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The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday launched a domestic quadruped robot research and development platform, and showcased two prototypes built in collaboration with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and local business partners.

As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves from generative AI to agentic and physical AI, robotics has become one of the government’s key national development priorities, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Chin-tsang (何晉滄) said at a news conference in Taipei.

Taiwan has a solid foundation for developing intelligent robots, backed by strengths in information and communications technology, semiconductors, precision manufacturing and systems integration, Ho said.

Ministry of Economic Affairs officials, industry representatives and tech researchers attend a news conference promoting domestically developed quadruped robots at the ministry in Taipei yesterday. Photo: CNA

Local companies, including Solomon Technology Corp (所羅門), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), Inventec Corp (英業達), Nexcom International Co (新漢) and Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機), joined to develop the platform over about 18 months, he said.

The two quadruped robot prototypes feature a large model capable of carrying up to 20kg and suitable for firefighting and underground tunnel inspections, and a smaller model with a 5kg payload has autonomous navigation and collaborative transport capabilities. They are system-integrated by Inventec and Compal, with visual payload supplied by Solomon and controllers developed by Nexcom.

Compal smart device business group research and development center vice president JS Liang (梁志賢) said that joint development and testing via the platform showed that Taiwan’s supply chain is competitive in quality and cost, while Teco energy and system automation business group president Scott Chen (陳恆偉) said that the company plans to leverage its motor technology for future development of humanoid and other mobile robots.

The ministry expects more companies to join the ITRI-led platform and develop robotics-related modules, accelerating the commercialization of Taiwan’s intelligent robotics industry, Ho said.

The ministry will continue to support companies through government-funded research and development programs to reduce their technology and product development risks, he said.

Most international quadruped robots use closed architecture, making it difficult for Taiwanese companies to access core control technologies or customize them for different applications, ITRI president Chang Pei-jen (張培仁) said.

The ITRI platform serves as an open reference design for local companies, he added.

In addition, the platform would provide a shared technology foundation for Taiwan’s robotics industry, with future commercialization focusing on complete robots tailored to customer needs or key components such as joint modules, control systems and sensor modules, which can be validated on the platform for performance and reliability, ITRI vice president Jwu-Sheng Hu (胡竹生) said.

title: MOEA launches domestic quadruped robot research


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IMF lowers 2026 world growth forecast to 3% as Middle East risks linger

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) yesterday cut its growth projection for the world economy again, saying an artificial intelligence (AI) boom has not fully offset the fallout from war in the Middle East.

Global economic growth is now estimated at 3.0 percent this year, the IMF said, down from 3.1 percent in its April forecast. The estimate was made before fresh exchanges of fire between the US and Iran in recent hours.

It is the second time this year that the fund has lowered its overall growth expectations.

The International Monetary Fund logo is pictured at its headquarters in Washington, DC, on Nov. 24, 2024. Photo: Benoit Tessier, Reuters

Global inflation, meanwhile, is anticipated to accelerate to 4.7 percent this year, a higher level than earlier projected.

Still, the overall growth slowdown is modest, as momentum in AI — driven by demand — partially offsets the effects of the war.

The IMF said it expects global growth to pick up next year to 3.4 percent.

IMF’s research department division chief Deniz Igan told AFP that its forecasts are “broadly unchanged” cumulatively for the next two years and described the bounce-back as “a V-shaped recovery.”

The delayed recovery from war on Iran, longer disruptions and higher prices is part of the reason the world economy will take a bigger hit this year, she added.

The IMF flagged that fallout varies widely.

“Energy exporters outside the conflict zone benefit from favorable terms of trade, whereas economies plugged into the technology-led upturn experience stronger activity even if they are energy importers,” the fund said.

“In contrast, activity weakens for energy importers with limited participation in the technology value chain,” it added.

US-Israeli strikes targeting Iran since Feb. 28 sparked Tehran’s retaliation in virtually blocking off the Strait of Hormuz, while plunging the Middle East into war.

As traffic stalled in the key waterway for energy transit, global oil prices soared — weighing on economies.

Oil and gas shipments resumed as a temporary US-Iran deal paused hostilities, but temperatures are again rising.

Igan — speaking before hostilities resumed, sparked by Iranian attacks on ships in the strait — said she expected the normalization of traffic through the waterway by next year.

Although the world economy has weathered the shock from the war so far better than feared, the IMF warned: “The global picture blurs glaring differences across countries.”

Retail gasoline costs jumped by 30 percent in emerging Asia after the onset of war, and only by 15 percent in Latin America.

While the US economy is still set to expand 2.3 percent this year, growth in the Middle East and central Asia was downgraded by 1.2 percentage points to 0.7 percent.

The downgrade is “consistent with a longer closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” the IMF said, but it added that it expects a larger rebound in the future.

The euro area is set to grow 0.9 percent this year, also a downward revision. Growth in France is pegged at 0.6 percent — 0.3 percentage points lower than earlier expected.

The world’s second biggest economy, China, saw its growth projection adjusted upwards slightly to 4.6 percent.

Yet, the effects of the war have not fully passed through, the IMF said.

The release of strategic reserves has provided some relief amid reduced energy flows, but there could still be weakness ahead.

The IMF also warned that the possibility of a “renewed Middle East conflict looms large and could extend commodity price volatility, further threaten supply chains, raise prices, and weigh on financial conditions.”

Trade fragmentation could accelerate too, risking higher prices.

Nonetheless, there were some bright spots, the IMF said.

There was a “positive surprise” from some economies key to the global technology supply chain, despite their exposure to disruptions from the war.

The top four net exporters of AI-related hardware — Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia — saw resilient growth.

Igan added that expectations of higher inflation this year merely mark a pause, “not a break from the disinflation trend.”


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Their metallic frames covered in supple, lifelike skin, a posse of new Chinese robots meant for companionship can offer users artificial intelligence (AI)-generated conversation or a hand to hold, complete with manicured nails.The company UBTech says its U1 robot — equipped with eye cameras, chest sensors and listening microphones — is the world’s first full-sized, ultra-realistic humanoid designed for mass production.Touted as an antidote to loneliness, the robots are priced at 119,800 yuan (US$17,600) for the most basic type and 990,000 yuan (US$145,700) for an “ultra” version with more advanced features.“Our bionic robots can accompany you for a lifetime,” Michael

By Ludovic Ehret

title: Typhoon preparation


title: The comfort of not interpreting

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When the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile deep into the Pacific on Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered the region a suggestion: “Do not overinterpret.”

It is a remarkable request. A JL-class missile arcing past US tracking facilities on Guam and the Marshall Islands — launched while more than 30 nations take part in the RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii — is not a weather balloon. It is a message that reads: we can reach you from underwater, and we want you to know it.

The test completes, or nearly completes, China’s nuclear triad. It is a technical milestone, but the more important milestone is psychological, and it belongs to the West. For a generation, the democracies have processed each escalation through the same soothing machinery. The camps in Xinjiang were “vocational training.” The strangling of Hong Kong, within a decade of a 50-year promise, was an “internal matter.” The live-fire drills encircling Taiwan, the daily incursions into its air defense zone, the coercion of Japan over the Senkakus (Diaoyutais, 釣魚台列嶼) and of Vietnam in its own waters: All of it filed under “assertiveness,” a word that sounds like a personality trait rather than a strategy.

The Western failure with Imperial Japan was not inattention, but high-handed disbelief. The establishment wisdom of the 1930s held that Japan could imitate, but never innovate, that its pilots could not fly at night, that no Asian army could come down through the Malayan jungle. A6M Zero fighters flew over China for a year in plain sight of Western observers whose reports nobody read. Then Singapore’s guns, facing uselessly out to sea, watched then-Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita arrive from the landward side on bicycles.

The alibi of ignorance is no longer available. Nobody underestimated this buildup. The policy class documented it in exquisite granularity for 25 years and chose engagement anyway, on the theory the Germans called Wandel durch Handel, or “change through trade,” a doctrine that worked on Russia right up until the gas was switched off. This is not 1931 replayed. It is a long, lucrative Munich Agreement in which the democracies financed the rearmament themselves and collected dividends on it.

The timing of Beijing’s message is not incidental. It arrives as Washington pauses a US$14 billion arms package for Taiwan and as a US president muses that the last thing anyone needs is a war 15,300km away. Distance is a curious measure of principle. Taiwan is not thousands of kilometers from the people who live here, raise children here and vote here in the only Chinese-speaking democracy. Beijing says the missile was aimed at no one, but it was aimed at the proposition that Taiwan’s future would be decided by its own people.

The indictment here is of a party-state, not a people. The Chinese people are the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) oldest and largest victim class, and the regime would like nothing better than for foreign anger to blur into contempt for them.

History offers a final caution to those who imagine economic pressure alone can settle this. The oil embargo of 1941 did not persuade Tokyo to stand down; it started a countdown, and the countdown ended at Pearl Harbor. Sanctions on a power that believes itself cornered are not pressure, they are a scheduling device. Deterrence works before the countdown begins, and it is built out of unglamorous things: munitions, air defense, anti-ship missiles and the visible political will to deliver them.

Which brings us to the US$14 billion sitting in a drawer in Washington. The package was paused ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and has not moved since then. Beijing noticed. Monday’s launch is what noticing looks like. Every week it remains frozen, the message compounds: that US commitments are negotiable, that a warm summit is worth more than a warm ally, and that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army should wait out the democracies rather than fear them.

Release the arms package. Deliver it on an accelerated schedule, publicly and pair it with the co-production agreements Taiwan has sought so that the next tranche cannot be held hostage to the next summit. Deterrence delayed is deterrence discounted. The missile that rose from the Pacific on Monday was a question addressed to Washington. The arms package is the answer.

Clive Hazell is a Kaohsiung-based writer and educator. A 30-year-resident of Taiwan and Japan, he writes on geopolitics, culture and East Asia.


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Successive post-war Japanese governments have historically maintained a highly restrictive approach to collective self-defense. This tightrope walk has been most pronounced concerning Taiwan. Having renounced its sovereignty over the island under the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, Tokyo has traditionally exercised the utmost caution toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC), avoiding actions that might provoke Beijing’s hypersensitivity over its territorial claims.

For decades, this strategic ambiguity served as the bedrock of Japan’s regional security posture. However, largely due to Beijing’s own aggressive overreach, the myth surrounding the absolute limitations of Japan’s defense policy is rapidly unraveling.

A pivotal moment occurred during a Diet debate in November last year, signaling a profound departure from Tokyo’s traditional reticence. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi faced persistent questioning from a prominent opposition lawmaker. When pressed on how Japan would react if US forces deployed during a Taiwan contingency came under attack by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Takaichi stated that such a scenario would constitute a “Survival-Threatening Situation.” This legal designation authorizes Japan to exercise its right of collective self-defense to support its American ally.

Takaichi’s seemingly provocative remarks align with the legal framework established by Japan’s 2015 security legislation. The PRC government immediately launched intense diplomatic condemnation and economic pressure, accusing the Takaichi administration of resurrecting “new militarism” to obstruct what China deems its “core interest”: unification with Taiwan.

To understand the hypocrisy of Beijing’s outrage, one must re-examine the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique, in which Tokyo recognized the PRC government as the sole legal government of China. Regarding Beijing’s assertion that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the PRC,” the Japanese government stated that it “fully understands and respects” this stance.

This phrasing allowed Beijing to claim domestically that Japan acquiesced to its sovereignty over Taiwan. Under international law, however, “understanding and respecting” a claim is distinct from officially “recognizing” it. Japan never recognized China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

Furthermore, the San Francisco Peace Treaty precludes granting any single contracting party or non-party greater benefits than those afforded to other signatories. While the 1945 Potsdam Declaration, adhering to the 1943 Cairo Declaration, endorsed the return of Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC), the formal international legal procedures to finalize this transfer were never completed. Consequently, Taiwan’s legal status remains undetermined under international law.

For half a century, Tokyo operated under the diplomatic fiction that the Taiwan issue was “exclusively China’s domestic affair.” However, this policy was explicitly predicated on the commitment enshrined in the 1972 Japan-PRC Joint Communique to “settle all disputes by peaceful means and not have recourse to the use or threat of force.”

By refusing to rule out military force against Taiwan and escalating gray-zone coercion, Beijing has significantly contravened the premise of the communique. As China’s military intimidation intensifies, Japan’s obligation to view Taiwan strictly as an internal Chinese matter erodes. If Beijing resorts to force, it will render the communique null and void.

This reality underscores the strategic alignment built into the Japan-US Security Treaty. Article 6 features the “Far East Clause,” which permits US forces to utilize bases in Japan to maintain regional peace. Should China attempt a forcible annexation of Taiwan, the US military would rely heavily on its bases in Japan to thwart the aggression.

This is not an intervention in China’s domestic affairs; it is a response to an international crisis. While Washington’s military assistance to Taiwan constitutes an exercise of its own right of collective self-defense, Japan’s act of facilitating those US operations via its territory constitutes, under international law, Japan’s own exercise of collective self-defense in support of the US.

Domestically, Japan’s constitutional debates have historically focused on the limitations of Japan’s own use of force rather than the broader latitude of international law. But geopolitical realities are forcing a domestic awakening. Beijing frequently asserts that the Senkaku Islands, known in Taiwan as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台群島), are part of Taiwan, and that Taiwan is part of China. By Beijing’s own logic, any military assault to conquer Taiwan would encompass an invasion of Japan’s Senkaku Islands.

As the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe observed, “A Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan.” In other words, it is also a contingency for the Japan-US alliance. Defending Taiwan is an extension of Japan’s inherent right of individual self-defense over its own territory. The lack of formal diplomatic recognition of the ROC government in Taipei poses no legal obstacle to this security calculus.

The shift toward proactive deterrence has been building for years. In April 2021, a joint statement by then-Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga and then-US president Joe Biden emphasized the critical importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait — the first time Japanese and American leaders had explicitly included Taiwan in such a statement in 52 years.

As the regional security environment deteriorates, Beijing’s aggressive pushback against Takaichi’s remarks is backfiring. By utilizing military intimidation and economic bullying to isolate Japan, the Chinese leadership is achieving the exact opposite of its intended goal. It is steadily shifting Japanese public opinion, transforming what was once an abstract legal option into a necessary defensive reality. The domestic political self-restraint that once paralyzed Japan’s defense policy is evaporating. If Beijing continues down this path, the PRC is digging its own strategic grave.

Masahiro Matsumura is professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka.

title: Beijing is forcing Japan’s hand


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Earlier this year, Spain launched a government program for the regularization of migrants. During the application period from mid-April to June 30, more than 1 million irregular migrants applied for the one-year residence and work permits on offer.

In Taiwan, emulating this amnesty measure from Spain is well worth the government’s consideration. Offering a legal channel for absconding migrant workers to gain legal status could, under the right conditions, help meet the needs of local industries and households.

I attended a migrant worker policy review meeting held at the Executive Yuan in Taipei on Nov. 26, 2019. At that time, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) estimated that there were about 48,000 undocumented migrant workers based in Taiwan. Then-vice-presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德) headed the meeting. After hearing the report in full, he expressed skepticism over the necessity of forced deportations. Instead, if these migrants had maintained good conduct while residing in Taiwan, he argued, why not let them stay and work?

This was six years prior to Spain’s extraordinary regularization drive, but the idea was never picked up by the Ministry of Labor or the NIA. Since that meeting in 2019, the number of undocumented migrant workers in Taiwan has almost doubled, reaching about 94,000 in May. The effectiveness of efforts to curtail the increase is proving limited, and this figure is expected to exceed 100,000 next year.

Taken as a bloc, the population of these undocumented workers is already close to that of Taitung City. Three hundred Boeing 777 aircrafts would not be enough to carry them all. With traditional methods of investigating individual cases no longer working, and wider society not in a position to withstand the labor shortages that would result from deportations, the government should seriously consider Spain’s approach.

The reason that there are so many undocumented migrant workers is that the needs of Taiwan’s labor market brought them here in the first place, and working in Taiwan is viewed favorably. Salaries are a factor, with the average at-home carer earning five times as much as workers in Indonesia, and about NT$8,000 more a month than they could make in a similar position in Singapore for the same job — but friendly people, an excellent healthcare system, high levels of convenience, and connections to the country through friends or family are also at play. Without migrant workers, it is also undeniable that construction sites, remote development projects and the agricultural sector would struggle to maintain operations.

Although Taiwan has an Amnesty Act (赦免法), it only applies to criminal offenders. For migrant workers who have overstayed their visas or are working illegally, the legal ramifications of their contraventions of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) and Employment Service Act (就業服務法) typically only result in administrative penalties such as fines. It would not be through the Amnesty Act, therefore, that the government could pursue regularization measures like seen in Spain.

Instead, these changes could be achieved by revising the Immigration and Employment Service acts to offer absconding migrant workers a pathway to present themselves to the authorities and have their legal penalties scrubbed or reduced. Those with records of good conduct and a Taiwanese person or company to vouch for them could have their permits to stay extended; those who had been formerly barred from re-entering the country could apply to have their bans lifted; and the penalties on employers of absconding migrants could similarly be reduced or annulled.

Su Ming-tong is a retired civil servant.

Translated by Gilda Knox Streader

title: Amnesty for absconding migrant workers


title: EDITORIAL CARTOON

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For years, international media and residents have lamented the treacherous conditions of Taiwan’s streets. Authorities have rolled out various crackdowns and stricter law enforcement. Yet, despite a staggering NT$14.2 billion (US$444.7 million) collected in traffic fines in 2024 alone, Taiwan’s roads remain as dangerous as ever. This exposes a fundamental flaw in Taiwan’s approach to traffic safety: an over-reliance on punitive measures over structural reform. A recent proposal by lawmakers to hold a referendum earmarking traffic fine revenue for road safety infrastructure and public transport subsidies is a step forward. It challenges the habit of treating traffic enforcement as a

By Hung Yu-jui 洪昱睿


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The US has an advantage in compute and now must build its own robust open-weight ecosystem

In the span of time it took for Washington to restrict, then hit undo on limitations to Anthropic PBC’s top models, Silicon Valley woke up to Zhipu (智譜).

Last year, when I spoke to Zhang Peng (張鵬), the chief executive officer of the Beijing-based start-up known abroad as Z.ai, it was still a little-known lab. What struck me was his focus on achieving artificial general intelligence, and his unapologetic defense of open-source artificial intelligence (AI) at a time when many were dismissing it as an admirable concept without a sustainable business model. The jury is still out on whether it is. However, one thing has become clear: Open models from China now pose one of the biggest existential threats to the US AI establishment.

The release of GLM 5.2, Zhipu’s most advanced model, coincided with Washington’s seemingly ad hoc regulatory intervention around Anthropic’s top Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The timing could not have been better.

Suddenly, everyone seems to be migrating to GLM. Influential tech investor Marc Andreessen wrote that many insiders call it the first Chinese AI model to “match and often beat” US offerings “with no compromises.”

In a social media post, the CEO of Coinbase wrote of keeping spending flat while token usage “grows exponentially” by defaulting to open-weight Chinese models such as GLM 5.2 and Moonshot’s Kimi 2.7.

A former Meta and GoogleDeepmind staffer said that with GLM 5.2 “things are not going to be the same.”

When it really hit home for me was when my software engineer brother in San Francisco texted me he was switching over to it.

That so many are no longer hiding their excitement, or treating Chinese models as curiosities rather than substitutes, should make US AI executives deeply uncomfortable.

Real obstacles remain, including stigma, even in the era of “China-maxxing.” A massive global survey published last month found that while many acknowledge China’s AI leadership, it lagged far behind on “trust.” However, this cuts both ways. Open-weight models are inherently less opaque than proprietary US systems. They can be inspected, modified and hosted on a company’s own servers or even US data centers.

Jim Keller, the legendary chip designer who helped develop the early processors used in the iPhone, told me this week in Tokyo that his company, Tenstorrent, has switched to GLM and Kimi K2 for coding. The draw was about much more than pricing.

“I have very little influence on how Anthropic works, whereas Kimi K2 and GLM, I can fine-tune,” he said. “I have way more control over it, so we actually think we’ll get better results — that’s on my premises, that I can control.”

The shift is five times cheaper and “actually private.”

This GLM shock is hitting right as token economics and astronomical AI spending bills are becoming as important for enterprises as performance.

That is the lens through which the recent attacks on Chinese models must be understood.

It is no surprise that US incumbents would want to cast doubt by accusing them of illicit “distillation,” or training systems on the outputs of another. The outrage is hard to take at face value. For starters, distillation is a widely used technique in AI. Even Elon Musk acknowledged that xAI’s Grok was trained from OpenAI’s products.

More broadly, if the practice alone were enough to create world-class competitors, why has everyone else not done it? Then there is the irony that today’s leading AI companies complaining about intellectual property when their own products were built on the creative works of millions, often without permission or remuneration. It all makes the indignation a hard sell.

There are valid safety concerns when it comes to open models, including easier misuse. Some cybersecurity researchers have found that the latest Zhipu model was better than Anthropic’s Claude Code tool at “genuinely difficult security research,” while doing it at one-sixth of the cost. Washington might be tempted to respond with restrictions, which would be a mistake. It would not make the technology disappear; it would push it further outside of public scrutiny. As I have written before, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

It is understandably scary to envision an accessible Mythos-like model, “but if open models get banned now and only closed models get 10 or 100x better in two years in the hands of one or two companies, I think we will have a bigger problem on our hands,” AI researcher Nathan Lambert wrote.

The safety argument is less persuasive when it comes from companies preparing for major initial public offerings and defending closed ecosystems that give them extraordinary pricing leverage.

Where does this leave us? This is no longer a cost or philosophical soft-power competition with China; it is now a direct threat to the already shaky business models of AI companies that underpin a massive share of market optimism about the US economy. The US has an advantage in compute and now must build its own robust open-weight ecosystem. Invest in research funding, prepare talent to harden open systems against misuse, give enterprises more control over their AI tools.

Ultimately, the response cannot be a closed-door panic. Silicon Valley’s China shock is no longer coming, it is already here.

Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech. Previously she was a tech reporter at CNN and ABC News. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

title: A China shock is shaking Silicon Valley


title: Free electricity needed for energy abundance

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Our societies are reshaping themselves around the opportunities, and the transformation has only just begun

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, techno-evangelists have been promising electricity too cheap to meter. It has never quite made it — until now.

Since last week, utilities in Australia’s New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia states have been required to offer households the option of tariffs that give them three hours of free power in the middle of the day.

That is not quite the giveaway it seems. One-third of Australian homes now have photovoltaic panels, so in daylight hours when solar is running at full blast, prices are routinely not just zero, but negative. A retailer can easily make money from selling electricity for nothing if it is buying it for less than nothing.

The more interesting question is how consumers respond. Switching is not a slam dunk. The utilities offering the contracts are allowed to charge premium prices during the evening peak when the sun sets and consumption soars. Any household taking the offer is making a bet that it would be able to shift enough consumption into the midday window to offset the risk of additional charges after 6pm.

However, there are plenty of ways to make that shift, which should reduce power bills significantly. Of 6 million households in the three states, about 2.5 million already have electric hot-water tanks that heat themselves when most people are asleep. It is a legacy of a decades-old system used to ensure coal plants could keep running overnight — evidence that current issues with balancing volatile demand and inflexible generation long predate the renewables revolution.

You can think of such tanks as thermal batteries, storing energy in the form of heat instead of electricity and releasing it when it is needed. A standard water tank would hold heat energy equivalent to the electrical charge in a Tesla Inc Powerwall, about 15kWh. Warm your hot water in the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night, and you have already significantly reshaped the dynamics of the electricity grid. Swimming pool pumps, a relatively common appliance in Australia, offer the same opportunity, although on a more limited scale.

The home itself is another sort of thermal battery. Less than 5 percent of Australian households have lithium-ion cells, but 80 percent or so have air-conditioners, the vast majority of them reverse cycle units with heating and cooling functions. By using free midday power to cool or heat the air inside the house, you reduce the need for electricity in the evening peak. That makes the entire building a heat battery that charges up around noon and discharges after dark.

Most homes in Australia should be able to shift a Powerwall’s-worth of energy from noon to night using nothing more complicated than the underutilized timer on a standard AC remote. For about US$100, you can even buy a device that would allow you to control your air-conditioner when you are away from home. Smart thermostats such as Alphabet Inc’s Nest failed to take off in the 2010s, but the arrival since then of negative daytime electricity prices and more sophisticated AI to predict users’ needs means the economics and practicality of home heat control systems would be vastly better nowadays.

The biggest home battery of all would come from the electric vehicles (EVs) that have been streaming off dealers’ lots since the war in Iran. A typical EV has a battery four times bigger than a Powerwall. Three hours of free electricity should give them enough charge to travel 100km. More than one-third of cars sold in Australia last month came with a plug, and battery-only models made up about one-quarter of the total. About three-quarters of EV charging happens at home and households are highly motivated by the cost savings of using cheap clean electricity to top up their batteries.

Australia has been blessed. Bright sunlight, clear skies and a relatively small share of the population living in apartments have helped give it some of the best conditions for home solar in the world. A deregulated electricity market means incumbent utilities cannot use their market power to block installations, as they do in many countries in Asia and Africa.

Even so, the lesson for the rest of the world is potent. Solar power has given Australia conditions of energy abundance that engineers of previous decades could only have dreamed of. The economics is powerful enough that it is not even dependent on which political party is in power. Liberal Party of Australia leader Angus Taylor, who these days rails against “net zero ideology,” presided over a tripling of Australia’s rooftop solar capacity in his four years as energy minister from 2018 to 2022, and was not above boasting about it.

The free tariffs on offer might only transform the budgets of a minority of savvy households, and could eventually fade away. Indeed, Australia’s battery boom is predicated on that happening, as homes, businesses and utilities shift the current midday surplus to other times of day when it is more needed. Thanks to renewables, Australians now have access to the lowest-cost power source in history. Our societies are reshaping themselves around the opportunities, and the transformation has only just begun.

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.


title: Messi inspires Argentina’s great escape

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‘HARD LUCK’: Egyptian coach Hassan was furious over a second-half goal that was ruled out, saying they had been ‘cheated’ and ‘haven’t seen respect or fair play’

Lionel Messi on Tuesday led a stunning late fightback as Argentina defeated Egypt 3-2 to reach the FIFA World Cup quarter-finals , the reigning champions recovering from a two-goal deficit to escape a monumental upset.

Egypt looked poised to score a victory at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium after goals from Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Zico left them 2-0 up with just 11 minutes of normal time remaining.

However, Cristian Romero’s 79th-minute header from a pinpoint Messi cross gave the defending champions a lifeline at 2-1.

Argentina players throw teammate Lionel Messi in the air after winning their FIFA World Cup round-of-16 match against Egypt in Atlanta on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Four minutes later, Messi volleyed in a superb equalizer — his eighth goal of the tournament — to make it 2-2 and spark wild celebrations among the huge contingent of Argentina fans in the 68,239 crowd.

With extra-time looming, Enzo Fernandez nodded in a sensational winner in the second minute of time added on to finally break Egypt’s resistance.

An emotional Messi broke down after the final whistle, tears of relief and joy streaming down his face after a nerve-shredding victory.

“Turning a match around like that — coming back from 2-0 down — it wasn’t easy, especially given how this World Cup is playing out and the fact that no one is just rolling over,” Messi said. “It was a moment of pure happiness and relief; we wanted to stay in the tournament. We didn’t want today to be the end; we didn’t want to go home.”

Fernandez’s goal capped what had been an epic contest, in which Messi missed a first-half penalty for the second time this tournament, and Egypt had a second-half goal ruled out in a controversial video assistant referee decision.

However, furious Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan said his team had been “cheated” by the decisions that went against them.

“I do not want to put it nicely and talk about hard luck. We have been cheated unfairly today, we have suffered injustice,” Hassan said. “We haven’t seen respect or fair play. There has not been respect or fair play.”

The win was another nail-biting close shave for Argentina, who had been taken to the wire by Cape Verde in an extra-time thriller in the last 32 on Friday last week.

Argentina are to play Switzerland in the quarter-finals in Kansas City on Saturday after the Europeans edged past Colombia in Vancouver on Tuesday.

Colombia, supported by hordes of passionate yellow-clad fans at BC Place, had been tipped as dark horses for the tournament, but their dreams of an extended run ended in an agonizing 4-3 penalty shoot-out defeat when the match finished 0-0 after extra-time.

The win secured Switzerland’s first World Cup quarter-final appearance since 1954, when they hosted the tournament.

Argentina and Switzerland’s victories completed the quarter-final line-up for the tournament, with France facing Morocco today when the last eight gets under way.


title: O’Hearn sets record with 10 RBIs

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Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Ryan O’Hearn has been playing baseball nearly all his life. Never has the left-handed slugger had a game quite like Tuesday’s 12-4 win over the Atlanta Braves.

Three home runs. Ten RBIs. One magical night that included a rare curtain call and ended with his batting helmet headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

The Pirates have been playing baseball since 1882. No player across 145 seasons had ever driven in 10 runs in a game.

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Esmerlyn Valdez, left, dumps water on SportsNet Pittsburgh reporter Hannah Mears and teammate Ryan O’Hearn after their victory over the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. Photo: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

A grand slam in the first and a three-run homer in the third off Braves starter Hurston Waldrep, and another three-run shot off Atlanta reliever Connor Thomas in the sixth changed all that, breaking the club single-game record of nine RBIs set by Johnny Rizzo against the St Louis Cardinals on May 30, 1939 — a scant 54 years before the 32-year-old O’Hearn was born.

The 10 RBIs also marked the most in the majors by a player this season, and O’Hearn became the 11th big leaguer since RBI became an official statistic in 1920 to have at least three home runs and 10 RBIs in a game and the first since Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani did it against the Miami Marlins in September 2024.

“Got some good pitches to hit and after the third one I was like: ‘Oh man, no kidding? I guess today’s supposed to be my day,’” O’Hearn said.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani high-fives teammates in the dugout after hitting his 300th career home run to take a 1-0 lead over the Colorado Rockies during the first inning at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

In more ways than one. When O’Hearn took Thomas deep to push his RBI total to 10, it also marked the 100th home run of his nine-year career. Not bad for a semi-late bloomer who did not reach the majors until 25 and did not become an All-Star until last season, just after turning 31.

The Pirates saw enough to sign him to a two-year deal in the offseason, their first multiyear investment in a free agent in nearly a decade.

O’Hearn has embraced the role of clubhouse leader on a team trying to reach the post-season after 10-plus years in the wilderness. His 16 homers are one short of his career high of 17 set last season, and his record-setting night came just hours after Pittsburgh lost rookie shortstop Konnor Griffin for two months with a left hand injury.

Pirates manager Don Kelly wanted to give O’Hearn a break late with Pittsburgh comfortably ahead, but did not want to do it at the cost of robbing O’Hearn of a shot at history.

So O’Hearn headed to the plate in the ninth, looking to become the 22nd player to hit four homers in a game. When he looked at the mound, he could not help but smile when he saw Braves infielder Jorge Mateo, whom O’Hearn called a “good buddy.”

Atlanta turned to Mateo to give the bullpen a breather in a blowout, and Mateo did what Waldrep and Harris could not by keeping O’Hearn in the yard, although not off the bases. O’Hearn laced a single to right field to complete a four-hit night and give the Pirates their third straight victory as ace Paul Skenes earned his first win in nearly two months.

The reigning National League Cy Young winner gave up two runs on eight hits over six solid innings, walking one and striking out four. Skenes also saw his velocity consistently stick in the 156-158ph range after frequently dipping into the low-150s during a loss to the Philadelphia Phillies last week.

Not that Skenes wanted to talk about it much. For once, his performance was not the story, even if he could not help but have a little fun at his teammate’s expense.

“I think it was kind of selfish, to be honest,” Skenes deadpanned. “Everybody else was getting on, and then, home runs are rally killers. You hit a three-run home run or a grand slam, and it’s just like, what now? There’s nobody on. Nobody can drive him in. Good for him, I guess.”

MR 300

Meanwhile, Ohtani hit his 300th career home run on Tuesday, a leadoff shot against Colorado Rockies pitcher Michael Lorenzen that made Ohtani the first Japanese-born player in the majors to reach the milestone.

The two-way superstar blasted a 125m line drive to center on a 2-0 pitch for his 20th homer of the season in their 4-3 loss to Colorado. Center fielder Cole Carrigg could only watch it fly out.

“It was quite the homer,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was 119 [mph,192kph, exit velocity] off the bat, low-launching, it was squared up, got out in a hurry. I just marvel at him every day. Three hundred is a big number.”

Teammate Freddie Freeman bowed as Ohtani made his way back to the dugout.

SEATTLE SIGNS FAIRCHILD

In the minors, Taiwanese-American outfielder Stuart Fairchild, who represented Taiwan at the World Baseball Classic in March, hit a three-run home run in the fifth inning of his first game with the Seattle Mariners’ Arizona Complex League affiliate.

Sports stats Web site The Baseball Cube listed Fairchild with three RBIs and a home run at three at-bats in their 9-8 loss to the Chicago White Sox’s affiliate.

Fairchild on Monday announced that he had signed with Seattle, ending speculation that he could join Taiwan’s CPBL.

The contract terms were not disclosed.

The 30-year-old elected free agency after clearing waivers following his designation for assignment by the Cleveland Guardians. He chose free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to Triple-A.

Fairchild, born to a Taiwanese mother and an American father, updated his Instagram profile on Monday to identify himself as a Mariners player before his agency announced the deal.

The move marks a return to Seattle, where Fairchild was born and raised and previously played for the Mariners in 2022.

Following his release by Cleveland, several CPBL clubs, including the Wei Chuan Dragons and Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, expressed interest in signing Fairchild before he agreed to return to Seattle.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, the Chicago Cubs beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-2, the Detroit Tigers mauled the Athletics 6-2, the Marlins survived the Mariners 6-5 in 10 innings, the Tampa Bay Rays stung the New York Yankees 6-4, the Houston Astros defeated the Washington Nationals 6-3, the Phillies outplayed the Cincinnati Reds 4-1, and the Milwaukee Brewers took down the Cardinals 4-3 in their early game and 10-2 in their late game.

The Kansas City Royals overpowered the New York Mets 16-12, the Boston Red Sox destroyed the White Sox 8-1, the Texas Rangers shot down the Los Angeles Angels 8-3, the San Diego Padres beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-1 and the Toronto Blue Jays toppled the San Francisco Giants 9-3.

Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA


title: Albanese courts Pacific with rugby league push

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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has had one overarching regional goal since taking office — stop China gaining a military foothold in the Pacific. He has been ready to harness any tool available to further it, including sports.

Canberra is using rugby league, a fierce and combative form of football popular in Australia and the Pacific islands, for diplomatic ends.

Albanese last year announced that Australia would finance a team from Papua New Guinea (PNG) to participate in the domestic professional league. Some of the A$600 million (US$414.97 million) set aside for the new team is also earmarked to support youth development.

From left, Tongan Prime Minister Lord Fatafehi Fakafanua, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and Samoan Prime Minister La‘auli Leuatea Schmidt pose for a group picture prior to the State of Origin final in Brisbane, Australia, yesterday. Photo: AFP

League was on show to cement regional ties last night, when Albanese hosted Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and the leaders of Samoa and Tonga to watch State of Origin.

It is the most important rugby league series, in which powerhouse states Queensland and New South Wales face off in a take-no-prisoners contest.

“I am very much looking forward to hosting Pacific Leaders in Brisbane and attending the State of Origin with them,” Albanese said in a statement yesterday before the game. “Through one of Australia’s favorite sporting codes, we are bringing our Pacific family closer together.”

The New South Wales Blues beat the Queensland Maroons 30-12.

Australian Minister for Defense Industry and Pacific Island Affairs Pat Conroy said that said PNG’s new team — the Chiefs — is something Marape wanted to unite his diverse peoples, “akin to when Nelson Mandela brought South Africans together” through rugby union.

“We have been clear that we are now in a permanent state of contest in the Pacific,” Conroy added. “That’s why we are using all tools of statecraft and all levers of diplomacy, including sports diplomacy, to ensure we have a prosperous and secure region.”

That contest with Beijing was brought into sharp relief on Monday, when China test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine into the Pacific. The test happened to coincide with Albanese visiting Fiji, and came shortly after the Australian and Fijian leaders signed a new defense alliance.


title: SPORTS BRIEFS

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TENNIS

Djokovic survives marathon

Novak Djokovic on Tuesday battled through Wimbledon’s longest ever quarter-final to beat Felix Auger-Aliassime in a five-set epic as the former champion set up a titanic clash with defending champion Jannik Sinner. Djokovic defied a calf injury suffered in the first set to win 7-6 (12/10), 3-6, 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (10/4) in a Centre Court classic lasting 5 hours, 15 minutes. Asked how he saw off his opponent, Djokovic said: “With racquet and a lot of heart.” He added: “I was telling the kids to go to sleep, I’m glad they stayed because it was one of the best matches I was part of on this court in my career.” In women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Lian En-shuo and Japanese partner Shuko Aoyama were to play Ellen Perez of Australia and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands in their quarter-final last night after press time.

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic celebrates beating Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime during their men’s singles quarter-final at Wimbledon in London on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

OLYMPICS

IOC lifts Russia suspension

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, marking a significant step toward Russia’s reintegration into the Olympic fold. The Russian committee was suspended in October 2023 for recognizing regional Olympic councils in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. The IOC said its executive board had lifted that suspension, which would see Russian athletes back in many international competitions including in qualifiers for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, but the committee had not yet decided whether Russia could display its flag and colors or have its anthem played at the Games. Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from this year’s Winter Olympics over a helmet carrying a message about Ukraine, called the IOC’s decision “absolutely shameful.”

FOOTBALL

Ex-Cowboy Kneeland had CTE

Former Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, who died by suicide in November last year after a high-speed chase with police, had early-stage chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain abnormality linked to repeated head trauma, his family announced on Tuesday. The Boston University CTE Center, which investigates the long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes and others, analyzed Kneeland’s brain tissue after his death. Researchers determined Kneeland, who was 24, was in stage one of four of CTE, which has been known to cause violent mood swings, impulsive behavior and depression. It can be diagnosed only after death.

CRICKET

MacGill loses appeal

Former Australia Test cricketer Stuart MacGill yesterday lost an appeal against his conviction and sentence over a cocaine deal. The 55-year-old retired leg-spinner was found guilty last year of taking part in the supply of the drug. He was spared jail and sentenced to an “intensive corrections order” of one year and 10 months that included 495 hours of community service. MacGill’s appeals on conviction and sentence were both dismissed by the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal. MacGill was found guilty last year after a court heard he had introduced his personal dealer to another drug supplier and that the pair went on to organize a A$330,000 (US$228,342) drug deal.


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‘STRONG STATEMENT’: ‘We are hoping as well that the nations of the Pacific join together to send a strong message’ over the missile launch, Australia’s Albanese said

Tuvalu yesterday expressed “grave and serious concern” over a Chinese test of a long-range missile that landed in the Pacific Ocean near its waters.

A Chinese submarine on Monday test-fired a “strategic” missile carrying a dummy warhead, with monitors saying the rocket appeared to land in a patch of ocean somewhere between the Solomon Islands, Nauru and Tuvalu.

Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feleti Teo said his nation shared the “grave and serious concern, and disappointment of other Pacific leaders” at the launch of the nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, left, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attend Independence Day celebrations at the National Stadium in Honiara on Tuesday. Photo: AFP / Australian Prime Minister’s Office

Pacific island leaders are considering a “very strong” joint statement condemning China’s missile test, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday.

The Pacific Islands Forum regional bloc was circulating a draft of the statement among its 18 members for endorsement, Albanese told reporters in Brisbane, ahead of meetings with the leaders of Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Samoa.

Teo said in a statement that the launch was against the aspirations of Pacific countries for a nuclear-free zone and called for “superpowers to refrain from using the Pacific Ocean as a testing ground for their military arsenals.”

Tuvalu is among a handful of Pacific countries that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan and not Beijing.

The missile test drew swift condemnation from nations including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US.

Many South Pacific countries, with aid-dependent economies and indebted to Chinese banks for infrastructure loans, are reluctant to publicly criticize Beijing, although the Solomon Islands on Tuesday said it had protested over the missile firing.

“We are hoping as well that the nations of the Pacific join together to send a strong message,” Albanese said, after returning from a visit to the Solomons. “It’s a very strong statement.”

Albanese held security talks with Tongan Prime Minister Lord Fakafanua, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and Samoan Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt in Brisbane, before hosting the three leaders at a showpiece rugby league match.

“Tonga subscribes to the Pacific leaders proposal for an ocean of peace. This is very important for us, and we will be joining a joint statement that’s currently being discussed by the forum leaders,” Fakafanua said in opening remarks.

“We want to be responsible for our security — Pacific leaders coming together to provide security for our own region,” Albanese told reporters.

China’s missile was fired on the same day that Australia and Fiji signed a major defense alliance, the latest in a string of security treaties Canberra has struck with South Pacific countries as it seeks to block China establishing a permanent security presence in the region.

Fijian Minister of Defence Pio Tikoduadua said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) that he had warned China’s embassy against firing a missile.

“Missile testing doesn’t augur much for respect and trust,” he told the ABC.

It was a “strange coincidence” China’s missile tracking ship, the Yuan Wang 5, was in port in Fiji when the missile was fired.

title: Tuvalu slams China over launch


title: Cambodia prepares for return of tigers to forest

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Pan Sok still remembers his relative screaming as a tiger dragged him away one night, deep inside the Cambodian rainforest where they were tapping trees for resin.

So he is “not happy” about a plan to reintroduce the big cats, a decade after they were declared extinct in Cambodia.

“I saw the tiger take him with my own eyes,” he said, describing the attack that took place more than 30 years ago. “He was screaming, but we couldn’t help him.”

A sign is pictured on a road to a tiger station in Cardamom National Park in Cambodia on June 11. Photo: AFP

Cambodia’s last confirmed tiger sighting was in 2007 camera trap footage, but conservationists say they might soon be able to reintroduce the big cats.

The plan would see India send several of its more than 3,600 tigers to southwest Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, a protected expanse of lush rainforest stretching over about 1 million hectares.

Reintroducing tigers could boost protection of Cambodia’s landscapes, restore an iconic apex predator and even boost tourism, said Jimmy Borah of Indian environmental group Aaranyak, who serves as a consultant to Cambodia’s government on the reintroduction.

It “would be a conservation message to the world, that this can be done,” Borah told reporters.

However, there are risks.

Poaching has ravaged Cambodian wildlife, creating doubts about about whether the Cardamoms has enough prey for tigers to eat.

Deforestation continues to erode their proposed new habitat, driven particularly by dam projects — and local residents say they have not been consulted.

Indian tiger biologist Ullas Karanth once led surveys of Cambodia’s tigers, and said the big cats and their prey “went extinct as we watched.”

Karanth fears prey availability has not recovered enough to support tigers, which could starve.

“The tiger diplomacy of the last 10 years to dump tigers from India into that rampant hunting culture is doomed, I believe,” he told reporters.

Borah said that camera trapping shows enough prey for initial arrivals and that “the conservation message is more important right now than worrying about prey availability.”

Tigers were supposed to start arriving in 2024, but concerns about their new habitat and the suspension of a carbon credit project that had been expected to contribute funding delayed the plan, sources said.

In May, the Cambodian Ministry of the Environment approved a new roadmap.

A copy proposes that tigers begin arriving from next year, although funding is still being negotiated, the sources said.

The tigers would start their new lives in a 40 hectare enclosure at the end of a red dirt track, about 4km from the nearest main road and local resident Lin Meng Ma’s home.

The 49-year-old lives with her daughter in an open-front wooden home meters from a dilapidated sign reading “Tiger Reintroduction Project.”

She only learned about the reintroduction plan after asking rangers about discussions she had overheard.

“We were afraid, my house is very close, but they told us they would be in a fenced area and then move deep inside the forest,” she said.

Her main objection now is the cost: just under US$43 million until 2030, a draft budget showed.

“I don’t think it is useful to spend this money on tigers,” she said.


title: Le Pen announces French presidency bid

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APPEAL SUCCEEDS: ‘I think you should never impose anything on the French people ... the French people will have the final say,’ the National Rally leader said

In launching her fourth bid for the French presidency, just hours after judges cleared her to run, Marine le Pen portrayed herself as a fighter who had defied the odds to overcome a months-long legal battle that threatened to end her political ambitions.

“There are many French people who are going through hardships and we too are going through hardships,” Le Pen said during an interview on TF1.

“These trials, I believe, have strengthened us,” she added.

National Rally leader Marine le Pen waits for an interview to start in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, on Tuesday .Photo: Reuters

Many believed Le Pen’s presidential hopes were dead until a Paris appeals court on Tuesday shortened her electoral ban for having embezzled European Parliament funds to pay staff at her National Rally (RN) party in France.

The ruling cleared her to stand in next year’s election, even as it upheld her conviction.

Le Pen said she plans to appeal the guilty verdict while also running for the top office.

Le Pen said that voters would overlook her legal woes to elect her.

“I think you should never impose anything on the French people; they must have the final say, and now the French people will have the final say,” she said.

Brigitte Bareges, a former lawmaker from a party allied with the RN, said she understood why Le Pen was running.

“I know her character and I’m a bit like that,” Bareges said. “You want to show those who caused you this setback that you are not dead because of it, that you are still there.”

Le Pen’s decision to run comes as the RN has never been closer to power.

Polls suggest that she would easily make the second-round runoff in next year’s election, although victory is less certain.

Her presidential hopes had been in limbo since March last year, when she received a five-year ban on running for office, but Tuesday’s ruling allows her to campaign as long as she wears an electronic tag.

Le Pen told TF1 she was confident she could run without a tag that would impose limits on her movement and confirmed that RN President Jordan Bardella would run alongside her to become prime minister if she is elected.

She rejected the idea that Bardella would harbor any resentment. He had been set to run as president if she were barred and polls more strongly than her for the top job.

“Jordan Bardella and I are fighting for France. We are fighting for the French people. This cause clearly goes beyond us,” she said. “And therefore our personal ambitions do not come into consideration at all.”

Bareges said that RN stood a better chance of winning with Le Pen and Bardella working together.

“We have offered the French people a partnership, a partnership that I believe is complementary, balanced, coherent, and solid,” Le Pen told TF1.


title: Chinese men accused of sharing rape videos

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They called themselves the “German driving school for experts,” but prosecutors say the true purpose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.

In posts that sometimes included photos and videos of their attacks on unconscious women, they referred to women as “cars,” sedatives as “fuel” and rape as “driving,” court documents showed.

They called the women “dead pigs.”

The logo of the Telegram app is pictured in an arranged photograph on June 19. Photo: Reuters

Investigators have been poring through several years’ of posts in roughly two dozen group chats on the messaging app that authorities believe served an online predator network of mainly Chinese men targeting mostly Chinese women in Germany.

Their investigation has led to the convictions of three alleged inner circle members on rape and other charges, and the ongoing trial of a fourth man in Berlin.

“The perpetrators were characterized by a particular ruthlessness, an objectification of the victims and the perfidious planning of their crimes,” Frankfurt chief prosecutor Dominik Mies told reporters.

Major details of the investigation remain unknown, at least to the public, including how many attacks and perpetrators have been linked to the German Telegram chats and how the chats, some of which reportedly had tens of thousands of members, could have operated for so long.

It is also unclear if the chats are linked to a ballooning investigation in Europe and the Americas into drug-facilitated sexual assaults by online communities.

Under German privacy laws, prosecutors are limited in what they can say outside the courtroom, documents are restricted and, in the ongoing case in Berlin, members of the public have been forced to leave the courtroom during parts of the trial.

This might be why the investigation into the Telegram group has garnered less attention in Germany than might be expected.

However, members of the country’s Chinese community, mostly women, have been attending court proceedings to show support for the victims even if they do not know them.

“What makes one really angry is to see that such groups hate women, they have no respect,” said Fu Xiao, who traveled about 500km to Berlin last week to attend the trial. “Women aren’t seen as people.”

In China, state media has covered the cases, but wider discussion about the prosecutions on Chinese-language social media like Rednote has been partially censored.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security and Rednote did not respond to requests for comment.

Europol, the EU’s police agency, last week announced “Project Medusa,” an international operation designed to dismantle online networks that promote drug-facilitated sexual assaults.

Law enforcement from Germany and the UK are leading the operation, which has already netted 57 arrests.

The predator network thrived despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, again raising questions about how the platform has been used for criminal activity.

In 2024, the app’s founder was arrested in Paris over allegations that the platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.

He denied wrongdoing, blaming surging numbers of Telegram users that he said “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”

The investigation is ongoing.

“Sexual violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram’s terms of service and such content is routinely removed,” the company said in a statement. “Telegram fulfils all of its legal obligations in relation to such harmful content, including everything set out by” the EU’s Digital Services Act.

The company did not respond to questions about the German cases, including how photos, videos and comments about sexual crimes were posted for years in the app, whether Telegram was aware of the activity and what, if anything, it did to alert the authorities.

Some of the German Telegram chats date back to at least 2020, court documents show.

Attorney Magdalena Gebhard, who represented a victim in a previous Berlin trial that led to a conviction, said there was an inner circle of eight perpetrators, but that some of the chat groups had up to 50,000 members.

Police only became aware of the network in 2024 after a man in Frankfurt, referred to by German courts as Dapeng Z, changed his tactics from drugging and sexually abusing female acquaintances to targeting strangers he met online, prosecutors said.

German police arrested Dapeng Z, whom German and Chinese media have reported is the group’s ringleader, in 2024 in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, according to the Chinese consulate in Frankfurt and the Beijing News.

He was sentenced in February to 14 years in prison for aggravated rape, attempted murder and other offenses, although he has appealed.

His attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Although authorities have not publicly said how many women were targeted by the “driving school” network, they have said their investigation is ongoing, meaning there could be further arrests and additional victims.


people: 賴清德 游盈隆 盧秀燕 鄭麗文

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Donovan’s Deep Dives: Caning could eclipse everything else on Taiwan’s referendum ballotHow Taiwan’s ballot questions, once championed by the DPP, have become political campaign tools for the opposition

Five referendum proposals are winding their way through the legislature, all proposed by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its smaller coalition partner, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

Last November, the legislature passed an amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), stipulating that referendums and national elections would be held simultaneously if their time frames coincide. Both parties expect the legislature to vote on their proposed referendums in time to be held alongside the Nov. 28 local elections.

That amendment prompted newly installed Central Election Commission (CEC) Chair Michael You (游盈隆) to comment during an inspection at Yunlin County’s election administration that holding referendums on the same day as elections has become an “inevitable trend.” You’s remark drew criticism from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Yi-chuan (王義川), who said You is “the worst CEC chair in history” because none of the proposed referendums had yet been passed.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers hold a press conference on June 26 to discuss a proposed referendum on allowing caning as a punishment for serious crimes. Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times

Clearly, You was signaling that Yunlin election officials should be prepared for such an event. With the opposition controlling the legislature, it is likely that at least some of the proposals will reach the ballot.

Wang’s over-the-top attack likely came from one of two sources. The first is that Wang may consider You a traitor. After a quarter century in the DPP, You quit the party in 2019 and has been willing to criticize his erstwhile colleagues.

You was nominated for CEC chair by President William Lai (賴清德), and it was likely this willingness to criticize the DPP that got his nomination approved by the opposition-controlled legislature.

The other possibility is the frustration that the DPP feels towards the referendum issue, which ironically, is very much of their own making.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

The DPP had long championed referendums, which had previously had such high thresholds they were nearly impossible to pass. Following the party’s landslide victories for the presidency and in the legislature in 2016, in 2017 they passed legislation that dramatically lowered the thresholds to get referendums on the ballot and dropped the minimum voter turnout to 25 percent voting “yes” to pass, as long as the “yes” votes outnumbered the “no” votes.

They had not thought through the repercussions of this, and in 2018, it punched them in the face. That year, ten referendum questions were on the ballot, many backed by the KMT to embarrass the DPP administration and to drive turnout by galvanizing single-issue voters, such as those opposed to same-sex marriage.

Same sex marriage had been constitutionally mandated by the Grand Council of Justices (now Constitutional Court), but had not yet been passed by the legislature. The KMT used this issue and others on the ballot to bring out opponents of the issue to vote, and many of whom likely also voted for KMT candidates in the concurrent local elections.

The KMT won in a landslide, and though the referendums were not the primary factor, they clearly helped.

Realizing their mistake, the DPP was in a tricky situation. It would have been politically awkward to reverse the threshold changes they themselves had championed. Their workaround was to change the law to hold referendums on non-election years, in the sweltering month of August — both intended to lower voter turnout.

FIVE PROPOSALS

The 10 referendums on the ballot in 2018 caused logistical headaches. You is concerned, warning: “One referendum this year is just right, two is a bit too many and three is too much to handle.”

He is likely to face his “too much to handle” scenario. Most likely at least three will pass the legislature, and possibly all five.

The KMT is proposing another referendum on restarting nuclear power, a perennial favorite for the party. This may be unnecessary as the Lai administration is studying doing just that, and the Electricity Act was amended last year to delete the statutory non-nuclear deadline formerly championed by the DPP.

Regardless, the KMT will push forward anyway. Energy security is a big concern, and appealing to those voters could boost turnout, most of whom will likely vote for KMT candidates.

The TPP caucus has proposed a referendum to allocate traffic fines to road safety and public transport subsidies. Why this needs to be a referendum is puzzling. Constitutionally, the legislature is not allowed to increase spending, but they likely can find a way to legally shift existing funds.

This referendum is on brand for the TPP. By pursuing it, they can strengthen their brand image, drive voter turnout and potentially earn a political win.

The TPP caucus also proposed a referendum, asking: “To safeguard citizens’ right to political participation, do you agree that the government should, within two years, establish legislation to implement an absentee voting system for all elections and referendums in the free area of the Republic of China?”

This is better thought out and could be a big win for the TPP. Its supporters skew heavily towards younger demographics, precisely the people most likely to live in a different location than their household registration and lack the time and resources to return home to vote.

This would provide tangible benefits to their supporters, give the party an issue to own and boost future voter turnout. If the KMT supports them and they win, it will also give the TPP something to point to in justifying their alliance.

The KMT caucus has proposed a referendum opposing abolition of the death penalty. The catch is that the death penalty is on the books, though recently the Constitutional Court raised the bar. The death penalty is overwhelmingly popular, so this may be a get-out-the-vote play.

WHIPS AND CHAINS

The most controversial proposal is an “anti-fraud caning referendum” on introducing whipping as a punishment for serious crimes, including child abuse, sexual assault and especially fraud.

KMT Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) tried to shut this down, calling it “not a priority at this stage.” The KMT legislative caucus rebelled, and she backed down.

Just having this referendum on the ballot could suck the oxygen out of the room on all her priorities. She wants to negotiate a “peace framework” with Beijing, and to get the outside world on board. She wants to win this year’s elections and the 2028 national elections 13 months later.

Even having the referendum on the ballot will generate worldwide attention, little of it positive. It risks dominating the domestic debate, and it could go either way.

On the one hand, it could appeal to law-and-order, pro-death voters fed up with fraud. On the other, it could clash with the Taiwanese self-image of having a civilized, caring culture on the world stage. It is not hard to imagine headlines from Sydney to Stockholm decrying the KMT as barbaric for proposing it, and the entire nation if it passes.

Cheng has limited political capital, and spending it on a referendum that at best distracts and at worst detracts from accomplishing her goals is bad politics, and she is almost certainly aware of that. The political risks are high, the potential rewards low.

Intriguingly, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) supports it. It is on-brand for her law-and-order image, but off-brand for her caring “mama mayor” image. Is she intentionally undermining Cheng as she gears up for a presidential run? This is an inexpensive way to win over the legislative caucus at Cheng’s expense. I do not know if that is what she is up to; I am deeply curious as to her political calculations on this.

Cheng may have allies in the TPP. They are torn on the issue, and their caucus has so far abstained from voting on it. They could be the deciding factor.

Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.


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Notes from Central Taiwan: The gig economy and its discontents

In recent years, wage stagnation in Taiwan, especially after inflation, has been driving workers to leave low-paying service jobs and shift to gig work.

A 2023 TVBS report states: “Cheng Min-chih, a new freelancer, used to handle cases while maintaining her 9 to 5 job, boosting her regular monthly income of NT$24,000 to as much as NT$60,000.” After such relatively rosy presentations, however, articles on gig work typically end with warnings for both the workers and society at large.

The reasons for the boom in gig work is obvious: real wages in Taiwan have grown by an annual average of just around 1 percent over the past decade, according to a Straits Times report. It referenced a February 2025 survey by job portal Yes123 which “found that 60 percent of workers had not received a raise in three years, while 12 percent had gone for a decade without a salary adjustment.”

Traditional manufacturing and service industries have been hit by competition from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and more recently, the tariffs placed on Taiwan by US President Donald Trump. Outside of the thriving chip industry, Taiwan’s economy is slowly being eroded away.

Moreover, during the last four decades the lion’s share of the economy’s returns have shifted from labor in the early 1990s to capital at present. The Straits Times observed that a 2024 report released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) shows that Taiwan’s household wealth gap has nearly quadrupled in 30 years, with the richest 20 percent of households holding 66.9 times more wealth than those in the bottom 20 percent in 2021. In 1991, that figure was just 16.8 times.

According to DGBAS, Taiwan saw over 800,000 employed in non-traditional sectors in 2024. By comparison, Reuters reported this week that a Chinese think tank estimates the number of people in flexible employment reached “320 million this year from 280 million last year, about 44 percent of China’s workforce.” Are rising gig worker numbers a sign of an economy in distress?

REDUCED SUPPORT

Researchers generally find that workers in Taiwan’s part-time and gig economy can receive higher hourly pay, but they experience higher income volatility, along with reduced access to social welfare support such as retirement, labor insurance and worker’s compensation for on-the-job injuries. This implies that decades hence they will retire into poverty, an issue the nation has yet to grapple with. The lack of social protection for delivery drivers, for example, “forces riders to choose between autonomy and protection,” as one researcher put it.

Even the idea of “autonomy” is illusory in many gig jobs. A recent paper by a team headed by National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Cheng Ya-wen (鄭雅文) surveyed 487 location-based gig workers. It concludes: “algorithmic management is associated with increased stress among platform workers as they try to meet the platform’s performance metrics.” An analogical stress is common among freelancers, who must often choose to forego a night out or a weekend trip or time with family because new work has come in.

Another issue is a hidden gender division. An essay published this year by the UN Development Program calling for better governance of gig work across Asia observes that “gender pay gaps are also present in many cases, with women concentrated in lower-paid care and microwork tasks, while men dominate higher-paid delivery and driving roles.”

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

Taiwan.Md framed the problems faced by gig workers as structural, caused by stagnant wages banging against rising rents and living costs. The median wage is less than NT$40,000 and the starting wage is less than NT$35,000, but even a studio apartment in Taipei averages NT$ 14,000 (it is roughly NT$1000 lower in New Taipei City). That implies that a young worker just starting out is paying around 40 percent of their salary just for rent. Because a full-time job no longer covers expenses, after they get off formal work, young people deliver food or do freelance work on weekends. This is “a survival strategy squeezed out by structural crisis,”,Taiwan.Md says.

Over half of young people, Taiwan.Md observes, have a side hustle, meaning that over half the young population believes it needs two jobs to survive. This is “a warning signal” of the economic reality experienced by the young.

Not just the young. A flood of reports and commentaries contends that the elderly in Taiwan’s super-aged society must either come back to work or stay on their jobs. Inflation and poverty are “push” factors sending them back into the labor force, where they are greeted by labor shortages. A 104 Job Bank report observed recently that out of over 1 million job vacancies in Taiwan, 181,000 were aimed at middle-aged and elderly workers, a threefold rise in just three years. For many elderly, especially single females from the “miracle” generation, retirement pensions won’t even cover a studio apartment in Taipei. Gig work will be an inevitable choice for them.

INFORMAL ECONOMY

Discussions of the gig economy often fail to highlight the way it intersects the informal economy, the part of the economy that is neither monitored nor taxed by the government. In many discussions, Taiwan’s informal economy is roughly 20 percent of the size of the formal economy. Workers in this economy are often unpaid family members of the senior family member, and the products they make are often transported by gig workers. Taiwan passed legislation in January aimed at protecting delivery workers, but such regulations should be extended across the entire informal and illegal economy.

At present we do not regard illegal migrant workers (and foreign spouses) in Taiwan’s farming and services sector as gig workers, though they often are. Even when they have “stable” employment they suffer from the same precarity. By subdividing the workforce into categories like “gig,” “freelance,” “delivery,” “agricultural,” “illegal,” and “migrant,” the system uses divide-and-rule tactics to create floating labor forces that must accept the (abusive) conditions of their employment pigeon-holes. That is a public policy choice, not a natural law.

Moreover, Taiwan is only hurting itself. If the young are gig workers struggling each week with three jobs and no free time, they cannot have children. Nor can they marry. This month the government reported that marriages fell 15 percent last year to just 104,000. Where marriages go, birth rates follow.

Neither can gig workers start businesses of their own, limited as they are by time and cash pressures. In Taiwan small- and medium-sized business start-ups struggle, unless they are in the tech sector. Yet few gig workers have the skills to open a tech start-up. This suggests that while entry into the gig economy may be easy, exit from it may not be.

Hence, for many young workers, unless government policies directly address their problems, the gig economy is going to become a lifestyle trap offering the illusion of autonomy for its workers while building little for their future, or the nation’s.

Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.


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Who will tell Taiwan’s story in an age of competing narratives?A recent roundtable at SOAS explored how academic research on Taiwan can reach people who will never read an academic journal or attend a university seminar

When Beijing recently adopted its new ethnic unity law, international attention focused largely on its implications for China’s governance and ethnic minorities. Yet the legislation also carries significance beyond the People’s Republic itself. By reinforcing the idea of a single Chinese national identity, it reflects an increasingly determined effort to shape how history, culture and identity are understood — not only within China, but internationally. Taiwan, which Beijing continues to portray as an inseparable part of that national story, inevitably becomes part of this broader narrative.

This raises an important question. If others are becoming more assertive in telling Taiwan’s story, who will tell Taiwan’s own?

For more than three decades, Taiwan Studies has grown into a mature international field. Research centers have been established across Europe, North America and Asia. Specialist book series and journals flourish, conferences attract scholars from around the world, and an impressive body of research has deepened our understanding of Taiwan’s politics, society, history and culture.

Yet scholarship alone is no longer enough.

Academic publications remain essential, but they rarely reach audiences beyond universities. At a time when public understanding increasingly shapes international perceptions, Taiwan Studies faces a new challenge: how can rigorous research reach people who will never read an academic journal or attend a university seminar?

This question lay at the heart of a recent roundtable, ‘Bringing Taiwan Studies to Wider Audiences,’ held during the Taiwan Studies Summer School hosted by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Rather than presenting new research findings, the discussion explored how scholars can engage wider audiences without sacrificing academic rigor. The examples offered suggested that the future of Taiwan Studies may depend as much on storytelling as on scholarship.


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SPEAK UP: Madonna, Taylor Swift, FIFA World Cup launch new songs (1/2) 娜姐、泰勒絲、世界盃重磅出擊（上）

A: The “Queen of Pop” Madonna and some other superstars are finally releasing new albums.

B: Is her new work “Confessions II” a sequel to the 2005 dance album “Confessions on a Dance Floor?”

A: Yes, and it’s also Madonna’s 15th album since her debut in 1983. Her new single “I Feel So Free” is so catchy.

B: She staged two shows at the Taipei Arena in 2016, and even publicly performed her 1994 megahit “Take A Bow” for the first time, drawing envy from fans worldwide.

A: Madonna also ignited the stage at the Coachella Music Festival recently. At the age of 67, she’s still super lively. I really hope the queen can visit Taiwan again soon.

A: 樂壇「流行女皇」瑪丹娜等巨星，近日終於重磅出「輯」啦。

B: 她的新作《娜語錄II》是2005年舞曲專輯《娜語錄》續作嗎？

A: 對啊這也是瑪丹娜自1983年出道以來，所發行的第15張專輯，新單曲《我感覺好自在》超洗腦。

B: 娜姐2016年曾在台北小巨蛋熱唱兩場，並史上首次在巡演中獻唱1994年神曲《謝幕曲》，當時令全球歌迷都羨慕不已。

A: 她不久前才炸翻科切拉音樂節舞台，67歲了還是一尾活龍，真希望女皇能再度來台開唱。

（By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張迪）

For your information Language Tip 語文小提示 confess (v.) 承認、認罪、 懺悔；宣稱信奉 confession (n.) 承認、認罪、懺悔confessional (n.) 告解室 (adj.) 懺悔的、自白的 confessor (n.) 1. 懺悔者、告解人 2. 告解神父、聆聽懺悔的人 3.（基督教的）精修聖人


countries: 中國 美國

content_text:
〔中央社〕美國科技新聞網站The Information今天引述兩名知情人士報導，中國計畫允許國內頂尖人工智慧（AI）公司購買數量有限的輝達（NVIDIA）H200晶片。

路透社與彭博（Bloomberg News）引述The Information報導，中國官員最近幾週告訴阿里巴巴（Alibaba）、字節跳動（ByteDance）及深度求索（DeepSeek）等中企，它們可能很快會獲准購買一些H200晶片。

據報導，這些中企為取得批准，必須詳細說明所需晶片數量及原因。中國官員告訴上述公司，它們只能將H200晶片用於訓練。

一名知情人士指稱，中國政府仍在評估可批准購買的輝達晶片數量，總數可能低於20萬枚，不到這些企業今年稍早時申請數量的一半。

消息曝光後，輝達股價應聲上揚1%。輝達未立即回應路透社的置評要求。（編譯：陳正健）1150709

一手掌握經濟脈動 點我訂閱自由財經Youtube頻道

title: 美媒：中國擬允許頂尖AI公司　採購少量輝達H200晶片


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印太戰略智庫執行長矢板明夫6日在台中遭持香港護照入境台灣的中國籍男子廖港發襲擊，引發台灣社會高度關注，此案被認為是中共惡法「民族團結法」正式上路後，全球首件跨境鎮壓。隨著廖男的背景被起底，名嘴吳崑玉8日加碼爆料，有前香港警司情報科人員指稱廖港發是香港「14K」的人！

吳崑玉8日晚間在政論節目《攏總鏡來講》談到矢板明夫遇襲案時，爆料說，有資深記者找到以前待在香港警司情報科的人，打聽廖港發是什麼來頭，據稱對方一看就直接說「這個就14K的人啦！」

14K是國際知名黑幫「三合會」的一個體系，起源可追溯到國民黨的中將葛肇煌。1945年葛肇煌接收了廣州洪門組織「洪發山」，並將其改組為反共情報機構「洪發山忠義堂」；1949年國共內戰後，這些組織隨國民黨殘部撤至香港。因為總部曾設於廣州寶華路14號，加上國民黨（KMT）的縮寫，因而被稱為「14K」。

吳崑玉說，香港許多黑幫原本都是反共的，但在中共數十年的政治招安與利益綑綁下，慢慢將這些地下組織染紅收歸己用，尤其是近十年的香港社會運動中，這些黑幫已完全轉變為替北京執行邊緣任務的「政治僱傭兵」。

另外有知情網友在臉書發文透露，雖說廖港發是14K的人，但其實他是沒入會的「藍燈籠」，也就是非正式成員，是組織販毒系統裡最底層的零散毒品分銷者。

☆少一份毒品就多一份健康，自由時報提醒您遠離毒品☆

references: 網友 臉書

countries: 中國 台灣 香港

title: 打矢板明夫中國男 港警司一看秒爆：起源於國民黨黑幫14K的人


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周婕妤逆轉愛徒陳佳樺，連續兩站排名賽奪冠。（撞球總會提供）

〔記者許明禮／台北報導〕2026 RENATA 蕾娜塔女子職業撞球排名賽第165站昨晚在林口九號颱風撞球競技館激戰落幕。去年度排名第一的「大眼妹」周婕妤，克服開局0:3落後，在搶尾局撿到對手的致命6號球失誤，最終9:8逆轉愛徒「天才甜擊手」陳佳樺，跨季連兩站奪冠，進帳4萬元獎金，也是她生涯第27座排名賽冠軍。

這一站排名賽是2026年賽季第一站，世界排名第7的周婕妤在首日的勝部晉級戰以6:7敗給林嬍玟後，在敗部晉級戰迅速做出調整，以6:1擊退章家嘉。

進入16強之後，周婕妤找回手感，先以8:3打敗「撞球天后」柳信美，8強再以8:4解決兩度摘下世青冠軍的洪欣妤，4強面對「撞球精靈」郭思廷，也一路領先以8:4獲勝，跨季連續3站闖進決賽。

同樣兩度奪下世界青少年冠軍的陳佳樺，也先後擊退林筱琦、林媺玟，4強賽再以8:6力退王婉菱，連續兩站在冠軍戰上演「師徒對決」戲碼。

今年2月獲得2025年女子職撞總冠軍賽亞軍的陳佳樺，第1局以「2、9碰」先馳得點後，取得3:0領先；周婕妤則利用對手第4局1號球跳球母球洗袋，連追4局，4:3反超；隨後雙方一路纏鬥，周婕妤在第15局2號球解球留下機會，陳佳樺吃完後以8:7率先聽牌，不料下一局衝球母球洗袋，周婕妤自由球接手後順利清檯，再度追平。搶尾局，周婕妤衝球沒球進，陳佳樺6號球沒做好，最後力拚薄底袋失手，周婕妤幸運的拿下勝利。

周婕妤表示，其實這場球陳佳樺打得還不錯，反倒是她狀況一般，失誤很多，可能是打到最後一場有些累了，精神不夠集中。對她來說，現在打國內的比賽都以平常心面對，當做調整狀態，反倒是陳佳樺每次在冠軍戰碰到她，可能是特別想贏，心態比較會有波動，兩人迄今在排名賽冠軍戰三度交手，陳佳樺還沒贏過。

陳佳樺（右）搶局局致命失誤，遭師父周婕妤逆轉。（撞球總會提供）

title: 撞球》愛徒陳佳樺搶尾局致命失誤 周婕妤跨季連兩站排名賽奪冠


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「塔吊哥」鄭忠祥今天為統一獅亞太主場賽事開球。（統一獅提供）

〔記者羅志朋／綜合報導〕統一獅今天亞太主場迎戰中信兄弟，獅隊球團針對上班族球迷特別推出「下班歇歇席」，每場將近200席座位，開賣之後均搶購完畢，特別邀請到「塔吊哥」鄭忠祥擔任開球嘉賓。

「塔吊哥」本名鄭忠祥，大家稱他「鐵皮」，來自花蓮阿美族，因工作長期居住台南，從小就是統一獅迷，鄭忠祥從事固定式起重機（塔吊）二十多年，今年4月初開始在亞太成棒主球場附近的建案工程上班，塔吊的高度離地近100公尺，獨有的「上帝視角」將亞太球場一覽無遺，從獅隊每一個主題日的前置作業到活動當日，他總是透過設社群平台分享分享一些大家平常看不見的視野，也讓球迷更認識不一樣的亞太成棒主球場日常。

鄭忠祥提到，當初收到球團邀請開球時還以為是詐騙集團，「我那時候嚇到，想說怎麼可能，後來確認之後竟然是真的，就覺得很不可思議。」鄭忠祥小時候打過7年棒球，今天站上職棒球場開球完成兒時夢想，他說，「在高空時就聽得到場內的應援，但在上面孤單一人，讓我很想進到場內體驗，上次進場後就覺得現場真的太震撼了！」

鄭忠祥開完球後到亞太成棒主球場球場專屬的「下班歇歇席」觀賞球賽，他說：「上班一整天之後很累，下班到球場來吶喊、放鬆、支持自己喜歡的球隊，可以釋放壓力，很讚。」

「下班歇歇席」不僅能體驗Lions Lounge，還提供下班小點心，並附贈一張上班族語錄小卡。

title: 中職》收到統一獅開球邀請以為是詐騙集團  「塔吊哥」圓夢！


title: MLB》被前隊友大谷翔平敲生涯300轟！明星右投：我故意投給他打的

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大谷翔平。（法新社）

〔體育中心／綜合報導〕道奇日本巨星大谷翔平今天首局首打席開轟，締造生涯300轟里程碑，而被載入史冊的苦主，是34歲洛磯明星右投羅倫森（Michael Lorenzen），他也是大谷過去在天使時期的隊友。

大谷今天開賽就完美逮中羅倫森的紅中失投伸卡球，大棒一揮掃出中外野陽春砲，本季第20轟出爐，大聯盟生涯300轟里程碑正式達陣，這發全壘打擊球初速112.2英哩、飛行距離409英呎、仰角僅19度。賽後羅倫森直言：「我沒想到他竟然能用那麼低的仰角，把球打到那麼遠的地方。不過，如果有一個球員能做到那種事情，那個人就是他。」

曾於2023年入選明星賽的羅倫森，2022年曾效力天使，也和大谷當過隊友。羅倫森在紅人時期也想過挑戰二刀流，因此與大谷當隊友時，他也把握機會仔細觀察大谷的訓練方式。回憶起那段時光，羅倫森表示：「那真的很棒，從以前開始，我就一直很尊敬他，不管是在打擊還是投球方面的準備方式。

羅倫森繼續提到：「我也很佩服他的棒球智慧，知道自己想做什麼。而且他有很強烈的鬥爭心，可以感受到他想擊敗對手的那股意志。他為了勝利什麼都願意去做。他具備所有能成功的一切，而我一直都是他的忠實球迷。」

這支具有紀念意義的全壘打，也讓羅倫森以「被大谷打出300轟的投手」身分載入史冊。對此，羅倫森笑著說道：「沒有啦，那球我故意投給他打的！因為我跟他感情很好，所以想說：『好啦，這是你的300轟，好好享受吧！』」

taiwan-subdivisions: 成功 新社


countries: 中國 香港

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國際龍舟聯合會在香港設立總部，並已於上月底舉行開幕儀式，本月正式啟用。

中國香港龍舟總會主席鍾志樂表示，國龍聯總部再次在香港設立，標誌著香港在國際體壇重要性和影響力，以及香港營商的吸引力，對發展香港龍舟運動，具策略性意義。鍾志樂感謝文化體育及旅遊局支持國龍聯總部再次落戶香港，體現特區政府對體育界的支持。

他表示，文體旅局推出「加強香港在亞洲和國際體育組織影響力先導計劃」提供財政誘因吸引亞洲和國際體育組織總部或區域總部落戶香港，以加強體育總會的國際話語權和影響力。而國龍聯亦受惠於投資推廣署的一站式服務，協助在香港設立總部。

編輯:李俊傑

title: 國際龍舟聯合會在港設總部　本月正式啟用


content_text:
北約表示，盟國承諾今年向烏克蘭提供價值700億歐元的軍事裝備、以及相關支持和培訓，並將在明年維持至少同等水平。

北約峰會在土耳其首都安卡拉舉行，會後發表《安卡拉峰會宣言》。宣言說，北約在安卡拉宣布超過500億美元的新軍事採購，並承諾提升國防工業製造能力，與工業界合作加快創新。北約將繼續努力消除盟國之間的國防貿易壁壘，並利用北約伙伴關係最大限度提高國防工業水平。

宣言未有提及下屆峰會舉辦地點和時間，只表示期待下次會晤。分析認為，北約正考慮不按慣例舉行2027年峰會，原因之一是希望緩和美國總統特朗普與北約盟友之間的緊張關係。

編輯︰張萬燕

countries: 烏克蘭 土耳其 美國

title: 北約稱今年將向烏克蘭提供700億歐元軍援


content_text:
大熱天的午餐真難安排，不少人選擇超商涼麵，輕鬆吃完不費事。然而常見的涼麵配料是麻醬，高油脂與營養配置不均難免讓人擔心對體重與血糖的影響。營養師蔡宜方特別分享了3款「涼麵創意醬料」，提升口感層次也補強營養。

蔡宜方建議，想吃得健康可以從改變醬料做起：

蒜蓉香料醬（約100大卡）： 材料：蒜頭3～5瓣、九層塔少許、香菜少許、白醋10c.c.、醬油15c.c.、橄欖油10c.c.、味醂少許。

特點：利用蒜頭搭配九層塔與香菜，不僅香氣逼人，更能攝取多種植化素幫助調節體質。加入橄欖油、醬油、白醋與少許味醂，是調節體質的絕佳組合。

優格芝麻醬（約110大卡）：

材料：芝麻醬10g、優格(無糖有糖皆可)50c.c.、日式醬油15c.c.。

特點：在傳統芝麻醬中加入優格，能有效降低油脂比例並提升蛋白質含量，讓醬汁呈現更滑順的口感。

蘿蔔泥檸檬醬汁（僅40大卡）：

材料：白蘿蔔泥2大湯匙、檸檬1顆、鰹魚露15c.c.。

特點：以白蘿蔔泥與一顆檸檬搭配鰹魚露，富含維生素C與膳食纖維，白蘿蔔更是護胃、照護氣管的好幫手，是追求極致清爽的首選。

看更多：夏天吃這類「國民美食」最傷腸胃！營養師曝這款沙拉醬比生菜更容易壞

journalist: 李南燕

title: 告別高油麻醬！營養師：妙用「這2物」變身涼麵神醬 加碼超商涼麵「這樣配」


content_text: 隨著星空的變化，每個星座的運勢也伴隨微妙的變動。命理專家小孟老師今天（7/9）為大家帶來了詳細的星座運勢解讀，不論是工作、感情還是財運，每個星座都有其獨特的指引和提醒。

journalist: 羅以容

title: 7/9星座運勢 獅子減少奢侈花費、天秤別投資 1星座財運之神降臨了


content_text:
這次曾子余、納豆、王敏淳要帶大家開吃雙北美食！包含用餐時段大排長龍會跳舞的「創意炒飯」、水源市場隱藏版「５種海鮮放整鍋」、300元12道菜「無菜單日料攤」、隱身巷弄正宗日本平價「道地大阪燒」、汐止市場內銅板價「排隊米粉湯」、超人氣「銷魂魷魚羹」、來自7400公里外50元銅板價「異國甜點」、連續３年必比登推介巷弄「白切鵝肉」～更多精采內容請鎖定《食尚玩家》～電視版完整節目，隔天中午12點請鎖定食尚玩家官方網站、APP。下載食尚APP，天天免費抽大獎！

本週優惠券，領起來

journalist: 食尚玩家

title: 必比登推薦「白切鵝肉」！納豆、曾子余、王敏淳吃雙北美食｜7/8店家資訊 | 食尚玩家


content_text:
現在一起跟著命理專家「清水孟國際塔羅小孟老師」，來看看今天12星座的運勢是如何吧！2026星座總體運勢、2026星座桃花運、2026星座事業運、2026星座財運、2026星座健康運

牡羊座工作：參考業界實例感情：承認錯誤挽回財運：切換投資項目牡羊幸運色:茶綠色 貴人:巨蟹 小人:金牛

journalist: 王彥智

title: 【2026／7／9 每日星座運勢】巨蟹頻出現爛桃花，天蠍幸運色是亮橘色|女人我最大


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countries: 日本 香港 中國 美國 萬那杜 巴基斯坦 烏克蘭 台灣 德國 馬來西亞

events: 風災 颱風

people: 卓榮泰 管碧玲 川普

taiwan-subdivisions: 太平 西湖 和平

title: 安卡拉 | 關鍵字新聞


content_text:
（中央社北京8日綜合外電報導）美國科技新聞網站The Information今天引述兩名知情人士報導，中國計畫允許國內頂尖人工智慧（AI）公司購買數量有限的輝達（NVIDIA）H200晶片。

路透社與彭博（Bloomberg News）引述The Information報導，中國官員最近幾週告訴阿里巴巴（Alibaba）、字節跳動（ByteDance）及深度求索（DeepSeek）等中企，它們可能很快會獲准購買一些H200晶片。

據報導，這些中企為取得批准，必須詳細說明所需晶片數量及原因。中國官員告訴上述公司，它們只能將H200晶片用於訓練。

一名知情人士指稱，中國政府仍在評估可批准購買的輝達晶片數量，總數可能低於20萬枚，不到這些企業今年稍早時申請數量的一半。

消息曝光後，輝達股價應聲上揚1%。輝達未立即回應路透社的置評要求。（編譯：陳正健）1150709

title: 美媒：中國擬允許頂尖AI公司 採購少量輝達H200晶片 | 國際


content_text:
【大纪元2026年07月09日讯】（大纪元记者吴畏编译报导）日本综合商社伊藤忠商事（Itochu）与空调制造商大金工业（Daikin Industries）将联手开展一项从废旧商用空调中回收铝的业务。此举旨在减少日本对关键资源进口的依赖，尤其是在中东冲突扰乱全球供应链的背景下，回收业务尤其显得重要。目前，日本近三分之一的铝进口来自中东地区。

根据《日经新闻》报导，这项新的回收业务预计将于今年底启动。届时，总部位于东京的伊藤忠子公司“伊藤忠金属”（Itochu Metals）将从商业设施和办公大楼回收大金品牌的废旧空调。这些空调将被拆解并分类为热交换器、马达等部件，随后由专业废料处理商从中回收铝以及铁、铜等其它金属。

以往，工业废弃物处理商虽然也回收材料，但仅按“有色金属”或“塑胶”等大类进行粗略分类。回收所得金属纯度较低，难以重新使用于空调或汽车等铝材用量大的产品。

伊藤忠及其合作伙伴将实施更严格的分类流程，以确保回收金属纯度高，使其能够重新用于大金空调的生产产品中。

根据大金工业介绍，从一台小型量产空调可回收约63公斤可再利用的金属废料和塑料，其中包括约7公斤铝和8公斤铜。

根据日本冷冻空调工业协会的数据，2025财年日本商用空调的出货量约为85万台。据估算，大金工业占了该市场40%至50%的份额。如果每年回收30万台空调，便可回收2,000吨铝和2,300吨铜（以废料形式）。

伊藤忠金属先前已在日本各地开展针对便利商店货架及冷藏展示柜的回收与维护业务。该公司与570家合作伙伴，建立了一个覆盖全国的设备回收与运输网络，并设有22个维修和回收基地。这一网络将用于空调的回收。

journalist: 吴畏

title: 减少对进口依赖 日本公司将从空调回收铝材


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【大纪元2026年07月08日讯】（大纪元记者李言综合报导）苹果公司（Apple）于周三（7月8日）宣布，与芯片（晶片）大厂博通（Broadcom）达成一项价值超过300亿美元的多年期合作协议，以全力推动这家iPhone制造商的“美国制造计划”。

这项协议将在美国本土设计并生产超过150亿颗定制芯片，不仅是苹果迄今在美国本土最大规模的制造承诺，也是其推动供应链“美国制造”的重大里程碑。

根据两家公司披露的讯息，此项协议包括四大核心重点。博通周一向美国证券交易委员会（SEC）提交的文件显示，双方的长期供应协议将锁定至2031年。

协议核心内容根据协议，博通将为多代苹果产品研发并供应“定制化ASIC芯片”与射频元件（包括FBAR滤波器），用以驱动iPhone、iPad及Mac电脑的蜂巢网络、Wi-Fi和蓝牙等无线连接功能。

其中ASIC（专用整合电路）预期也将用于应对日益增长的人工智能（AI）工作负载。

作为协议的一部分，博通将投资15亿美元，用于扩建并升级其位于科罗拉多州福特科林斯（Fort Collins）的现有制造工厂。此举预计将为美国本土维持并创造数百个高科技就业机会。

同时，此举也是响应川普（特朗普）政府政策，分散供应链风险。对于苹果即将卸任的执行长蒂姆‧库克（Tim Cook）而言，这是他协助美国建立端到端芯片供应链的最新举措。

苹果近年因AI热潮导致内存与储存芯片成本飙升，加上关税带来的每季数十亿美元成本压力，正加速将元件制造转回美国，以降低对台湾等海外芯片制造商的依赖。库克在声明中也特别向美国总统川普及其政府对该项目的支持表达谢意。

此次投资也是“美国制造计划”最大手笔。苹果在2025年发起“美国制造计划”（American Manufacturing Program），承诺在四年内向美国经济投资6千亿美元。本次与博通达成的300亿美元协议，正是该计划启动以来金额最高的一笔国内投资。

journalist: 李言

title: 苹果斥资300亿美元 由博通在美制造芯片


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【大纪元2026年07月08日讯】（大纪元记者林燕综合报导）周二（7月7日），在加州硅谷经营处方药坊的中国籍女商人何如佳（Ruthia He）被判处六年监禁。检方指控她创办的Done Global初创公司滥开阿德拉（Adderall）处方药。

何如佳于2025年11月被定罪。法庭之前裁定，她存在共谋分销管制药物的行为。

这项调查是2024年由司法部的刑事诈骗部门牵头，卫生与公共服务部监察长办公室、联邦调查局和缉毒署共同参与。官员们说，在进行数据分析后发现了这起医保诈骗计划，涉及上亿美元的金额。

根据起诉书，Done的临床医生经常在几分钟内就给多动症（ADHD）病患开出阿德拉等处方药，而且他们几乎不跟病人沟通或询问患者问题。阿德拉含安非他命，属于兴奋剂，可用于治疗多动症，但这种处方药非常容易让人上瘾。

按照惯例，医生必须进行详细的病患情况评估，以防将这种被广泛滥用的药物开给别有用心的寻药者。

周二听证会的旁听席上坐着一些患者家属。据政府专家证人说，这些患者在获得不当处方后，健康受到严重损害，有的甚至失去生命。

journalist: 林燕

title: 滥开兴奋剂 中国籍女商人在美被判入狱六年


content_text: 2026年6月26日傍晚，北京下班高峰时分，一架中国产“阿若拉”轻型运动飞机，一头撞进了北京第一高楼、528米高的“中国尊”玻璃幕墙。事件震动国际舆论，直到7月2日，“北京朝阳”官方通报才姗姗来迟：驾驶飞机的是66岁的北京居民刘某某，自由职业、离异独居，长期失眠焦虑，多次萌生结束生命的念头，案件被定性为“个人原因造成的危害公共安全案件”。通报一出，质疑声四起——一个“个人原因”，真能解释一架飞机如何毫无阻拦地撞上首都心脏地带的地标建筑吗？

title: 从北京“中国尊”到莫斯科红场——一架小飞机如何撬动一个庞大帝国


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【大纪元2026年07月08日讯】A股7月8日高开低走，三大指数集体收跌，科创综指也小幅下跌。人形机器人、锂矿、液态金属等前期热门板块明显回落，全市场逾3700只个股下跌。沪指继前一日跌破4000点后，继续收在这一关口下方。

综合大陆媒体报导，截至7月8日收盘，上证指数下跌0.49%，报3970.88点；深证成指下跌1.87%，创业板指下跌1.70%，科创综指下跌0.44%。沪深两市成交额约2.56万亿元，较上一交易日减少176亿元。

title: A股三大指数收跌 逾3700股下跌


content_text: 图为德国总理默茨（Friedrich Merz），拍摄于2026年5月5日。(Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)

title: 【重播】北约峰会后 德国总理默茨举行记者会


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【大纪元2026年07月08日讯】（大纪元记者李皓月编译报导）周二（7月7日），前代理国土安全部部长查德‧沃尔夫（Chad Wolf）致函美国国会议员，呼吁彻查中国犯罪组织大举渗透美国大麻产业的问题，并警告此现象已对美国公共健康与国家安全构成严重威胁。

这封信是沃尔夫写给共和党众议员、众议院美中战略竞争特别委员会（众议院中共问题委员会，House Select Committee on the CCP）主席约翰‧穆勒纳尔沃尔夫（John Moolenaar）和委员会首席议员罗．卡纳（Ro Khanna，加州民主党）的。

沃尔夫在信中表示，原本用来发展工业大麻与非致瘾性大麻二酚（CBD）产品的法规，已被扭曲成具有致幻、致瘾作用的高浓度四氢大麻酚（THC）产品泛滥的温床，“如今，这正成为中国相关行为者利用监管漏洞和薄弱执法机制，以牺牲美国人民的健康与安全为代价，谋取暴利的另一条途径。”

他指出，这些产品常以软糖、糖果、饮料和电子烟等形式包装，针对青少年行销，其包装与宣传方式往往对儿童极具吸引力。因缺乏年龄限制、标签规范与安全标准，严重危害美国人的健康。

沃尔夫引用了白宫《2026年国家药物管制策略》（2026 National Drug Control Strategy）中的警告，该策略指出，“美国的大麻交易不再是小型零散的；它已被老练的跨国犯罪组织所接管，尤其是那些与中国（中共）有联系的组织。”

这些组织利用州级大麻合法化漏洞，在多个州建立大型无照种植基地。以奥克拉荷马州为例，当地执法单位估计，该州数千处大麻与工业大麻农场中，超过80%由中国犯罪集团经营。

journalist: 李皓月

countries: 中国 查德

title: 中国大麻黑帮肆虐美国 前国土高官吁彻查