12.20.111 "Read the News" — A Quick Overview of the Day's Key Issues

December 20, 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 brief descriptions of the key news events around the world most worthy of attention that day, observing the real-time context of society through the flow of events listed one by one.

International and Social Events

In the case of People’s Party Hsinchu City mayor-elect Kao Hung-an’s alleged fraudulent collection of assistant fees, she was released on NT$600,000 bail last week on corruption charges. Kao Hung-an will announce the first wave of her small cabinet personnel list today. People familiar with the matter said that current High Prosecutors Office prosecutor Tsai Li-ching was asked whether she was willing to serve as Hsinchu deputy mayor. It is understood that Tsai Li-ching has verbally resigned to Shilin District Prosecutors Office chief Miao Cho-jan. If Tsai Li-ching takes over as deputy mayor with a prosecutor’s background, whether she will make the deficiencies of the Hsinchu baseball stadium a top investigation task is worth close attention.

After mainland China banned imports of Taiwan’s grouper, the Council of Agriculture rolled out domestic and export sales and extended-cultivation measures, and the Ministry of Education recently announced at an Executive Yuan meeting that elementary and junior high school students would eat grouper once a month this semester. But so far, apart from Taiwan Island, students in the Kinmen and Matsu archipelagos have not had it even once, seemingly excluded from being Taiwanese, and the policy is highly likely to fall through.

The Ministry of Education held a closure review meeting today. Six schools — Hualien County Private Guoguang Commercial and Industrial Vocational High School, Tainan City Private Huaji Yongan High School, Yunlin County Private Yixin Commercial and Industrial Vocational High School, Pingtung County Private Zhicheng Commercial and Industrial Vocational High School, Chiayi City Private Datong Commercial High School, and Gaomei Medical College — have been idle for more than 3 years and cannot be converted to other educational uses. These school corporations will be ordered dissolved, with subsequent liquidation and the attribution of remaining property handled accordingly.

Science and Technology

The Linux Foundation announced it will partner with Microsoft, Meta, AWS, and TomTom to build a brand-new Overture Maps mapping program. This map has four major features: first, merging multiple map data sources; second, linking data from different databases to the same database; third, detecting map errors through validation so that map data can be used in production systems; and fourth, promoting a universal, structured, and documented data schema to build an easy-to-use map data ecosystem.

The solar system contains planets with various characteristics, but lacks a water planet almost entirely covered by deep oceans. Recently, astronomers analyzed data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope and found that the exoplanets named Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d are more than 50% water by mass. Judging from the planets’ density and size, the surfaces of these two planets are covered by oceans at least 2,000 kilometers deep.

Business and Investment

On December 8, the UK Privy Council ruled to overturn the Bermuda Court of Appeal’s decision, holding that the trustee of the US$560 million trust property GRT’s original decision to exclude members of the Wang family from the scope of beneficiaries should be invalid, and restored the beneficiary rights of the Bermuda GRT trust. The joint plaintiffs Wang Wen-yao and Wang Wen-yang won the inheritance dispute.

As Western countries’ joint chip blockade against China grows tighter, Reuters reported on Tuesday (December 13) that three sources said China, in order to support the development of its semiconductor industry, is formulating a support plan exceeding 1 trillion yuan (US$143 billion).

Nature and Medicine

Recent research points out that you actually do not need a whole stretch of exercise time; just doing vigorous exercise about 1 minute at a time, 3 times a day — such as chasing a bus or carrying things upstairs — can reduce the risk of premature death by 39%.

Aerobic exercise can raise testosterone levels, not only increasing orgasms; for every extra minute you persist on the treadmill, the duration of sexual activity can increase by 2 to 3 minutes!

Travel and Leisure

The 2022 World Cup final ended in the early hours of today (the 19th) Taiwan time. Argentina and France fought to a 3-3 tie at the end of extra time, and Argentina ultimately won 4-2 in the penalty shootout, claiming the third championship in its history. “King of Football” Lionel Messi finally lifted the World Cup trophy as he wished, completing the last perfect piece of his career.