US triples vaccines for Taiwan with 2.5 million-dose shipment

WASHINGTON - The United States will ship 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan on Saturday, a senior administration official told Reuters, more than tripling Washington's previous allocation of shots for the island, which has faced increasing political and military pressure from China.

Washington, competing with Beijing to deepen geopolitical clout through so-called "vaccine diplomacy," initially had promised to donate 750,000 doses to Taiwan but is increasing that number as President Joe Biden's administration advances its pledge to send 80 million US-made shots around the world.

China, which considers Taiwan an integral part of its territory, has repeatedly offered to send coronavirus vaccines to the island, which has been battling a spike in domestic infections. 

Taipei has expressed concern about the safety of Chinese shots.

The 2.5 million donated doses of the Moderna Inc vaccine will leave Memphis, Tennessee, on a flight belonging to Taiwan's China Airlines early on Saturday and arrive in Taipei on Sunday evening, the senior US administration official said, adding that the prompt delivery was due to experts from both sides being able to work out regulatory issues.

"We are not allocating these doses, or delivering these doses, based on political or economic conditions. We are donating these vaccines with the singular objective of saving lives," the official said.

"Our vaccines do not come with strings attached," the official said, adding Taiwan had "faced unfair challenges in its efforts to acquire vaccines on the global marketplace."

A deal for Taiwan to purchase vaccines from Germany's BioNTech SE fell through this year, with Taiwan's government blaming pressure from Beijing.

China has denied the accusation, saying Taiwan is free to obtain the vaccines through Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd, which has a contract to sell BioNTech's vaccine in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

"We believe that these attempts by China to block purchases, for political purposes, are reprehensible," the senior Biden administration official said.

The de facto US embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan, later confirmed the delivery.

"The donation reflects our commitment to Taiwan as a trusted friend, and a member of the international family of democracies," it said in a statement.

Taiwan is trying to speed up the arrival of the millions of vaccines it has on order, although infections remain comparatively low despite a rise in domestic cases. Only around 6% of Taiwan's 23.5 million people have received at least one shot of a vaccine regimen.

The US shipment comes at a time when Washington has been working with Taipei to create secure supply chains for strategic items such as computer chips, of which Taiwan is a key producer, that are vital for US automobile manufacturers and other industries.

It also comes after Taiwan announced on Friday that it will allow Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Taiwan's Foxconn and semiconductor giant TSMC, to negotiate on its behalf for COVID-19 vaccines.

Taiwan Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang said Washington's assistance with vaccines confirmed the "rock-solid friendship between Taiwan and the United States."

Jonathan Fritz, a senior State Department official, said on Thursday that China had been "very aggressively using vaccine donations as a lever to induce more of Taiwan's diplomatic partners to switch recognition."

Beijing has steadily whittled down the number of Taiwan's diplomatic allies, which now stands at just 15 countries.

The United States, which like most countries has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, has watched with alarm the stepped up tensions with Beijing, and Biden's administration has vowed to boost ties with the island, which it is required under US law to supply with the means of defense.

Earlier this week Taiwan reported the largest incursion yet by China's air force, including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers, into its air defense identification zone. 

(Reporting by Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Mary Milliken, Daniel Wallis and Steve Orlofsky)

-reuters

Asian markets mostly higher on hopes for coronavirus vaccine

Shares were mostly higher in Asia on Wednesday as investors were encouraged by news that an experimental COVID-19 vaccine under development by Moderna and the U.S. National Institutes of Health revved up people’s immune systems just as desired.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 advanced 1.6% to 22,945.50, while the Kospi in South Korea added 0.9% to 2,201.96. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 added 1.7% to 6,039.50. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was nearly unchanged at 25,476.31, while the Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.5% to 3,397.63. Shares were mixed in Southeast Asia and rose in Taiwan.

The Bank of Japan kept its ultra-easy monetary stance unchanged as it wrapped up a policy meeting. It forecast that the economy would improve later in the year, assuming there is no major “second wave” of outbreaks of the new coronavirus.

But the central back acknowledged very high uncertainties over the outlook for the world’s third largest economy. The bank’s growth forecast for the year was downgraded to minus 5.7%- minus 4.5% from the earlier forecast of minus 5%-minus 3%.

The report also raised the issue of financial stability, noting that the “vulnerability of the financial system could increase,” said Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics.

Investors are awaiting April-June economic growth data for China, which is due later in the week.

The focus for now was on news that scientists soon will begin a 30,000-person study to see if the experimental vaccine developed by Moderna and the NIH is strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.

News about the vaccine came after the end of trading for U.S. markets, where after another day of unsettled trading the S&P 500 rose 1.3% to 3,197.52. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 2.1% to 26,642.59, lifted by gains for UnitedHealth Group and Caterpillar, among others.

Upbeat earnings news is helpful, “But the cherry on top has to be the positive virus vaccine update as optimism on the vaccine is more than a show stopper. Its the ultimate recession stopper,” Stephen Innes of AxiCorp said in a commentary.

“The positive coverage on a potential Covid-19 vaccine represents a rotating carousel of positive news that is overwhelming rising virus cases in the U.S.,” he said.

On Wall Street, big tech-oriented stocks lagged behind, holding the Nasdaq composite to a more modest gain of 0.9% to 10,488.58.

The earnings reporting season has kicked off with three of the nation’s biggest banks painting a mixed picture of how badly the coronavirus pandemic is ripping through their businesses.

Like the broader market, financial stocks drifted between gains and losses for much of the day before turning higher in the afternoon. JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup said they collectively set aside nearly $27 billion during the second quarter to cover loans potentially going bad due to the recession.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 0.63% after rallying back from a morning dip on Tuesday to 0.60%. It tends to move with investors’ expectations of the economy and inflation.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 10 cents to $40.39 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 19 cents to settle at $40.29 per barrel on Tuesday. Brent oil, the international standard, picked up 13 cents to $43.03 per barrel. It rose 18 cents to $42.90 a barrel in London.

In currency dealings, the dollar bought 107.27 Japanese yen, up from 107.23 yen late Tuesday. The euro also was almost unchanged, rising to $1.1406 from $1.1401.

Associated Press

Gay couples plan mass weddings after Taiwan legalizes unions

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Gay couples in Taiwan plan a mass wedding registration after lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage, a first in Asia and a boost for LGBT rights activists who had championed the cause for two decades.

Legislators pressured by LGBT groups as well as by church organizations opposed to the move on Friday approved most of a government-sponsored bill that recognizes same-sex marriages and gives couples many of the tax, insurance and child custody benefits available to male-female married couples.

That makes Taiwan the first place in Asia with a comprehensive law both allowing and laying out the terms of same-sex marriage.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a supporter of the law, tweeted: “On May 17th, 2019 in Taiwan, LoveWon. We took a big step toward true equality, and made Taiwan a better country.”

“It’s a breakthrough, I have to say so,” said Shiau Hong-chi, professor of gender studies and communications management at Shih-Hsin University in Taiwan.

Thousands of people, including same-sex couples, demonstrated Friday morning in the rainy streets outside parliament before the vote. Many carried rainbow-colored placards reading “The vote cannot fail.” About 50 opponents sat under a tent outside parliament and gave speeches favoring marriage between only men and women.

Taiwan’s Constitutional Court in May 2017 said the constitution allows same-sex marriages and gave parliament two years to adjust laws accordingly. The court order mobilized LGBT advocacy groups pushing for fair treatment, as well as opponents among church groups and advocates of traditional Chinese family values that stress the importance of marriage and producing offspring.

Religion, conservative values and political systems that discourage LGBT activism have slowed momentum toward same-sex marriage in many Asian countries from Japan through much of Southeast Asia, although Thailand is exploring the legalization of same-sex civil partnerships.

“This will help spark a debate in Thailand, and hopefully will help Thailand move faster on our own partnership bill,” said Wattana Keiangpa of the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said Taiwan’s action should “sound a clarion call, kicking off a larger movement across Asia to ensure equality for LGBT people and pro-active protection of their rights by governments throughout the region. No more excuses!”

At least 20 same-sex couples are planning a mass marriage registration in Taipei on May 24, a spokesman for the advocacy group Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan said. The newlyweds and hundreds of invitees will hold a mass party a day later on a blocked-off boulevard outside the presidential office, the event organizer said.


The law will give a boost to Jay Lin and his partner, who hope to marry and assume joint custody of their two 2-year-old sons. They plan to register after May 24.

“A lot of gay parents are excited about that already,” said Lin, a Taipei-based online streaming service founder.

“I think once more people are married and more families are more comfortable being out in public, that will naturally have a beneficial impact on society and on people’s minds,” Lin said.

Taiwan’s acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships began in the 1990s when leaders in today’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party championed the cause to help Taiwan stand out in Asia as an open society.

Although claimed by China as its own territory, Taiwan is a self-governing democracy with a vibrant civil society dedicated to promoting rights for sexual and ethnic minorities, women, the handicapped and others.

Mainland China, ruled by the authoritarian Communist Party, remains much more conservative and officials have repeatedly discouraged even the discussion of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Despite that, news of Taiwan’s new law was a major trending topic on social media in China, with more than 100 million views on the Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo.

Opponents in Taiwan raised fears of incest, insurance scams and children confused by having two mothers or two fathers. Both sides of the issue have held colorful street demonstrations and lobbied lawmakers.

“This is going to cause a lot of morality problems,” said Lin Shih-min with the Taiwan political action group Stability of Power, which opposed the law. “From the point of view of the children, they have the right to grow up with both a mother and a father.”

In November 2018, a majority of Taiwan voters rejected same-sex marriage in an advisory referendum. However, legislators favoring the bill, and voting separately on each item largely along party lines, said it followed the law as well as the spirit of the referendum. 



“We need to take responsibility for the referendum last year and we need to take responsibility for people who have suffered from incomplete laws or faced discrimination,” ruling party legislator Hsiao Bi-khim said during the three-hour parliament session.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Mayday call issued before plane crashed into Taipei river

TAIPEI, Taiwan— Moments before the TransAsia Airways propjet banked sharply and crashed into a river, one of its pilots said, “Mayday, mayday, engine flameout,” according to an aviation official who declined to comment on a possible cause for the accident.

At least 32 people on board the ATR 72 were killed and 15 survivors were injured in the crash in Taiwan’s capital, the latest in a series of aircraft disasters linked to Asian airlines. Divers were searching in the river for the remaining 11 people on board, including the two pilots. The plane’s black boxes was found overnight.

“Engine flameout” refers to flames being extinguished in the combustion chamber of the engine, so that it shuts down and no longer drives the propeller. Causes could include a lack of fuel or being struck by volcanic ash, a bird or some other object. “Mayday” is an international distress call.

Video images of Flight 235’s final moments in the air captured on car dashboard cameras appear to show the left engine’s propeller at standstill as the aircraft turned sharply, its wings going vertical and clipping a highway bridge before plunging into the Keelung River in Taipei on Wednesday.

An audio recording of the pilot’s communications with the control tower at takeoff and during the brief, minutes-long flight were widely broadcast. A Taiwan Civil Aeronautical Administration official who declined to be named confirmed the distress call and its wording Thursday, but did not say how it might relate to a cause for the crash.

About 10 Taipei fire agency divers were looking for any more bodies that may be at the cold river bottom. A crane was used to bring the rear section of the plane to the shore Wednesday night. The fuselage of the turbo-propeller jet was largely dismantled by hydraulic rescue tools and now lay alongside recovered luggage.

At midday Thursday, about a dozen relatives of Taiwanese victims arrived at the riverbank in the capital to perform traditional mourning rituals. Accompanied by Buddhist monks ringing brass bells, they bowed toward the river and held aloft cloth inscriptions tied to pieces of bamboo meant to guide the spirits of the dead to rest.

(Raised) Relatives of some of the 31 passengers from mainland China will reach Taipei on a charter flight Thursday afternoon.

Police diver Cheng Ying-chih said search and rescue efforts were being hampered by “zero visibility” in the turbid river and cold water temperatures that were forcing divers to work on one-hour shifts.

He said the front of the plane had broken into numerous pieces, making the job all the more difficult.

“We’re looking at a very tough search and rescue job,” Cheng told reporters gathered on the river bank beside the wreckage where luggage had been removed and placed in neat rows.

The mangled rear part of the fuselage lay upside down, its wings and tail assembly sheared off and multiple holes torn into its side.

The pilots’ actions in the flights final moments have led to speculation that they attempted to avoid high-rise buildings by following the line of the river and then banked sharply in an attempt to bring it down in the water rather than crash on land. Taiwan’s aviation authority said it had no evidence of that.

Both the administration and Taipei-based TransAsia Airways declined to speculate on causes for the crash at about 10:55 a.m. Wednesday near the downtown airport.

The ATR 72-600 is the most modern version of the plane, and the pilot had 4,900 hours of flying experience, said Lin Chih-ming of the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

The plane has a generally good reputation for safety and reliability and is known among airlines for being cheap and efficient to use, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at Flightglobal magazine in Singapore. About 1,200 of the planes are currently in use worldwide.

A team from ATR, a French-Italian company based in Toulouse, France, was being sent to Taiwan to help in the investigation.

The crashed aircraft, less than a year old, had once changed an engine, TransAsia Airways Vice President Wang Cheng-chung told a news conference Wednesday. He said the original one was returned to the manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney Canada, after a glitch was found.

“P&WC gave a complete, brand new engine to TransAsia . and installed it for us,” Wang said.

The engine was replaced in April before the aircraft went into use, an airline publicist said.

The accident is one of a string of aviation disasters to strike Asian carriers.

On Dec. 28, low-cost airline AirAsia lost its first plane in the Java Sea with 162 people on board. In July, another ATR 72 operated by TransAsia crashed in the outlying Taiwan-controlled islands of Penghu, killing 48 at the end of a typhoon.

Malaysia Airlines has lost two planes in tragic circumstances: One plane carrying 298 people was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine in July, and four months earlier Flight 370 disappeared on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in one of aviation’s most confounding mysteries. No trace of the plane with 239 people aboard has been found.

The 15 survivors were pulled from the open door of a relatively unscathed portion of the fuselage that was jutting above the river’s surface after the crash.

Among the survivors was a family of three, including a 2-year-old boy whose heart stopped beating after three minutes under water. He recovered after receiving CPR, his uncle Lin Ming-yi told reporters.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Google opens first data centers in Asia

TAIPEI—US search engine giant Google Wednesday opened its first data centers in Asia to cater for soaring demand, and said it would double its planned investment in the Taiwan facility to $600 million.

Google inaugurated one of the new centers at an industrial park at Changhua in central Taiwan, and said a similar facility in Singapore was also up and running as of Wednesday.


The company last year announced plans to set up three data centers in Asia—in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

But it later scrapped its plan for Hong Kong, citing land acquisition problems.

Despite the change of heart regarding Hong Kong, Google has decided to commit more resources to Asia where the number of Internet users—mainly using smartphones and tablet computers—has surged much faster than in other continents.

“While we’ve been busy building, the growth in Asia’s Internet has been amazing,” Joe Kava, Google’s vice president of data centres, told guests at the inauguration.

“The number of Internet users in India doubled, from 100 million to 200 million. It took six years to achieve that milestone in the United States.

“Between July and September of this year alone, more than 600 million people in Asia landed on the mobile Internet for the first time. That’s almost two Canadas,” Kava said.

“And this growth probably won’t slow for some time, since the majority of people that have yet to come online also happen to live in Asia.”

During a rare media visit to Google’s facilities, Kava outlined how the complex is “efficient and environmentally friendly.”

For example, water is cooled at night when temperatures are lower and stored in large insulated tanks before being used to cool servers during the day.

Kava at a press conference announced plans to double Google’s investment in the Taiwan center to $600 million, but declined to say how the extra spending would be used.

But Google officials said expansion of facilities at the Changhua center, which covers 15 hectares (37 acres), was already under way.

The search engine giant has faced stiff competition in Asia, particularly in the China market.

Domestic search services including Baidu are household names to China’s 485 million-strong Internet population—the world’s largest.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Chipmaker TSMC gets tablet, smartphone boost in 1Q

TAIPEI, Taiwan— Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, reported an 18 percent jump in first quarter profit as increased global sales of smartphones and tablet computers boosted demand for sophisticated processors.

The company said in a statement Thursday that January-March profit totaled NT$39.6 billion ($1.3 billion) on revenue of NT$132 billion.

It said more than half of its shipments were application processors and other chips for use in mobile devices. Growth in this area more than made up for stagnant sales of chips used in computers and other consumer electronics.

TSMC said it expects revenue to grow to between NT$154-156 billion in the second quarter.

Chairman and CEO Morris Chang said revenue growth for 2013 could exceed 10 percent, up from 7 percent growth predicted earlier, partly because wafer production using new cutting-edge technology is set to grow.

He said trial production using the advanced 20 nanometer technology began in the first quarter, while the company plans to advance further with 16 nanometer technology in a year from now.

The company’s move into the 20 and 16 nanometer technologies, which allow for production of smaller chips that run faster at lower power, is being propelled by more intense competition in the industry.

TSMC is planning a record $9 billion of capital investment in 2013 to fend off competition, mainly from South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. as well as Intel Corp., which has been speeding up its expansion into contract manufacturing following slow PC chip sales.

News reports say TSMC has been working with Apple Inc. to supply the Cupertino, Calif.-based company with the new processor to power the next generation of iPhones and iPads. Apple currently gets such processors from Samsung.

Samsung is Apple’s main competitor in smartphones and tablet computers, as well as its principal supplier of processors. This has fueled speculation that Apple is looking for a new processor source.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Strong quake injures 20 in Taiwan

TAIPEI- A strong earthquake shook buildings in the Taiwanese capital Taipei on Wednesday, injuring at least 20 people and sparking a fire, emergency officials said.

The US Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.0 and said it struck at 10:03 a.m. (0203 GMT), 48 kilometers (30 miles) east of Nantou county in central Taiwan at a depth of 20.7 kilometers.

Taiwan’s central weather bureau put the magnitude at 6.1 and said it was felt across the island.

The national fire agency said at least 20 people were slightly injured in Nantou and nearby Changhua and Taichung counties during the quake, which also triggered a fire in Nantou that had since been extinguished.

The agency said it had received five reports of people trapped in lifts during the quake but they had all found their way to safety.

Cable news channel SET TV showed footage of one woman in Nantou being carried to an ambulance after she was hit in the head by fragments of a ceiling that came loose during the quake.

Taiwan’s high speed rail company said it had suspended all trains pending safety checks while the metro system in the capital Taipei was also temporarily suspended.

Many buildings in Taipei swayed while television footage showed some school children in Nantou fleeing their classrooms during the quake.

Nantou county was the epicenter of a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999 that killed around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s recent history.

Taiwan lies near the junction of two tectonic plates and is regularly hit by earthquakes.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Jeremy Lin hopes more Asians, Asian-Americans will play in NBA in near future

NEW YORK - Jeremy Lin says he plans on going to Taiwan after this NBA of "Lin-sanity" is complete, the new NBA Asian-American star saying he would return to a basketball camp he took part in last year.

Lin, whose parents are from Taiwan and whose grandmother is from China, said on Wednesday after helping lead the New York Knicks to a 100-85 victory over Sacramento that he looks forward to his trip to Asia.

"I have a strong passion for the game and a strong passion for Taiwan," Lin said. "Last summer it was one of the highlights of my summer so I'm going to do it again."

Asian NBA fans have a strong passion for the first US-born NBA player of Taiwan and Chinese heritage, having helped make his souvenir jersey the most popular seller over the past week.

Knicks games have become an internet sensation because of Lin, a former Knicks bench-warmer who was given a chance to play and responded with the most points in his first five starts of any NBA player since 1976.

That has taken the Knicks from an NBA also-ran to 15-15 and made Lin, a 23-year-old point guard, a media darling in New York despite being undrafted when he came out of Harvard University.

Lin said he hopes to disprove stereotypes about athletes from Ivy League colleges known more for academics that sports, and he hopes to similarly change outlooks and stereotypes regarding Asians and Asian-American NBA players.

"Ivy League basketball is on the rise," Lin said. "Over time, hopefully, you will see that stereotype go away.

"I think there are definitely (Asian) stereotypes. There are a lot of them. The more we can do to break those down every day the better we will become.

"Hopefully in the near future we will see a lot more Asians and Asian-Americans playing in the NBA." — Agence France Presse

source: gmanetwork.com