09.28.111 "Read the News" — A Quick Overview of the Day's Focus Issues

September 28, ROC Year 111 (2022 AD): a daily real-time online roundup of hot focus topics from global news events, covering technology, life, travel, transportation, industry and finance, business, companies and enterprises, stocks, foreign exchange markets, investment, real estate, automobiles, real-time news, art, design, politics, society, Taiwan, mainland China, cross-strait relations, weather, natural disasters, current affairs, and many other dimensions of intelligence.

The “Read the 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 real-time context of society through the flow of news events listed quickly one by one.

International and Social Events

Media personality Chou Yu-kou recently revealed that former Miss China Chang Shu-chuan was the rumored heroine of the “Regent Hotel case” involving Chiang Wan-an’s father, Chiang Hsiao-yen, and was sued. On the 26th, she even had a fierce argument with KMT city councilor Wang Hung-wei in front of the Taipei District Prosecutors Office. Earlier, FTV held a standing board meeting and resolved that, because the spicy news TV program had caused controversy from all sides, it would cancel the simulcast of Chou Yu-kou’s program on the news channel and return it to channel 152, Taiwan Channel.

During the application and establishment period of Mirror TV, rumors of high-level party and government pressure on the National Communications Commission (NCC) continued. Today, Chen Jiao-hua even released audio from last year’s Mirror TV shareholders meeting, in which Pei Wei said “Su Tseng-chang found NCC Chairman Chen Yao-hsiang” and so on. Mirror TV denied the content of the revelations and will file a lawsuit over the false revelations. Presidential Office spokesperson Chang Tun-han also responded that President Tsai Ing-wen had never discussed this issue with Premier Su Tseng-chang and would not get involved in individual cases.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said today that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already caused a severe human rights situation, triggering widespread violations including extrajudicial executions and torture, which may constitute war crimes. It also said that human rights violations have occurred in Ukraine as well.

Yang Hui-ju and Tsai Fu-ming, four years ago, directed internet trolls to insult the Republic of China Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Osaka office and public servants in the “Kansai Airport incident.” Earlier this year, the Taiwan High Court, under Article 140 of the Criminal Code for insulting a public servant in the performance of duties, sentenced the two to 5 months each, commutable to a fine, which became final. Yang refused to accept this, arguing that Article 140 of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional, and applied for constitutional interpretation.

Science and Technology

Niantic announced that it will bring the previously opened Lightship visual positioning system to the web, allowing more web-based augmented reality content built in WebVR form to use this system.

The annual Jupiter opposition is the moment when Jupiter is closest to Earth and appears largest, brightest, and clearest. The planetarium said this Jupiter opposition is the closest to Earth since October 1963. Tomorrow, the public only needs to look toward the southeast after dark, and the brightest white star visible to the naked eye is Jupiter.

Business and Investment

The semiconductor market has reversed, causing successive impacts on the supply chain. Now it is reported that TSMC’s (2330) largest customer, Apple, rejected the company’s plan to raise prices next year. But regarding the aforementioned customer-related price news, TSMC declined to comment today (27th).

The Financial Supervisory Commission announced today that, as of September 26 this year, the number of general statutory infectious disease epidemic prevention insurance policies underwritten reached 4.8589 million, with premium income of 4.521 billion yuan; the number of claims was 2.1911 million, with claim amounts of 84.096 billion yuan; vaccine insurance claims were 22.944 billion yuan. The two epidemic prevention insurances combined have paid 107.041 billion yuan in claims, officially breaking through the 100 billion mark. The cumulative claim amount of epidemic prevention insurance this year is nearly 19 times the premium income received.

Nature and Medicine

The Republic of China’s border is about to reopen, and Japan announced that on October 11 it will open up independent travel and visa-free entry, making it more convenient for overseas tourists to travel freely to Japan. However, the Medigen vaccine cannot obtain Japanese government recognition, and the public must pay 3,500 yuan out of pocket for a PCR test to go to Japan. At the same time, it said it would recognize a brand of vaccine developed by the People’s Republic of China, but the exact timing is undetermined.

Toddlers eating a full vegan diet: beware of rickets

Travel and Leisure

Whether think tanks, previously visiting U.S. congressmen, or former officials, all have pointed out the problem of the Republic of China’s too-short military service period. On the 27th, at the Legislative Yuan’s general interpellation, legislators from both the blue and green parties pressed Premier Su Tseng-chang and Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng on whether they really intended to restore one-year compulsory military service. Although Premier Su said that full communication with all sectors of society is still needed, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng essentially publicly confirmed that it is expected to be announced before the end of the year and take effect in 2024.

In Nantou County, Taiwan Province, a claw machine operator held a “claw machine gives gifts” activity. A father and daughter surnamed Hsu, unfamiliar with the game rules, took prizes themselves and left. The operator considered it theft and reported it to the police. Hsu afterward was willing to compensate, but the operator demanded compensation of two hundred times the theft rule, meaning that for the prizes worth 1,500 yuan that Hsu took, Hsu would have to pay 300,000 yuan. Hsu could not accept this, the operator insisted on filing a lawsuit, and the father and daughter were referred to prosecutors by police on theft charges.

On Orchid Island, there is a well-known attraction called “Big Sky Pond,” beside which several dead trees are quite distinctive. But recently the public discovered that the most symbolic dead tree in the pond had been chopped by a local tour guide into step-by-step footholds, the reason being to let customers take influencer-style photos, which made local residents very angry.