Trump executive order, the exemptions would bring the average effective tariff on Taiwan’s exports under the US tariff policy down to 12.33 percent, officials estimated.

The agreement was originally slated for submission to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation alongside a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Taiwan-US investment that was signed on Jan. 15.

The legal landscape shifted when the court ruled that the Trump administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose its “reciprocal” tariffs exceeded executive authority.

In a swift countermove, Trump signed a proclamation invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act to impose a global 15 percent tariff based on balance-of-payments authority.

However, the US government has only imposed a 10 percent tariff on global imports under Section 122, lower than the average effective tariff of 12.33 percent agreed to in the deals.

Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) on Tuesday last week said that the court’s ruling would not undermine the core benefits Taiwan secured under the agreement signed last month.

Beyond the benefits of last month’s deal, provisions of the MOU continue to provide Taiwan with preferential treatment regarding potential tariffs stemming from Section 232 investigations conducted according to the US Trade Expansion Act, Cheng said.

Meanwhile, the US Trade Representative’s office on Monday said that the Trump administration’s Trade Policy Agenda for this year would include finalizing the trade deal with Taiwan.

The office said that it would also seek further reductions in foreign tariffs and non-tariff barriers this year, enforce its “reciprocal” trade deals and consider launching new unfair trade practice investigations.

Additional reporting by Reuters


content_text:
By Chen Yu-fu and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

A vow by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) to investigate Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang’s (劉世芳) nephew is a case of transnational repression and is detrimental to cross-strait interactions, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in an interview published yesterday.

On Friday, Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao (大公報) reported that Liu had received political donations from her nephew Yen Wen-chun (顏文群).

Yen holds executive positions at three firms in China, the Chinese state-owned publication said.

Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo: Taipei Times

The TAO said that it is looking into the issue and that Beijing would not allow those who support Taiwanese independence and ruin cross-strait relations to use money earned in China to undermine Beijing.

The office in January listed Liu as a “diehard Taiwanese independence separatist,” and banned her and members of her family from entering China and its territories.

The sanctions also ban businesses associated with “separatists” from operating in China, applicable for life.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been waging legal warfare against Taiwan since 2024 with its “22 guidelines,” Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in the interview.

The guidelines grant Beijing the pretext to launch investigations into people it suspects of supporting Taiwanese independence, he said.

The “22 guidelines” could result in the death penalty and even if the CCP is unable to bring those it accuses to court, they could be tried in absentia, he said.

For relatives of those accused or the accused themselves who are doing business in China, the guidelines allow the CCP to confiscate their property and assets, Chiu said, adding that the CCP encourages people to report incidents of “separatism.”

The laws cross “every line of the civilized world,” he said.

Yen made the donations in 2019 and only started working in China in 2023, Chiu said.

Yen is innocent in the matter, as he is just a relative of Liu’s and might not even know her that well, he added.

The council denounces the TAO’s actions as a clear abuse of state authority aimed at distorting personal information to oppress and intimidate people to advance political goals, Chiu said.

The TAO’s brutish actions, which run contrary to the rule of law, serve only to damage efforts to maintain normal cross-strait relations, Chiu said.

Taiwanese should reassess investing and doing business in China, as the economic and political risks have sharply increased over the past few years, he added.

title: TAO probe of Liu Shyh-fang nephew harms ties: MAC


title: FSC alerts firms on Mideast exposure

content_text:
US-IRAN WAR: With banks, insurers and securities firms’ exposure reaching NT$2.35 trillion, the FSC urged them to boost risks controls and monitor potential volatility

The intensifying military tensions between the US and Iran are beginning to ripple through Taiwan’s financial sector, with banks, insurers and securities firms holding sizable exposure to the Middle East, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said.

As of the end of last year, the three major financial segments’ combined exposure reached NT$2.35 trillion (US$74.35 billion), up 3.07 percent from a year earlier, the FSC said yesterday, urging local financial institutions to boost risk controls and monitor potential volatility stemming from the geopolitical situation.

Corporate exposure to the Middle East is concentrated in countries with relatively strong fiscal positions and sovereign credit ratings, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Israel, Oman and Jordan, the commission said.

A sign for the Financial Supervisory Commission is pictured at its office in New Taipei City in an undated photograph. Photo: Kelson Wang, Taipei Times

Among financial firms, insurers carry the largest share of risk, as this segment’s exposure reached NT$1.77 trillion at the end of last year, with the majority of positions tied to investments, primarily in sovereign bonds, it said.

Insurers’ top three investment destinations are the UAE at NT$619.3 billion, Saudi Arabia at NT$477 billion and Qatar at NT$394.4 billion, it said.

The UAE has consistently ranked as the 10th-largest overseas market for Taiwan’s financial holding companies. The country has also become a core market for Taiwanese life insurers deploying capital in the Middle East.

Ongoing US-Iran tensions could trigger sharp short-term volatility in sovereign debt valuations, while longer-term risks might include rising energy costs, which could affect life insurers’ ability to manage long-duration bond portfolios, analysts said.

Banks reported NT$599.2 billion in combined exposure to the Middle East, concentrated in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Israel, Jordan and Oman, the commission said.

The segment’s exposure to the Middle East is primarily in the form of loans to regional financial institutions and corporations, with investment positions largely in bonds issued by local financial institutions. No Taiwanese banks have exposure to Iran, the commission said.

Taiwanese mutual funds hold a combined NT$67.8 billion in Middle East-related assets, which the Securities and Futures Bureau described as limited in both value and proportion relative to total fund assets.

Financial firms’ exposure to Israel totaled NT$136.7 billion at the end of last year, down 4 percent from a year earlier, the commission said.

The decline was the largest among the seven Middle Eastern countries, suggesting that firms have begun trimming positions to mitigate geopolitical risks there.

The TAIEX yesterday plunged 771.44 points, or 2.2 percent, to close at the day’s low of 34,323.65 following a sell-off sparked by the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East.

The New Taiwan dollar also fell sharply against the US dollar, losing NT$0.178 to end at NT$31.609 in Taipei trading.

With the geopolitical landscape in flux, financial institutions must maintain proactive risk management and monitor developments closely, particularly those heavily invested in sovereign debt markets vulnerable to sudden shifts in regional stability, the commission said.


content_text:
MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT:  Taiwan has enough LNG to meet its needs through the end of March after emergency coordination, Premier Cho Jung-tai said

Oil and gas traders have spent days scrambling for alternative sources of supply to Asia outside of the Middle East on concerns a prolonged conflict could choke off flows from the energy-rich region.

Some liquefied natural gas (LNG) traders spent all night on Monday speaking to contacts about available supply after Iranian attacks closed the world’s biggest export plant in Qatar, people familiar with the matter said.

Importers in China, India and Japan have inquired about other sources of oil and LNG, they said.

CPC Corp, Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas receiving terminal at the Port of Taichung is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of CPC Corp, Taiwan

The QatarEnergy facility, which accounts for about one-fifth of global supply, on Monday halted after an Iranian drone attack. Even before it stopped, the widening war in the Middle East had effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key export route for Qatar, while attacks also forced Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery to close.

Some buyers of LNG, including Taiwan, requested suppliers deliver cargoes next month, a month early, the people said, asking not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Taiwan, along with South Korea, is seeking to secure fuel from other regions.

At the same time, Chinese gas buyers say the country is pushing Tehran to keep Hormuz open.

Asian nations have stockpiles of crude and LNG that would help buffer any short-term disruptions, but a sustained conflict threatens to quickly drain those supplies. Alternatives outside of the Middle East are likely to be more expensive, with bloated freight rates adding to spiraling costs for importers.

For LNG, alternatives include a small array of product flowing from the US — the world’s biggest producer — to Europe, which can easily be rerouted toward Asia mid-journey. There is also supply from Australia, which recently sent a rare shipment all the way to Canada because of subdued Asian demand.

For buyers of oil, there are stockpiles of Middle Eastern crude in locations such as Japan’s Kiire and Okinawa, which regional refiners can draw from. Kiire has capacity to store more than 46 million barrels, while Okinawa can hold more than 8 million barrels. Saudi Arabian Oil Co leases space at both storage sites.

Nearby countries such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia also produce crude, although significantly less than producers in the Persian Gulf. That leaves buyers with options much further afield, including the US and Africa.

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway separating Iran and the Arabian Peninsula — has halted crude and LNG shipments from the Persian Gulf. At least five LNG tankers, laden with cargoes from Qatar’s now-shut Ras Laffan facility, were seen inside the Persian Gulf, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. It remains to be seen when they would transit out.

Trading houses with take-or-pay contracts for LNG, particularly those tied to Qatar, are looking to source cargoes elsewhere to cover their deliveries to customers, the traders said.

Along with Taiwan, utilities and other buyers in Japan have asked for next month’s shipments to be brought forward, they added.

Taiwan, a global chipmaking hub, has enough LNG to meet its needs through the end of this month after emergency coordination and adjustments, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers yesterday.

The country might approach Japan and South Korea for supplies, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said.

title: Asia scrambles for alternatives to oil and gas


title: EDITORIAL: Buffeted by the geopolitical storm

content_text:
The US-Israeli military action against Iran is dominating the headlines and this page, and for good reason: The repercussions will be considerable, in large part due to the increased instability and unpredictability the intervention has injected into an international situation already in dangerous flux.

We can focus here on a narrow exploration of the implications for Taiwan’s national security and the strength of its position in the three-way dynamic between Taiwan, the US and China.

The first question to explore is to what extent does the show of not just pre-emptive but preventive force by Taiwan’s main security backer strengthens or weakens the nation’s security calculus in terms of deterrence — even, as some would argue, despite the contradictions in Taiwan’s moral and legal argument that the government, academia, think tanks, civic groups and overseas supporters have been at such pains to develop over decades.

The second issue is how this latest action changes the negotiating position of US President Donald Trump, specifically on navigating the question of Taiwan, if he goes to Beijing to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping (習近平), at the end of this month as planned.

Within Taiwan, the commentary — reflected on this page yesterday in “Iran’s impact on US-China meeting” by Tzou Jiing-wen (鄒景雯), editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times), and on today’s page by retired diplomat Michael Lin (林正二) and Tamkang University assistant professor Bonnie Yushih Liao (廖雨詩) — falls into two strands: the realist perspective represented by Tzou and Lin, and the more cautious moral and legal argument presented by Liao.

Liao wrote that US material deterrence and the credibility of international law are indispensable pillars on which Taiwan’s security rests.

Trump’s decision to launch a preventive war against Iran to eliminate a potential danger before it materializes, and which many analysts believe falls far short of a justifiable level, is a strategic choice similar to the one the US rejected as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rationale for attacking Ukraine, she wrote.

The realist argument says that the demonstration of effective force and operational sophistication is sufficient deterrence, without the need for the cover of legal or moral legitimacy.

One could argue that that realist argument stands in the short term, but is considerably weakened over the long term.

As Liao observes, a jettisoning of the moral and legal argument in favor of the realist approach places small and middle powers at the mercy of the major powers.

For Taiwan, the crucial aspect is whether the chances of a potential war in the Taiwan Strait diminish after the US’ airstrikes. Deterrence derives not only from actual strength, but also from the perception of risk of taking a given action. Xi would be weighing up the effectiveness of US actions in Venezuela and Iran against the readiness of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, especially after successive waves of hollowing out its command infrastructure.

Tsou and Lin have pointed to how the Trump administration’s actions in the Panama Canal, Venezuela and Iran have hollowed out Beijing’s influence in Latin America and the Middle East.

Moreover, Xi might be troubled by the Trump administration’s explicit goal of achieving regime change in Iran, while calling on Iranians to revolt against their government. Regime stability is of paramount importance to Xi in his Leninist model of strong but brittle one-party rule. It comes down to the degree to which Xi is paranoid or secure in the Chinese populace’s satisfaction with his stewardship.

China is not Iran, but perception is reality. When the US Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s weaponization of tariffs, some commentators predicted that Trump would be walking into negotiations with Xi with a significantly depleted hand — see “Xi gains leverage ahead of Trump summit after tariff reversal” (Feb. 25, page 7).

Tsou cited an article in Foreign Affairs by Peking University academic Wang Jisi (王緝思) and US-China academic David M. Lampton, which suggests that Xi could dangle a “grand bargain” in front of Trump with Taiwan as the bait.

She wrote that “Wang’s ‘grand bargain’ thesis has dissolved in the smoke over the Persian Gulf ... in the presence of overwhelming power, diplomatic leverage unsupported by credibility — and partnerships unsupported by strength — carry little weight at the negotiating table.”

Taiwan, as a middle power, continues to be buffeted by the geopolitical storm.

people: 習近平 林正二


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Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations.

The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power.

Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both.

The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, after receiving support from Trump for the US-Japan alliance, won the general election with the most votes in history. This highlights strong public support in Japan for Takaichi’s clear strategic stance that a “Taiwan contingency” could amount to a threat to Japan’s national security.

Taken together, these developments clearly demonstrate strategic deployments to counter China — using overwhelming military strength to safeguard peace in the Taiwan Strait and prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from crossing that line by even a single step.

During the summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) scheduled for late this month, the US might need China to purchase large quantities of soybeans or increase investment and China appears to have room to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in exchange for trade and economic concessions.

However, in safeguarding US geopolitical, economic and strategic interests, Trump has already demonstrated that, under his “America first” framework, “Taiwan is Taiwan” — separate issues must be addressed one at a time.

It would be impossible to sacrifice Taiwan in exchange for US-China trade benefits.

With Taiwan’s geopolitical position and its critical importance in high technology and maritime shipping, if China were to attack Taiwan, global GDP could fall by US$10 trillion, plunging the world into an economic crisis comparable to the Great Depression. The US would likely weaken as a result and the economic losses and severe blow to overall US national power would far exceed any economic benefits Washington might hope to gain from Beijing.

Due to Taiwan’s strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific region, its central role in advanced semiconductor technology and its position in global maritime shipping — alongside the fact that Taiwanese semiconductors are a key force behind making the US “great again” — to safeguard its economic interests and its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, the US is likely to follow the models applied in Iran and Venezuela.

It would continue strengthening its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, increase the quality and quantity of arms sales to Taiwan and deepen military cooperation with Taipei, using overwhelming force to protect peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

In light of this, pro-China and anti-US politicians from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should come to their senses.

The US is using overwhelming military strength to safeguard its interests.

Meanwhile, China’s economy is faltering, with foreign companies and Taiwanese businesses continuously withdrawing.

If the pan-blue camp remains oblivious to international realities, rejects public opinion and blindly places its hopes on China while opposing the US — such as by blocking the NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.55 billion) special defense budget and hindering US-Taiwan trade agreements — it could become an enemy of the public.

Such behavior would not only endanger Taiwan’s national security and put it at odds with the US, but would harm the KMT’s prospects in elections this year and in 2028.

Michael Lin is a retired diplomat formerly posted in the US.

Translated by Kyra Gustavsen

title: The US’ overwhelming strength


title: The perils  of a power vacuum in Iran

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Following the fall of regimes in Iraq and Libya, RPGs found their ways to black markets and into the hands of bad actors; with Iran, it could be weapons-usable nuclear material

Critics of the attack on Iran by the US and Israel say that US President Donald Trump has no plan for what comes next. They are not wrong: When Trump boasts that he can resolve wars in a single day, he merely exposes the limits of his attention span. The real problem is not the shortness of Trump’s time horizon; it is the narrowness of his threat perception.

While Trump’s bombing campaign reflects no strategy in any traditional sense, it is based on a clear operating assumption: The Iranian regime poses a threat to US security, and destroying the regime eliminates that threat. It is the same basic belief that animated previous US wars of choice, from Iraq to Libya. The assumption was wrong then, and it is likely to prove catastrophically wrong now.

The US possesses an extraordinary capacity to destroy centralized state power from the air, but no comparable capacity to manage what follows. Because power vacuums cannot be targeted by precision munitions or mapped by satellite imagery, US strategic thinking systematically underestimates the danger they pose.

That reflects a recurring cognitive bias in the US: Threats we cannot address militarily receive less weight than those we can. However, the gravest and most durable risks often emerge after centralized control collapses, when arsenals are dispersed, custodial chains fracture and accountability disappears.

The Iraq war should have made this clear. In 2003, the US destroyed the Iraqi state on the premise that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime posed a direct and acute danger to US security. What followed the regime’s fall was not safety, but chaos. Hundreds of arms depots were looted within days. Black markets were flooded with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and mortar rounds, which landed in the hands of actors who were far less predictable, visible, and deterrable than Saddam’s regime.

That included the Islamic State, which eventually rose from the rubble of Iraq’s dissolved institutions. When it overran Mosul in 2014, it captured large stocks of US-supplied weaponry from Iraqi army bases — a second generation of proliferation cascading from the original act of state destruction. The pattern was structural, not accidental.

Libya should have reinforced that lesson. After NATO in 2011 helped topple then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, state institutions swiftly collapsed, and 3,000 to 12,000 portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) capable of downing civilian airliners vanished, only to reappear in the arms markets of the Sahel region, the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza and beyond.

The episodes bear out what every systematic study of leadership decapitation in weakly institutionalized regimes has found: The aftermath is fragmentation, not stabilization. The same would be true of Iran, but what will be dispersed after the regime’s fall could be far more dangerous than RPGs or MANPADS.

Before the US-Israeli strikes in June last year, the Islamic republic possessed 441kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, a short technical step from weapons grade. That is enough, by expert estimates, for about 10 nuclear devices. The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors have been effectively barred from Iran’s nuclear sites since the strikes, has said that it cannot account for the current size or whereabouts of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Some analysts think that it was entombed in collapsed underground facilities; others believe it was relocated to undisclosed sites before the bombings. Both assessments rest on fragmentary evidence — satellite imagery, signals intelligence and Iranian government statements, all of which are vulnerable to manipulation. Yet, they cast doubt on the Trump administration’s claim of “total obliteration.”

The strategic irony at the heart of the regime-destruction logic is that damaged facilities, scattered nuclear material, and demoralized or absent custodial personnel are precisely the conditions most conducive to diversion. In other words, far from ending the risk of proliferation, the US-Israeli strikes have compounded it.

Even if the probability of diversion remains low, it must be handled with the utmost seriousness. This is the cardinal principle of nuclear security: Fissile material that is not under secure state control must be evaluated on the basis of worst-case potential, not average likelihood. When terrorist networks gained access to MANPADS, it was a catastrophe. If they secure weapons-usable nuclear material, the logic of nuclear deterrence itself would be broken.

Deterrence requires a return address — even if the address is a hostile state. Even a hostile state has a capital, a leadership and a population it wishes to preserve. Remove them, and the architecture that has prevented nuclear use since 1945 begins to collapse. You cannot negotiate safeguards with a vacuum. You cannot sign an agreement with a fragmented territory. You cannot verify compliance by a state that no longer exists.

The state that currently maintains custodianship over Iran’s nuclear material — however imperfect or hostile — is the only entity with which an enforceable constraint could be achieved. Destroy it, and you make resolving the nuclear threat both more urgent and effectively impossible.

The Soviet precedent is instructive. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, the degradation of security systems left nuclear materials vulnerable. Following the lead of George Soros, who created a foundation to support Soviet scientists with the aim of preventing brain drain and mitigating the risk of nuclear proliferation, the US began to invest heavily in cooperative threat-reduction programs.

Iran’s situation is, in some respects, more precarious, as its nuclear infrastructure has long combined declared and clandestine elements. Physical material is not the only concern. Iran has trained a substantial cadre of nuclear scientists over the decades. In a state-collapse scenario, such specialists become free agents, available to anyone willing to pay. Meanwhile, lower-grade nuclear material could be repurposed into radiological dispersal devices (“dirty bombs”) capable of contaminating urban areas. In the absence of institutional custody, each enrichment site, research facility and reactor implies distinct risks.

The US sees regimes it can strike and concludes that striking them resolves the dangers they pose. However, eliminating a visible adversary does not neutralize the underlying threat; it merely transforms that threat into something elusive, opaque, decentralized, unaccountable and impossible to negotiate with or monitor. Until the US recognizes this — until it internalizes the lessons of Baghdad and Tripoli, and potentially of Tehran — it will continue to generate dangers that no missile can reach.

Stephen Holmes, professor of law at New York University School of Law and the Richard Holbrooke Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, is the coauthor (with Ivan Krastev) of The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Penguin Books, 2019).

Copyright: Project Syndicate


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HOSTILE HOST: Iran’s role in the tournament may be dicey, as the host country of many of the scheduled games is currently engaged in a shooting war with them

Iran’s place at the men’s World Cup in three months was cast into doubt on Monday amid the war started by the soccer tournament’s co-host, the US.

Iran is due to play its three group stage games in the US — two in Inglewood, California, then in Seattle — from June 15 to 26. Cities in Canada and Mexico also host some of the 104 games.

The US and Israel have targeted Iran in coordinated attacks since Saturday that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens more senior officials.

President of Iran Football Federation Mehdi Taj and Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani stand next to the FIFA World Cup Trophy in Tehran in 2022. Photo: Reuters via WANA

Iran retaliated by firing missiles at US allies including 2022 World Cup host Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which FIFA has picked to stage the 2034 edition.

“What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope,” said Iran’s top soccer official Mehdi Taj, a vice president of the Asian Football Confederation.

It is unclear if the state-backed Iranian soccer federation would refuse to send its team to the 48-nation tournament that starts June 11, or if the US government would block the team.

FIFA has declined comment since Saturday, when secretary general Mattias Grafstrom said it would “monitor developments around all issues around the world.”

The White House’s top official overseeing World Cup preparations, Andrew Guiliani, seemed unconcerned on Saturday in a social media post.

“We’ll deal with soccer games tomorrow,” Guiliani wrote about Iran. “Tonight, we celebrate their opportunity for freedom.”

Iran has one of the best national teams in Asia and has qualified for six of the past eight World Cups.

It is No. 20 in the FIFA world rankings of 211 teams, and has not been lower than No. 24 since the last World Cup in Qatar.

Iran was among the second-seeded teams in the World Cup draw held in Washington in December, minutes after US President Donald Trump was presented with the newly invented FIFA “Peace Prize.”

Although Taj and other Iranian soccer officials were denied visas to enter the US, the draw outcome was favorable for Iran, especially in the expanded format where most third-place teams advance to the knockout rounds.

Iran starts against low-ranked New Zealand, then plays one of the weaker top-seeded nations, Belgium, and finishes against Egypt.

Iran is likely to be supported in stadiums by its diaspora in the US, though residents of the Iran itself are banned from entering the US.

Trump’s government has promised exemptions from its travel bans for athletes and coaches

arriving for major sports events like the World Cup.

Politics around Iran inside World Cup stadiums is nothing new. Protests over domestic issues were aired by Iran fans at the last World Cup.

FIFA’s World Cup regulations have contingencies for a team withdrawing, or being excluded, from the tournament though the legal language is vague.

In that scenario, according to Article 6.7, “FIFA shall decide on the matter at its sole discretion and take whatever action is deemed necessary.”

“FIFA may decide to replace the Participating Member Association in question with another association,” the rules say.

That legal framing seems to give FIFA president Gianni Infantino wide powers to shape any decision relating to Iran.

Should Iran pull out of the World Cup — still hugely speculative — its soccer federation would forfeit at least US$10.5 million.

FIFA pays US$9 million in prize money to each of the 16 federations whose teams fail to advance from the group stage, and all 48 qualified teams get US$1.5 million “to cover preparation costs.”

The Iranian federation would face disciplinary fines from FIFA — at least 250,000 Swiss francs (US$318,780) for withdrawing up to 30 days before the tournament, and at least SF500,000 if the decision is in the last month before kickoff.

Iran would risk being excluded by FIFA from qualifying for the next World Cup in 2030 as well.

Iran was a fast World Cup qualifier last March, earning one of eight guaranteed places allocated to the Asian Football Confederation.

Should Iran pull out, Iraq or the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are likely replacements.

Iraq and the UAE were effectively the ninth and 10th-ranked Asian teams through the various qualifying groups and advanced to a two-leg playoff last November.

Iraq won 3-2 on aggregate — eliminating the UAE — to advance to the intercontinental playoffs in Mexico and, on March 31, it is scheduled to play an elimination game against Bolivia or Suriname with a World Cup place at stake.

One possible element of uncertainty is the language of the World Cup tournament rules.

FIFA wrote that it can decide to replace a withdrawn team “with another association,” though without specifying the replacement must come from the same continental confederation.

Denmark famously won the 1992 European Championship after getting a late invitation from UEFA, European soccer’s ruling body.

Yugoslavia won a qualifying group ahead of Denmark but was removed by UEFA less than two weeks before the tournament because of a UN sanctions resolution during the widening Balkans conflict.

Teams have refused to travel to a World Cup, though not in the modern era.

Just 13 teams instead of 16 took part in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, with India and Scotland among teams declining a place.

title: Iran’s place in World Cup uncertain


title: Gibson-Park, Ireland Rugby’s ‘petit general’

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Ireland scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park’s decisionmaking and quickfire passing reminds his former teammate Mike Ross of France’s tradition of having a “petit general” on the field.

New Zealand-born Gibson-Park, perhaps stung by being on the replacements bench for the Six Nations match against Italy, turned in a man of the match performance in the 42-21 hammering of England last month.

The 34-year-old’s display had a positive impact on fly-half Jack Crowley, who had come in for Sam Prendergast.

Ireland scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park (green) takes a tackle during a Six Nations game that Ireland would go on to defeat England 42-21 in at Allianz Stadium in London on February 21, 2026. Photo: AFP

“Any out-half benefits from service and decision making,” Ross said. “It takes a load off your own decisionmaking.”

“The French have had at nine a ‘petit general’ for a long time,” he said.

Ross, a former prop who was capped 61 times and was a member of two Six Nations-winning teams, said Gibson-Park has few peers at the moment.

“I would put only [Antoine] Dupont ahead of him,” Ross said.

“His clarity and decisions makes playing for the other players easy to do... What I want as a forward is to be bullied by my scrum-half. I would say to them ‘I’ll let you do my thinking for me if I get you the ball’,” he said.

Ross does not know whether being benched against Italy, after starting in the humbling 36-14 loss against France the week before, was coach Andy Farrell wanting to “rest Gibson-Park” or give him a “kick in the ass.”

Ross, who won two European Cups with Leinster before hanging up his boots in 2017, said Gibson-Park, much as any professional player, would have been bristling watching Craig Casey start the match.

“No player wants to give his opponent a chance in the jersey,” Ross said. “I think watching someone in your jersey, as you see it, you do not want to give him another chance in the jersey.”

Gibson-Park, who should win his 50th cap against Wales in Dublin on Friday, qualified to play for Ireland in 2019 but was first selected by Andy Farrell in October 2020 for the remaining Six Nations matches.

They had been postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, beginning his battle with Conor Murray to become the first choice scrum-half.

In 2024, Gibson-Park had broken up the legendary half-back pairing of Murray and fly-half Johnny Sexton.

“He is a different style of player to Murray,” said Ross. “Conor was a very physical scrum-half, almost like an auxiliary back row at times and one of the best in the world in 2016.”

“Jamison is best at moving the ball quickly, choosing the right options, deadly round the side of the ruck,” he said. “Jamison is more of a scamperer, but it’s good to have the two styles.”

Gibson-Park is a far cry from the man who Ross first met in 2016 when he arrived at Leinster.

“He was very laid back, he would walk round in long baggy clothes,” said Ross.

“If you look at his background, he grew up on the Great Barrier Island and he was a decent surfer by all accounts. He walked around like a surfer,” he said. “Although it took him a while to come out of his shell, he was very comfortable in his own skin.”

His laid-back attitude blends well with his humility, Ross said.

The first thing he did on being interviewed as man of the match after the England game was not to point to his own performance in the match, but to congratulate English captain Maro Itoje on his 100th cap.

“It’s a pretty phenomenal feat. He’s a great bloke and a great player,” Gibson-Park said.

All of Gibson-Park’s teammates would probably echo those sentiments about their “petit general.”


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Taiwan yesterday defeated the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ farm team 5-1 in their final warm-up game ahead of their World Baseball Classic (WBC) Pool C opener.

Taiwan’s bullpen used an unconventional rotation, with a different pitcher throwing each inning for the first seven innings.

Together, they combined for eight strikeouts while allowing only four hits. The lone run surrendered came in the bottom of the eighth inning after a pitcher from Japan’s independent league took the mound.

Lee Hao-yu, rear, tags a runner out during a warm-up game yesterday against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ farm team in Miyazaki, Japan, before the start of the World Baseball Classic. Photo: CNA

The pitching strategy was designed to preserve the arms of the Taiwanese ahead of their game against Australia at the Tokyo Dome tomorrow morning.

Taiwanese-American Stuart Fairchild shone in his international debut. Batting leadoff, the Seattle native reached base in all four plate appearances with two hits, a walk and an RBI.

Lin An-ko also had two hits.

Tomorrow’s contest represented Taiwan’s only opportunity to adjust in a live-game setting with a full roster, following the cancelation of Monday’s scheduled match.

“It’s a shame we only had one game to play together,” national team captain Chen Chieh-hsien said after the game. “It feels different from when we played in Taiwan.”

While Chen noted that additional game time for the full roster would have been ideal, he emphasized that “the overall team atmosphere is great.”

The team is scheduled to practice at the Tokyo Dome today.

title: Taiwan beat SoftBank farm team in final warm-up


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VIDEO DEPOSITION:  Former US president Bill Clinton said he broke ties with Jeffrey Epstein before the late financier’s sex crimes came to light in 2008

Former US president Bill Clinton in sworn testimony released on Monday by a US congressional committee said that he had no knowledge of the sex crimes of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Clinton also said that US President Donald Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein, “never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein either.”

Bill Clinton and his wife, former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, were deposed last week by the Republican-led US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Former US president Bill Clinton speaks during a deposition in Chappaqua, New York, on Friday last week. Photo: AFP / US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

The depositions were held behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside, and the committee released videos of their testimony on Monday.

Each video is about four-and-a-half hours long.

Hillary Clinton told the panel that she did not know Epstein, and Bill Clinton said he broke ties with him before the financier’s sex crimes came to light in 2008.

Bill Clinton acknowledged during his testimony that he flew on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.

“There’s nothing that I saw when I was around him that made me realize he was trafficking women,” he said.

Asked by a committee member whether he ever had sexual contact with any young women or girls introduced to him by Epstein or Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Clinton replied: “No.”

The former president also recalled a conversation he once had on a golf course with Trump in 2002 or 2003.

“The president never — this is 20 something years ago — never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein either,” Bill Clinton said. “He just didn’t.”

He quoted Trump as saying about Epstein: “You know, we had some great times together over the years, but we fell out all because of a real-estate deal.”

Trump has given various explanations over the years for the end of his friendship with Epstein.

During her deposition, Hillary Clinton called for the panel to depose Trump about his relations with Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

Hillary Clinton angrily threatened at one point to cut the deposition short after a photograph taken by a Republican lawmaker was released publicly in a breach of the rules.

“I’m done with this. If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home,” she said before pounding the table with her fist.

Both Bill Clinton and Trump figure prominently in the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice, but neither has been formally accused of any wrongdoing.

Bill Clinton has previously acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein, but said he never visited his infamous Caribbean island where the financier allegedly trafficked young women and girls.

title: Clinton says he was not aware of Epstein’s crimes


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Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran.

The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US.

Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much.

A boy displaced during the two-year Israeli offensive looks out of a damaged car in Gaza City on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during war.

Gaza is wholly dependent on fuel brought in by trucks from Israel and Egypt, and a lack of fresh supplies would put hospital operations at risk, and threaten water and sanitation services, local officials said.

Most Palestinians in Gaza are internally displaced after Israel’s two-year war with Hamas.

“I expect we have maybe a couple of days’ running time,” said Karuna Herrmann, the Jerusalem director of the UN Office for Project Services, which manages fuel distribution in Gaza.

Amjad al-Shawa, a Palestinian aid leader in Gaza, who works with the UN and non-governmental organizations, estimated fuel supplies could last three or four days, while stocks of vegetables, flour and other essentials could also soon run out if the crossings remain shut.

Reuters was unable to independently verify those estimates.

Israel’s COGAT military agency, which controls access to Gaza, said that enough food had been delivered to the territory since the start of a truce in October last year.

“[The] existing stock is expected to suffice for an extended period,” COGAT said, without elaborating.

It declined to comment on potential fuel shortages.

The truce was part of a broader US-backed plan to end the war that involves reopening the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, increasing the flow of aid into the enclave and rebuilding it.

Hamada Abu Laila, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza, said the closures were stoking fear of a return of famine, which gripped parts of the enclave last year after Israel blocked aid deliveries for 11 weeks.

“Why is it our fault, in Gaza, with regional wars between Israel, Iran and America? It is not our fault,” Abu Laila said.

title: Gaza’s fuel running short amid Iran conflict


content_text:
Slick artificial intelligence (AI)-generated disinformation has flooded the election campaign in Nepal, which votes tomorrow in the first polls since deadly protests triggered by a brief ban on social media overthrew the government.

The protests in September last year were driven by tech-savvy young people angry at job shortages and flagrant corruption by an aging political elite.

Now parties across the political divide are tapping social media to push their agendas and woo voters, especially the young, including a surge of people registering to cast their ballot for the first time, but some of the content is manipulated or outright fake, experts and fact-checkers said.

A demonstrator holding a placard waves the Nepalese national flag as he stands atop a water cannon belonging to the Armed Police Force outside the entrance of parliament during protests in Kathmandu on Sept. 8 last year. Photo: Reuters

“In a country where digital literacy is low, people believe what they see,” said Deepak Adhikari, editor of the independent NepalCheck team.

Kathmandu-based technology policy researcher Samik Kharel described a “digital battleground” in the buildup to the landmark vote, warning that Nepal lacked the expertise to monitor the onslaught of machine-generated content.

“It is even hard for experts to figure out what is real and fake,” Kharel said.

About 80 percent of all of Nepal’s internet traffic is through social media platforms, he said.

Internet analytics site DataReportal estimates that more than 56 percent of Nepal’s 30 million people are online, including 14.8 million Facebook users and about 4.3 million on Instagram. About 2.2 million are on TikTok, according to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of Nepal.

“Disinformation remains a top concern that could undermine the integrity of the election process,” said Ammaarah Nilafdeen of the US-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate.

“Nepal ... is grappling with the scale of the threat that disinformation poses to society and democracy at large,” Nilafdeen said.

The protests last year began after the government moved to regulate social media, briefly banning at least 26 platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X.

At least 77 people were killed in two days of unrest, parliament was set on fire and the government of four-time Nepalese prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli collapsed.

Activists used the group-chat app Discord to put forward their suggestion of interim leader — and days later their choice, 73-year-old former Nepalese chief justice Sushila Karki, was appointed to lead the nation to elections.

Social media is playing a key role again.

Loyalists of the ousted prime minister’s Marxist party have shared AI-generated images purporting to be drone photographs of a massive gathering — which were then reposted by top leaders, boasting a sea of more than 500,000 supporters.

Analysis by Nepalese online fact-check experts TechPana found the images had been created using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, while police said less than 5,000 people were at the real event.

Another AI-generated video that circulated on TikTok purported to show Gagan Thapa, leader of the Nepali Congress party, urging voters to back a rival party. The platform has removed the video.

In neighboring India, posts calling to restore Nepal’s deposed Hindu monarchy have made the rounds on social media, Nilafdeen said.

Such “ideological pushes” online — in this case “amplified by Hindu far-right supporters in India” — stand in contrast to “domestic demands for strengthening democratic institutions,” she said.

The Nepalese Election Commission says there is widespread use of hate speech and deepfake content, including videos created with readily available AI tools purporting to show candidates insulting opponents or using obscene language.

“It is a concerning issue,” commission information officer Suman Ghimire said.

More than 600 cases have been passed on to the authorities, he added, with about 150 handled by the police.

In one case, police detained a pro-royalist supporter, Durga Prasai, for social media posts allegedly meant to intimidate potential voters.

The commission can impose fines or bar candidates from running, but experts say the sheer scale of disinformation and hate speech online outstrips any effective response.

“Candidates and people close to political parties not only compete to win, but also compete to spread misinformation,” said Basanta Basnet, editor-in-chief of news Web site Onlinekhabar, which has collaborated with Nepal FactCheck to verify posts.

The organization has warned that “misinformation encourages citizens to take wrong decisions,” which in turn could undermine the “foundation of democracy.”

title: AI turns Nepal’s election into ‘digital battleground’


content_text:
As Vietnam’s new AI law takes effect, governments worldwide are split between strict risk-based rules, light-touch innovation policies and outright resistance to global oversight

Since ChatGPT stunned the world three years ago with the powers of generative AI, countries have grappled with how to govern the rapidly developing technology.

As Vietnam’s artificial intelligence law goes into effect on Sunday, here is a look at regulation efforts around the globe:

EU: FIRST MOVE

Protesters on Feb. 28 gather with banners and placards outside the offices of Google at a protest organized by PauseAI UK and other groups concerned in controlling the development of advanced Artificial Intelligence systems, in London. Photo: AFP

The European Union is considered a trailblazer, having adopted in 2024 what it calls “the world’s first comprehensive AI law” penalized with heavy fines.

The law takes a risk-based approach: if a system is high-risk, a company will have a stricter set of obligations to fulfill before being authorized in the EU.

These landmark rules have faced pushback from the US under President Donald Trump, but also from businesses and governments at home that complain they could hamper growth.

The EU bowed to pressure last year and proposed changes including partially delaying the law’s application in a move it says will help European companies compete globally.

The law will now be fully applicable next year, but the EU already allows regulators to ban systems deemed to pose unacceptable risks.

That could include “social scoring” systems that lead to discrimination by classifying individuals or groups based on social behavior or personal traits.

US: LAND OF THE FREE

The US, home to ChatGPT maker OpenAI, chip titan Nvidia and tech giants like Google, is not keen on enacting new rules.

Vice President JD Vance has warned against “excessive regulation” that “could kill a transformative sector.”

And at a major AI summit in New Delhi last month, the US delegation head said the country “totally” rejects global governance of AI.

Some states have taken matters into their own hands, although the Washington is trying to find ways to stop this from happening.

California enacted a first-of-its-kind law in October requiring AI chatbot operators to implement safeguards such as referring people who express thoughts on suicide to crisis services.

ASIA: NEW LAWS

A wide-ranging law took full effect in South Korea in January, requiring companies to tell users when products use generative AI.

It also says they must clearly label content, including deepfakes, that cannot readily be differentiated from reality.

Places like Taiwan and Japan are taking a lighter touch on AI regulation, shying away from penalties in favor of voluntary guidelines promoting innovation.

China — racing to challenge US dominance in the technology — has its own complex and evolving set of guardrails.

“What stands out about China is how regulated it is, despite the innovation happening,” said Seth Hays, author of the Asia AI Policy Monitor newsletter.

“For example, firms need to register their models with the government, and there are stricter content moderation, labeling and user verification requirements not seen elsewhere.”

GLOBAL DEBATE

Many other countries, from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates, are implementing AI frameworks that can roughly be divided into risk-based rules like the EU’s, or pro-innovation guidelines.

At the New Delhi summit, 91 countries and organizations called for “secure, trustworthy and robust” AI.

But their declaration, signed by the US and China, was criticized by AI safety campaigners for being too generic to protect the public.

A 40-member UN expert panel has also been established to work towards “science-led governance” of the technology, the global body’s chief Antonio Guterres has said.

title: From Brussels to Taipei: The global race to regulate AI


title: Second-hand phones surf rising green consumer wave

content_text:
The second-hand market for smartphones has surged in recent years, borne up by lower prices as well as interest in eco-friendly consumption even as some still fear buying a dud.

The success of refurbished phones is a reminder that flashy new gadgets and cutting-edge capabilities, on show this week at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) telecoms trade fair, are not the only engines of the sector.

Around 46 percent of Europeans have already taken the plunge by buying a second-hand device, marketplace Recommerce found in a survey last year commissioned from pollsters Kantar.

A woman smeared with colored powder on Monday uses her smartphone as she celebrates Holi, the Hindu spring festival of colors at the Durbar square in Kathmandu. Photo: AFP

But the picture varies around the world, as “mature markets in Europe and parts of North America tend to show higher refurbished uptake,” according to a report from analysis firm Mordor Intelligence, which estimates the second-hand market at 10 percent of worldwide phone purchases annually.

Western consumers “are increasingly aligning with circular-economy principles, prioritizing lifecycle extension and reducing electronic waste” as environmental concerns permeate public debate, the authors wrote.

PRICE AND PLANET

Price remains the killer argument for refurbished phones, with second-hand models sometimes half as expensive as a factory-fresh alternative, attracting consumers who have seen purchasing power ground down by inflation.

Almost twice as many respondents to Recommerce’s survey named price as a factor in their choice, compared to the environment.

“It gives citizens and consumers yet another reason to not go out and buy a product that’s too expensive,” said Thibaud Hug de Larauze, co-founder of refurbished tech marketplace Back Market.

Although smartphone sales remain dominated by new devices from hardware giants such as Apple and Samsung, his company achieved profitability for the first time in its 12-year history last year.

Meanwhile the environmental impact of buying a second-hand phone can be significantly lower, avoiding the use of new materials and the carbon emissions that go into producing each device.

“A refurbished phone can have an 87-percent lower climate impact compared to a new phone,” said Steven Moore, head of climate action at the GSMA global mobile operators’ group.

NT$100 BILLION MARKET?

But such arguments do little to allay the fears of prospective buyers who fear they could find they’ve handed over hundreds for a lemon.

“There’s still a perception that the phones will break sooner,” Moore said.

Hug de Larauze said refurbishing companies are trying to “counter the skepticism,” including with offers for “premium” devices with a like-new finish and fresh batteries — now accounting for around 20 percent of Back Market’s sales.

Recommerce chief Augustin Becquet said the company had turned to “transparency” to win over consumers, offering an externally audited quality label and warranties for one or two years.

“Warranties are critical,” said Claire Gillies, head of BT Group’s consumer division, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Buyers want “standardisation... some understanding of what quality I’ll be getting,” she added.

Forecast to be worth around US$70 billion this year, the refurbished device market is set to grow to US$100 billion in five years’ time, according to Mordor Intelligence.

But like many other tech fields, it could fall victim to the geopolitical and trade tensions that have re-emerged since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

“It’s definitely not helping... it’s a shame that things are being slowed when we really need things to be accelerated,” said the GSMA’s Moore.


title: 伊朗想談判？川普嗆「太遲了」：他們防空、海空軍與領導層全毀

content_text:
▲美國總統川普。（圖／路透）

記者閔文昱／綜合報導

中東衝突持續升溫之際，美國總統川普（Donald Trump）3日在自家社群平台Truth Social發文，強硬回應外界對伊朗可能尋求談判的說法，直言「太遲了！」

川普在貼文中寫道：「他們的防空、空軍、海軍和領導層都沒了。他們想談，我說『太遲了！』」語氣強硬，再度釋出不願退讓的訊號。

▲美國、以色列持續轟炸伊朗。（圖／路透）

稱伊朗軍事體系「已瓦解」

川普宣稱，伊朗的防空系統、空軍、海軍乃至領導層均遭摧毀，形容對方整體軍事架構已經瓦解。不過，他並未說明具體軍事成果細節，也未交代所謂「想談判」的訊息來源。

目前尚不清楚川普所指伊朗尋求對話，是最新發展，或僅是雙方隔空交鋒的一環。伊朗方面先前則否認主動求和，並批評美方說法失實。

▲美以「空襲伊朗」多處設施被炸爛冒煙。（圖／路透）

戰事走向受關注

隨著美國與以色列對伊朗發動空襲行動，中東局勢持續動盪。外界高度關注華府是否有意透過軍事壓力迫使伊朗讓步，以及衝突將持續多久。

川普日前曾表示，軍事行動可能持續數周，但強調美方目標在於削弱伊朗軍事能力，而非無止境擴大戰事。此次再度公開表態拒絕談判，也讓未來局勢發展增添更多變數。

countries: 伊朗 美國 以色列


content_text:
▲WBC日本隊近藤健介熱身賽最後一戰繳出雙安。（圖／達志影像／美聯社）

記者蔡厚瑄／綜合報導

目標在3月5日開幕的世界棒球經典賽（WBC）達成連霸的日本代表隊「侍Japan」，3日在大阪京瓷巨蛋的最後一場熱身賽以5比4贏球，日本隊總教練井端弘和賽前針對打序做出調整，除了安排大谷翔平重回開路先鋒，近藤健介則改打2棒，今繳出3打數雙安1打點的亮眼成績，成功終結先前連4場無安打的小低潮，展現出作為「大谷後援」的強大存在感與戰術執行力。

大谷翔平此役重回他在大聯盟道奇隊熟悉的1棒位置，井端總教練解釋，這項調度是為了確認大谷在習慣棒次上的發揮氛圍，雖然大谷今日2打數仍掛零，但近藤健介在後方的支援成為得分關鍵。

3局上半，日本隊中村悠平執行犧牲觸擊後，大谷擊出二壘方向滾地球成功推進跑者，隨後近藤健介在2出局三壘有人的機會下，擊出中外野適時安打奪分，井端監督對此給予高度評價，指出近藤今日將擊球點回歸至球場中心區域，這種「近藤式」的打法證明他已為正賽做好準備，對此近藤透露，目前他的打擊動作仍處於一邊嘗試、一邊追求結果的階段，即使在大賽前調整動作對他而言也是家常便飯，完全沒有違和感。

而面對擔任「大谷後援」的角色，近藤健介雖然曾開玩笑說過「排在翔平後面壓力太大，超討厭的。」但實戰中卻顯得極其冷靜。賽後受訪時他也分析，「要做的事其實沒變。在翔平後面打球，壘上有人的機會確實變多。雖然安打串聯最理想，但還是要考慮推進跑者的打法。」

▲WBC日本隊近藤健介、大谷翔平。（圖／達志影像／美聯社）

隨著強化賽圓滿收官，日本隊已將「大谷、近藤、鈴木」的前三棒連線視為得分核心。井端監督強調，雖然大谷在合流後的強化賽中5打數無安打，不過井端監督還是相當相信這位巨星，也再度重申「正賽沒問題，他將是關鍵人物」、「只要揮棒品質在，就不擔心結果。」

日本隊接下來將利用最後兩天在東京巨蛋徹底確認團隊戰術與暗號，全力在3月6日首戰對決中華隊。

title: 雖然討厭排在翔平後面...近藤健介手感回溫、雙安展「大谷後援」價值


title: 士林美食又-1！「蒸餃阿姨」228過世　顧客一聽超不捨

content_text:
▲周旺蒸餃酸辣湯。（圖／爆肝護士的玩樂記事授權提供，請勿隨意翻拍以免侵權）

記者柯振中／綜合報導

北市士林區中正路上的「周旺蒸餃酸辣湯」相當有名，許多顧客都已光顧多年，老闆娘也因此獲得了「蒸餃阿姨」的名號。怎料老闆娘近日傳出病逝消息，讓大量顧客感到震驚不捨，不禁留言「阿姨一路好走！謝謝妳的美味蒸餃」。

粉專證實噩耗 公祭時間曝光

臉書粉專「爆肝護士的玩樂記事」3日晚間發布貼文，指稱經營「周旺蒸餃酸辣湯」的老闆娘228已經離世，3月14日下午4點30分，將在板橋殯儀館的明倫廳舉行公祭。

「爆肝護士的玩樂記事」同時也提醒，目前老闆娘的家屬正在治喪，希望顧客不要在非公祭期間前往，以免打擾到家屬。

老顧客湧入留言 感謝多年美味陪伴

許多顧客看見以後，難過地留言致哀，「阿姨一路好走！謝謝你的美味蒸餃」、「好難過…我們是常客！RIP謝謝您帶給我們的美食及美好回憶」、「我大學的時候，買過她的煎餃真的很好吃」、「阿姨的蒸餃真的很好吃，可惜以後再也吃不到了」、「那巷子沒落了，最近經過都空空的。」

家屬證實辭世 店面暫停營業

此外，老闆娘的兒子也在Google評論上留言，指稱母親2月28日已安詳辭世，相當感謝顧客的支持。目前「周旺蒸餃酸辣湯」的營業時間也已更改為「暫停營業」。

taiwan-subdivisions: 士林 中正 士林區 板橋


content_text:
記者蔡宜芳／綜合報導

大陸女星Angelababy（楊穎）在2015年和黃曉明舉辦世紀婚禮，曾是羨煞眾人的神仙眷侶，怎料，兩人卻於2022年宣布離婚，震驚外界。Angelababy在離婚後，一度經歷封殺危機，直到去年才解禁，而順利回歸工作的她，也被爆已經有新戀情。

▲Angelababy在2022年宣布和黃曉明離婚。（圖／翻攝自微博／angelababy、黃曉明）

大陸狗仔「劉大錘」在直播中被網友問到「Angelababy離婚後是否談過戀愛」，他肯定地表示：「談過、談過，因為我們之前在橫店那拍過一回。」只是當時Angelababy的工作人員不認、聲稱「我姊單身」，對此，劉大錘吐槽：「單身個屁。」

▲Angelababy被狗仔爆料有新歡。（圖／翻攝自微博／angelababy）

另一名狗仔則表示，自己也聽聞不少Angelababy在離婚後的緋聞，「應該是在香港有一個年紀比她小的男朋友，但是當然我們到現在還沒有拍到過。」他補充指出，因為Angelababy現在已將事業重心放回香港，基本上很少出現在大陸，很難直接捕捉到證據。

對此，許多網友都表示「ab談戀愛不知道是不是真的，我都支持」、「支持Angelababy，離婚後有自己的生活很正常」、「希望她能幸福」，也有人認為只是狗仔炒話題，「感覺又開始編故事了，太無聊了」、「為什麼總是拿她的私生活說事，真心不理解」。

▲Angelababy將事業重心移回香港。（圖／翻攝自微博／angelababy）

title: Angelababy離婚4年爆擁新歡！　回香港發展「秘戀年下男」


title: 補考大谷給過！鈴木誠也開轟實踐「點茶」慶祝　北山亘基說能睡了

content_text:
▲WBC日本隊北山亘基對全隊展示「點茶」慶祝動作。（圖／達志影像／美聯社）

記者蔡厚瑄／綜合報導

2026年世界棒球經典賽（WBC）的日本代表隊，3日在大阪京瓷巨蛋對戰阪神虎熱身賽，正式公布了全新的團隊慶祝動作，鈴木誠也在1局上轟出特大號全壘打，繞壘時他做出了像是「點茶」的動作，馬上引發球迷熱議，其實這動作是26歲投手北山亘基在大谷與鈴木的「指名要求」下，歷經數日苦思並在遭到打槍後改良而成的成果，北山賽後如釋重負，還自爆為了想出動作，他連續三天都失眠「現在任務達成，終於可以好好睡一覺！」

最初是大谷翔平下令要求北山亘基構思一個能接棒上屆「胡椒研磨器」的動作，北山考量到融入日本傳統文化以及大谷代言茶飲品牌的背景，於2日對歐力士之戰提出了「轉動茶碗飲茶」的動作，但因流程太長且在壘包上流傳度不佳，當場被大谷以「果然還是不行」直接打槍，鈴木誠也當時也吐槽評價有點差，要求北山重想。

北山透露，為了這項「大任」，他這幾天壓力大到寢食難安，甚至坦言這比正式上場比賽還要緊張，畢竟投手很少有機會進到圓陣中央向全隊發表意見。

為了完成這場「補考」，北山於2日晚間聚餐時，與大谷、鈴木、村上宗隆等人再次商量，大谷提醒動作應以「簡短」為目標，北山隨即靈光一閃，聯想到點茶的「點」字在漢字中也有「得分（點を取る）」的意思，今日賽前他也對全隊展示新動作和喊話：「因為之前的不流行，新動作簡化為『點茶姿勢』。讓我們攪動球場，點好茶，全隊一起拿分數吧！」

而最後這套結合京都人對抹茶的堅持（北山為京都出身）與棒球得分聯想的動作，終於首局鈴木誠也開轟後成功由全隊實踐。

▲WBC日本隊鈴木誠也首局開轟後率先實踐「點茶」慶祝動作。（圖／達志影像／美聯社）

鈴木誠也 打った瞬間確信のソロホームラン新しいパフォーマンスも披露 pic.twitter.com/lLnLxJXZth

— Shifttrr (@Shifttrr) March 3, 2026 賽後北山亘基受訪時開心笑說總算達成任務，「今天終於可以倒頭大睡了」。他提到儘管大谷仍開玩笑吐槽「理由是後來才編的吧」，但隨著鈴木誠也率先帶頭實行，這套「點茶姿勢」已成功強化了日本隊的凝聚力，最後北山也表示，雖然本職應在投球上表現，但能被前輩指名這項任務並帶動球隊氣勢，是一次很棒的經驗，他也想將這份衝勁帶到後續的投球表現中，與全隊一心爭取二連霸。


title: Angelababy離婚4年爆擁新歡！　回香港發展「秘戀年下男」


title: M5 Pro、MAX晶片來啦！MacBook Pro突襲公開　頂規售價逼近13萬

companies: 蘋果 Apple

content_text:
記者蘇晟彥／綜合報導

蘋果（Apple）春季發表會第二波，帶來筆電系列，今年MacBook Pro將搭載全新M5 Pro、M5 Max晶片，同時搭配兩倍速度的 SSD 和 1TB 的起始儲存空間，讓 AI 效能比前一代高達 4 倍，比 M1 機型的 AI 效能高達 8 倍。在價格方面，最便宜的14吋、M5晶片從54,900元起，頂規16吋、M5 MAX晶片將達到129,900元起，目前都將提供太空黑色和銀色兩種顏色。而根據傳聞，明天將會有最後一波新品發表，約在台灣時間晚上十點會公開。

蘋果 2日晚間再度突襲發表全新 14 吋與 16 吋 MacBook Pro，搭載全新 M5 Pro 和 M5 Max，全新晶片能讓 AI 效能比前一代高達 4 倍，比 M1 機型的 AI 效能高達 8 倍。

M5系列MacBook Pro現在更具備高達 2 倍的 SSD 效能，以及 1TB 的 M5 Pro 起始儲存空間和 2TB 的 M5 Max 起始儲存空間。新款 MacBook Pro 採用 Apple 設計的無線網路晶片 N1，支援 Wi-Fi 7 和藍牙 6，具備高達 24 小時的電池續航力；絕美 Liquid Retina XDR 顯示器，提供奈米紋理選項；支援多種連接功能包括 Thunderbolt 5；1200 萬像素 Center Stage 相機；錄音室等級麥克風；沉浸式六揚聲器音響系統；Apple Intelligence 功能；以及 macOS Tahoe 的出眾實力。

價格與上市日期

搭載 M5 Pro 的 14 吋 MacBook Pro 售價 74,900元起，教育優惠價 69,790元起；搭載 M5 Pro 的 16 吋 MacBook Pro 售價 89,900元 起，教育優惠價 83,190元起。

搭載 M5 Max 的 14 吋 MacBook Pro 售價 119,900元起，教育優惠價 109,890元起；搭載 M5 Max 的 16 吋 MacBook Pro 售價 129,900元起，教育優惠價 119,890元起。

搭載 M5 的 14 吋 MacBook Pro 標配儲存空間為 1TB，提供太空黑色和銀色外觀選項，售價 54,900元起，教育優惠價 NT$51,690 起。

所有機型都將提供太空黑色、銀色兩種選擇，目前官網頁已經上架開放預購，每人限購6台，都將於日後在台上市。


title: M5新款MacBook Air來了！入門款「容量翻倍」加價3000元

content_text:
▲蘋果發布M5新款MacBook Air。（圖／蘋果提供，下同）

記者許力方／台北報導

傳說中的蘋果「春季發表會」持續推出多項新品，3日晚間官網更新，搭載M5晶片的全新13吋與15吋MacBookAir，主打AI運算與多工效能提升，並將入門儲存容量翻倍至512GB，13、15吋分別售價3萬5900元起、4萬2900元起，將於日後在台開賣。

M5晶片加持 AI與圖形效能躍進

新款MacBookAir最大亮點在於升級至M5晶片，採10核心CPU與最高10核心GPU設計，並強化神經網路引擎，提升裝置端AI運算能力。官方指出，相較M1機型，處理AI任務速度最高可提升至9.5倍，與M4相比也快了4倍，可順暢執行大型語言模型與AI創作工具。

此外，M5晶片搭載第三代光線追蹤技術與強化著色器核心，應用於3D渲染與遊戲場景更具優勢。統一記憶體頻寬達153GB/s，較前代提升28%，多工切換與App啟動速度更為流暢。蘋果並列舉，在影片優化、3D建模與影像處理等應用情境下，新機效能皆優於前代機種。

儲存翻倍起跳 支援Wi-Fi7與藍牙6

儲存容量方面，入門款升級加量由256GB提升至512GB，最高可選4TB。蘋果強調，新一代SSD讀寫速度較前代提升2倍。顯示器採Liquid視網膜設計，13吋機型實際尺寸為13.6吋、15吋為15.3吋，亮度最高500尼特，支援10億色顯示。

續航力最長可達18小時，並支援快充，30分鐘可充至約50%電量，N1無線晶片支援Wi-Fi7與藍牙6，並配備兩個Thunderbolt 4連接埠與MagSafe充電孔，可連接各式配件，支援最多兩部外接顯示器。新機預載macOSTahoe系統，可在Mac上接聽iPhone行動電話與同步即時活動。

新款MacBookAir外觀延續無風扇鋁金屬機身設計，提供天藍色、午夜色、星光色與銀色四種配色。配備M5的13吋MacBookAir售價3萬5900起，15吋MacBookAir4萬2900起。

▼蘋果M5新款MacBook Air售價3萬5900元起。（AI協作圖／記者許力方製作，經編輯審核）


countries: 荷蘭 台灣

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（主流傳媒記者吳敏慈／台南報導）老化與慢性病年年增加，台南郭綜合醫院婦產部主任李耀泰指出，除了醫療治療外，日常生活型態才是關鍵，包括睡眠要充足、運動要規律、飲食要均衡，也可依需求適度使用營養補充品，這些都能幫助降低疾病風險。

全球平均每6人就有1人死於癌症，台灣最常見的是肺癌。過去多認為年齡增長、抽菸、基因體質、肥胖或曾有肺部疾病，是造成癌症的主要原因。不過，根據荷蘭飲食指引相關研究，如果飲食以植物性食物為主，減少肉類與含糖飲料攝取，可以降低小細胞與非小細胞肺癌的發生率與死亡率，而且這種效果與傳統危險因子並沒有直接關聯。

另外，有研究報告指出，生的白蒜頭可能降低肝癌、食道癌與肺癌的發生率。白蒜頭已被證實可改善血脂、血壓、提升纖維溶脂能力、具抗氧化作用，也能促進自然凋亡。不過，這些生理效果與癌症風險及死亡率之間並沒有直接關聯。研究推測，其可能透過調整細胞發育機制，進而減少腫瘤生長。

含咖啡因飲品也被納入討論。統計資料顯示，每天喝2.5杯茶，可能降低神經膠質瘤的風險，顯示飲食與某些腦部腫瘤之間可能存在相關性。

在眼睛健康方面，研究指出，長者出現黃斑部病變，與缺乏單元不飽和脂肪酸及多元不飽和脂肪酸有關。若每天補充Omega-3脂肪酸與DPA（二十二碳五烯酸），可改善老年性黃斑部病變，並減少失明機率。除此之外，加強運動、不抽菸、避免飲酒過量，也有助維持眼睛健康與良好視力。

至於肌肉骨骼系統，研究顯示，身體圓潤指數在4.5至5.0時，骨密度相對較佳；若過瘦（低於2）或肥胖（高於10），都可能導致骨密度流失。體重過重者，退化性關節炎、心血管疾病、脂肪肝與膽結石的風險也會提高，同時可能影響睡眠品質與認知功能，造成代謝異常，甚至增加癌症風險。

李耀泰提醒，維持適當體重、規律運動並改善飲食習慣，是預防老化相關疾病的基礎，透過生活型態調整與營養補充的配合，才能在長期中維持健康。

title: 吃什麼真的有差？醫師解析癌症、護眼與營養補充品關聯