Read News 2021.01.11 — Global Focus and Trending Topics

A daily roundup of trending global news topics for January 11, 2021 (ROC year 110), covering technology, life, travel, transportation, industry and finance, business, companies, stocks, foreign exchange, investment, real estate, automobiles, breaking news, art, design, politics, society, Taiwan, mainland China, cross-strait affairs, weather, natural disasters, and current events.

The “Read News” section collects the headline events and brief summaries of the most important key news from around the world that deserve your attention in recent days, letting you see the threads of social trends through the flow of quickly listed news events.

Global Focus Topics for January 11, 2021

• International & Society
• Science & Technology
• Business & Investment
• Nature & Medicine
• Travel & Leisure

International & Society

Rumors of a special incident inside a hospital in northern Taiwan; patients not admitted and all surgeries halted: Word has spread that a hospital in northern Taiwan, due to a special incident, cannot admit other patients, and all originally scheduled surgeries have been suspended. No one is currently answering the hospital’s related phone lines. The county/city health bureau chief said everything must be announced by the Central Epidemic Command Center and that the details cannot be disclosed.

Pompeo lifts restrictions on U.S. contacts with Taiwan; former Australian PM: lays landmines for U.S.-China relations after Biden takes office: U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced on the 9th local time that the State Department would lift the self-imposed restrictions the United States had placed on contacts with Taiwan over the past decades, saying these past restrictions were meant to appease the Chinese Communist regime and that “this will never happen again” in the future, setting the tone for a hardline approach to China in his final term. Regarding the tough stance taken in the Trump administration’s final term, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd believes this will leave Biden facing more complex U.S.-China relations after taking office, as if laying a string of political landmines.

Executive Yuan’s pork dashboard fails? Pharmacist sarcastically jabs at Lin Fei-fan: earning NT$90,000, you should work properly: Ractopamine-containing American pork officially opened for import on New Year’s Day, raising public food-safety concerns. DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan recently said, “To date, not a single piece of pork has been imported,” and the Executive Yuan’s “pork dashboard” also showed that as of the 7th, American pork imports were zero, but it was exposed that five batches of American pork had already been imported on the 4th. In response, pharmacist Lin Shih-feng called out to Lin Fei-fan, saying that with a monthly salary of NT$90,000, he should deliver quality and work seriously.

Diaoyutai issue makes Suga Yoshihide anxious; China relations caught in a dilemma: During talks with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide anxiously stated that “the Senkaku Islands of Okinawa Prefecture (called Diaoyu Islands by China) are inherent territory of Japan, and Japan is also very concerned about the situation in Hong Kong.” This was the moment Suga’s patience ran out with Wang Yi, who asserted that the Senkaku Islands are Chinese territory and stressed that foreign countries should not meddle in Hong Kong affairs.

Japan believes China has changed to immediately tracking Japanese fishing boats once spotted near the Diaoyu Islands: The Japanese government analyzes that since August, China Coast Guard vessels have changed to, in principle, immediately tracking Japanese fishing boats when they are found in Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu Islands by China). Japan has strengthened its vigilance. Compared with the previous practice of entering territorial waters after some time had passed, China’s response has become tougher. Japanese government sources disclosed this.

South Korean Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Hong Nam-ki: “Actively discussing joining the CPTPP”: The South Korean government has decided to actively study joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), in which Japan, Australia, and others participate. As the possibility grows that the U.S. Biden administration will return to the agreement, South Korea has begun preparing for a new trade order.

Science & Technology

Users complain NETFLIX is completely down! International submarine cable problem: Chunghwa Telecom stated that an APG submarine cable fault occurred on January 9, 2021, and customers connecting to some websites in the United States, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore may experience slight delays in some connections; normal service will resume once repairs are complete, currently estimated to finish by January 20. Chunghwa Telecom stated that users have not reported any NETFLIX abnormalities, and because the submarine cable bandwidth is large, the impact on users is relatively minor.

SKT launches ultra-low-latency 5G cloud service that responds within 0.001 seconds: SK Telecom, through a “hyper-collaboration” with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has commercialized for the first time in the country its “SKT 5GX edge cloud service” that achieves ultra-low-latency communication speeds. With this service, the communication response time connecting to the cloud speeds up to 0.001 seconds (1 millisecond). This is about 0.065 seconds faster than the data processing speed of the current Long Term Evolution (4th generation, LTE) network, and about 0.041 seconds faster than the processing speed of the existing 5th generation (5G) network.

Business & Investment

UK regulator’s “air raid” warning! Bitcoin investors should prepare to lose all their money: The FCA is aware that some companies are offering investments in crypto assets, or loans or investments related to crypto assets, that promise high returns, but if consumers invest in these types of products, they should be mentally prepared to lose all their money. JPMorgan (“Little Morgan”) views Bitcoin as digital gold, a safe-haven asset and a tool to hedge against inflation. A recent JPMorgan report shows that in the long run, Bitcoin could reach US$146,000, because it competes with gold as an alternative currency.

Fubon Financial’s profit hit a record high last year; the first financial holding company ever to break NT$90 billion: Fubon Financial Holding (2881) announced a surge in December 2020 profit! Its self-settled after-tax net profit for the single month was NT$10.481 billion. In 2020…