Peak power consumption a record for second day

‘HIGHLY UNUSUAL’: Taipower said that it generally expects a peak in July, but this month has been hotter and drier than normal, putting more strain on the grid Peak electricity consumption in Taiwan reached a record high for a second day in a row yesterday, rising to 38.40 gigawatts (GW) as a combination of high temperatures, a strong economy and people working and learning from home pushed usage past a previous high in July last year, Taiwan Power Co (台電, Taipower) said. Thursday also surpassed last year’s record, with a peak of 38.02GW, the company said. Taipower spokesman Chang Ting-shu (張廷舒) said this month’s uncharacteristically hot weather and increased electricity use due to people working and studying from home amid a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert contributed to yesterday’s record. “We generally expect a peak in July, the height of the summer, but it has been an exceptionally hot and dry May, and we do not know how climate change might affect temperatures in the years to come,” Chang said. Five of the top 10 peak use days have been this month, a phenomenon Chang described as “highly unusual.” Taipower’s spinning reserve capacity, electricity production that can be ramped up on demand, was just 6.06 percent yesterday, barely clearing the 6 percent threshold for a “yellow” alert. It has been difficult to keep the spinning reserve capacity above 10 percent, or “green,” with this month’s increased usage, he added. “We are endeavoring to keep the power supply steady, even under a ‘yellow’ alert, through careful maintenance of power generation units and good communication with large users,” he said. Large users, typically industrial users, are given incentives to shift power use to off-peak times. “We are doing the best we can to keep the grid healthy and power production steady,” Chang said. “We hope that Taiwanese can work together to save power, because every kilowatt-hour counts.” Solar power helped Taiwan through yesterday’s peak, adding more than 3,000 megawatts between 10:30am and 1:30pm, or 8 to 9 percent of the

Foxconn eyes a stake in DNeX

‘NO CERTAINTY’: Foxconn might be able to help the Malaysian company with its chipmaker, which Young Liu said was still of interest to the Taiwanese company Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) is in talks to buy a stake in Malaysian technology firm Dagang NeXchange Bhd (DNeX) after losing to it in bidding for a semiconductor company, people familiar with the matter said. The main assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones could take a minority stake in DNeX and help to expand the business of its chipmaker, SilTerra Malaysia Sdn, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. DNeX in February landed the winning offer in the sale of SilTerra, outbidding Foxconn. Talks are ongoing and could fall apart, and there is no certainty that a deal would materialize, the people said. A representative for DNeX said that the company is always open to discussion with strategic partners and investors, but that it cannot comment on any specific discussion. A Foxconn representative declined to comment. Shares in DNeX rose as much as 13.6 percent in Kuala Lumpur following the Bloomberg News report, their highest intraday level in more than a month, giving the company a market value of about US$474 million. A stake sale would come as the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, whose primary listed arm is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), has been growing its footprint in electric vehicles (EV), issuing a steady stream of announcements beginning with the unveiling of its first-ever EV chassis and a software platform in October last year. Since then, the company has struck agreements with Chinese firms Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (浙江吉利控股) and Byton Ltd (拜騰), the US’ Fisker Inc and European giant Stellantis NV. DNeX and a Chinese investor won their bid to purchase SilTerra from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd for 273 million ringgit (US$66 million). Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) later told reporters that the company still wanted to secure a partnership with SilTerra. DNeX has received shareholder approval

Shares of Phison rally, snapping a two-day streak

Shares of Phison Electronics Corp (群聯電子), a supplier of NAND flash memory controllers and modules, rallied 1.63 percent yesterday, snapping two straight losing sessions after it unveiled a NT$607.86 million (US$21.89 million) real-estate investment. The expansion plan reinforced Phison’s optimism about demand for memory chips as the Miaoli County-based company said it seeks to capture new growth opportunities after a “super boom cycle” in the semiconductor industry. The comments came after the company’s board of directors on Thursday approved the investment. The stock price of Phison jumped 1.63 percent to NT$466.5 yesterday, better than the TPEX’s gain of 1.03 percent. With its research and development centers to be fully utilized in the next few years, Phison plans to build a new center on the land it purchased in Hsinchu, real estate that was previously owned by LED chipmaker Tyntek Corp (鼎元光電). “Market demand is strong and customer projects keep coming in every day,” Phison said in a company statement yesterday. “We plan to add 300 to 500 new engineers this year.” Phison has said it cannot hire enough engineers, as demand remains high. To address the shortage, Phison in January held a beam-raising ceremony for its new phase 5 facility at the Guangyuan Science Park (廣源科學園區) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南). Phison planned to finish the nearly NT$1.4 billion research and development center and office building in the third quarter, and begin operations by the end of September. The center would provide working space for 1,500 to 2,000 engineers, the company said. At an investors’ conference early this month, Phison gave an upbeat outlook for the current quarter, citing persistently strong demand for NAND flash memory controllers and modules. The growth momentum is to carry into next quarter, it said. Phison has set an internal target to boost gross margin further this quarter from last quarter’s 29.5 percent, with the

EDITORIAL: Effective use of virus relief funds

Lawmakers on Wednesday called on the government to include the food service, hospitality, transportation and entertainment industries in its latest “Stimulus 4.0” COVID-19 relief package. Workers in uninsured industries are bearing the brunt of nationwide level 3 restrictions, Taiwan People’s Party caucus convener Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠), Independent Taipei City Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) and others told an online news conference. Although the Taipei Department of Social Welfare is accepting applications for emergency relief, it has not yet created any programs or allocated funding for pandemic aid, leaving the city’s underprivileged “high and dry,” Chen said. Arts and culture industry workers also held an online news conference on Wednesday, saying that work has stalled for most people in the industry. “The situation is worse than in 2020 and we urge the government to acknowledge this,” Taipei Film and Drama Union director-general Liao Hung-jui (廖浤睿) said. The Executive Yuan on May 13 approved a draft bill to increase the scope of the Special Act for Prevention, Relief and Revitalization Measures for Severe Pneumonia with Novel Pathogens (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例), with the Legislative Yuan expected to approve it on Monday. Under the proposed amendment, the relief budget is to be increased from NT$420 billion to NT$630 billion (US$15.1 billion to US$22.7 billion), and extended to June 30 next year. Perhaps the most important target of the act when it was introduced last year was the airline industry, which had been reeling from international travel restrictions. Many businesses, especially tourism, shifted their focus to domestic demand. However, as a local outbreak this month escalates, companies will need to adjust their business models once more. A bolstered relief fund is welcome news, but the money will have to be used in a well-planned manner to be effective. Some businesses might need funding to upgrade equipment for staff to work from home, while others

Constructive coverage of pandemic

With local media providing blanket coverage of the spread of local COVID-19 cases, it has become virtually impossible to avoid news about the outbreak. With the entire nation under a level 3 alert, it is worth asking how media outlets can best assist with this national effort. How much of the news output around COVID-19 is genuinely informative, fact-based reporting? The term “news avoidance” has in the past few years entered the lexicon of journalism studies to describe people who consume almost no news in their daily lives. Studies show that the number of people who consciously avoid the news is increasing every year, exacerbating the already serious blow to the news and media industry caused by social media and search engines and posing a threat to the healthy functioning of democracies. This is not to say that “news avoiders” are deleterious to democratic society, rather that there are a number of reasons that a proportion of the public chooses to shun the daily news cycle. These can include news content being perceived as irrelevant, the barrier to making sense of the news being too high, 24-hour news cycle fatigue or a desire to reduce anxiety and maintain an optimistic outlook. As COVID-19 continues to make inroads into Taiwan, local media outlets have a responsibility to convey public warnings and provide information. However, to grab people’s attention, some media organizations resort to a range of tactics that can affect decisions about whether to run with, or reject, certain stories or even to pursue a particular narrative that might run contrary to their responsibility to accurately report the news during a national emergency. Media outlets sometimes adopt these tricks as a means to survive in the modern media landscape. This spreads fear and emotional exhaustion among news consumers and has the effect of producing even

Vaccination program preparations

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung’s (陳時中) introduction of “regression calibration” — backlogging — of local COVID-19 cases has caused a lively public debate. Politicians and supporters from both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition parties have engaged in a never-ending argument over the concept in the media. Such correction of data is a global practice, and to argue over the issue is in no way beneficial to pandemic prevention. The virus knows no borders, nor does it pick one ethnic group or political party over another — we are all in the same boat, so if we are to defeat the virus, we must work together. Every Taiwanese should put political affiliation aside and focus their attention and social debate on important, practical matters. At a global level, the fight against the virus seems to be moving slowly toward an epilogue. Statistics showed that 56.5 percent of the Israeli population had been fully inoculated, while the numbers for the US and the UK were 39.3 percent and 33.1 percent respectively. These three countries are now leading the move toward the normalization of their economies. The situation in these countries tells us that, in the end, the pandemic would require universal inoculation, and if Taiwan wants to fully restore its economic and trade relations with the outside world, it must inoculate the whole population. The government and the opposition parties are deadlocked in their argument over the vaccine issue, but with the US having inoculated 40 percent of its population, its next step would be to turn its focus away from obtaining vaccines for its citizens to allowing vaccine manufacturers to export COVID-19 jabs to make a profit. This should make it easier for Taiwan to get its hands on the vaccines it needs; the real problem will start when the

Controversial ads spark sexism debate in S Korea

Three South Korean companies and Seoul police this month have had to pull ads and other content after men’s rights groups claimed that “small penis” symbols were used, insulting men. The offending images? Hands with the thumbs and the index fingers pinching toward each other illustrating the reaching out for an object, but the gesture is also often used to indicate something small in size and, in South Korea, it is associated with a strident, albeit now defunct, feminist group that used the image in its logo. Exacerbating the problem, one ad and a menu involved were also advertising sausages. South Korea’s largest convenience store chain, GS25, saw a handful of members from the men’s group Man on Solidarity protest outside its headquarters after it ran the ad. The group’s YouTube channel, which posts videos of its protests, has gained more than 200,000 subscribers in just two months. GS25 withdrew its ad and fried chicken chain Genesis BBQ pulled its menu, issuing apologies and saying that they had no intention to demean men. Kakao Bank Corp has apologized for a hand drawn similarly in one of its ads, while Seoul Metropolitan Police also removed a hand from a road traffic ad saying it wanted to avoid any misunderstanding. The controversy is the latest flare-up in long-running tension over gender rights in South Korea that has pitted men’s and women’s groups against each other, and which has also resulted in police looking into whether female comedian Park Na-rae broke any laws with a ribald joke made in March. The joke on a YouTube video involving a Stretch Armstrong action figure whose arms were brought near his genital area resulted in a storm of complaints that a similar joke by a male comedian would never have been acceptable. Park, 35, and her agency, JDB Entertainment, issued statements apologizing and her YouTube channel

China reaffirms N Korea alliance in bid to check Biden

China reaffirmed its “traditional friendship” with North Korea, days after they faced new security challenges from an agreement between the US and South Korea that allows Seoul to step up the range and power of its missile arsenal. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) met North Korean Ambassador to China Ri Ryong-nam in Beijing on Thursday, where he reaffirmed China’s policy to maintain “high-level strategic communication,” Xinhua news agency reported. “The two sides also exchanged views on the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and agreed to strengthen coordination and cooperation in this regard,” the report said. The statement came days after US President Joe Biden met South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House as part of his push to build a united front with allies against security threats posed by the likes of China and North Korea. The two agreed to terminate bilateral missile guidelines that have long restricted Seoul’s development of missiles to under the range of 800km. The end of the guideline puts major Chinese cities in South Korea’s missile range and increases Seoul’s ability to strike North Korea. Biden and Moon also agreed to work together on easing a shortage of semiconductors that has hampered production of automobiles and electronics, trying to firm up supply chains that are not reliant on inputs from China. China has been North Korea’s biggest benefactor for decades. Beijing has described their relationship as close as “lips and teeth.” China is North Korea’s most important security and trade partner, for years providing a lifeline that helped keep its neighbor’s struggling economy afloat. Beijing is also a key player for managing the effectiveness of the global sanctions that punish North Korea for its nuclear weapons tests in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

Lukashenko visits Russia amid EU row

POOR TIMING: A leaked e-mail that authorities said contained a bomb threat for a Ryanair flight was sent after the aircraft was diverted, an e-mail provider said Belarus’ president yesterday headed to Russia to seek assistance amid a bruising showdown with the EU over the diversion of a flight to arrest a dissident journalist, as Russian authorities refuse some European airlines entry if they avoid Belarusian airspace. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi for talks on closer economic ties, the Kremlin said. Belarus provoked the EU’s outrage when Belarusian flight controllers on Sunday told the crew of a Ryanair jet flying from Greece to Lithuania there was a bomb threat and instructed it to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, where 26-year-old journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend. Although Belarusian authorities claimed that Minsk had received a threatening e-mail from a ProtonMail address purportedly from the Palestinian group Hamas claiming that a bomb was on board flight FR4978, the e-mail provider posted on Twitter that after reviewing a leaked copy of the e-mail, they determined it was sent after the plane was diverted. The EU responded by barring Belarusian carriers from its airspace and airports and advising European airlines to skirt Belarus. The bloc’s foreign ministers agreed on Thursday to ramp up sanctions to target the country’s lucrative potash industry and other sectors of the Belarusian economy that are the main cash-earners for Lukashenko’s government. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell yesterday said the bloc was monitoring whether Russia was systematically refusing to let European airlines land if they avoided Belarus after several flights were canceled. On Thursday, Austrian Airlines said it had canceled a Vienna-Moscow flight after Russian authorities did not approve a route change avoiding Belarusian airspace. An Air France flight from Paris to Moscow on Wednesday had to be canceled for the same reason. “We don’t know if it is

How Hong Kong chef Vicky Lau embraces her ‘role model’ label

Despite the institutional status bestowed by her double Michelin star, Vicky Lau (劉韻棋) says the battle to improve gender parity in the male-dominated world of professional kitchens is a long way from won — but small victories bring her hope. In the fiendishly competitive arena of Hong Kong’s fine-dining scene, few have had as remarkable an ascent as Lau. In little more than a decade she has gone from opening a small cafe to running one of the finance hub’s most lauded restaurants. Earlier this year Tate Dining Room was awarded two Michelins, a belated breakthrough first for Asia’s all-too-overlooked female chefs. Many chefs love to insist in interviews that awards don’t mean much. Lau, 40, is refreshingly upfront. “I didn’t get in the industry because I want to have all these accolades. But over time, it did become a goal,” she said. Asked whether the gender watershed moment of the double Michelin mattered, she replied: “I think it does make a statement, because it encourages a lot of people in our industry to power on.” A former graphic designer who switched mid-career to retrain, Lau said she “really didn’t think twice about being a female and a chef” when she entered the trade. “It’s kind of ignorance was bliss at that time,” she smiled, recalling how many at her Cordon Bleu training in Bangkok were women. Once in the business, she saw how men dominated, especially when it came to ascending ranks or owning top establishments. As she won attention for her dishes, she initially found it exhausting to continually be asked about her gender, the example she was setting, the role model she had become. But over time she said she came to embrace the reality that her success could encourage others. “It actually became one of my motivations to go to work,” she said. DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES Alongside contemporaries such as

Startup’s bug idea — to put cricket tortillas and chips on the menu

There are no gargantuan mastiffs or shepherds on quad bikes watching over the hundreds of thousands of newborn animals that tumble and crawl around an unlikely farm among the wind turbines, motorways and patchwork fields of this corner of Castilla-La Mancha, in central Spain. Nor are there any fences to pen them in. Plastic tubs, shelves and the insulated walls of a unit on a windswept industrial estate do the job perfectly well. But whatever Origen Farms lacks in land, tradition and rural romance, it aims to make up for in innovation, enthusiasm and resilience. Founded almost two years ago, the business rears a single beast: Acheta domesticus, the house cricket. The farm is one of a growing number of companies in Europe and elsewhere seizing on the protein possibilities of insects. But while others focus on growing insects for pet food or animal feed, the Spanish startup has its antennae trained on the human market. Over the course of each 35-day cycle, the farm produces three tonnes of crickets — 80 percent of which are ground into protein-rich flour for culinary use, including pasta, snackbars and crackers. Some of the 250,000 young insects being grown in the 30 degrees Celsius breeding room will be mixed with imported Mexican corn and reincarnated as tortillas or totopos (tortilla chips), seasoned with sesame or chipotle. Others will be dried and packaged as snacks, while the remainder will be frozen and shipped as animal feed. The venture, based on the outskirts of the town of La Roda, near the city of Albacete, is the brainchild of three local childhood friends now in their early 30s: Andres Garcia de Lis, Francisco Jose Tebar and Jose Antonio Torres. “We were looking to start a business that was sustainable and profitable,” says Garcia de Lis. “We looked at various things, from spirulina to

Highways & Byways: Petroleum and popsicles in back-country Miaoli

I didn’t want to carry the regret with me for the rest of my life, so I dug out a few coins and stepped inside the little shop. Traveling in Indochina years ago, I came across a bottle of “Premium Champagne” in a government-run store. Taking it off the shelf, I saw words that made me chuckle: “Manufactured by the Vietnam Fertilizer Corporation.” When I got back to Taiwan, I kicked myself for not buying that champagne. Even if I never drank the contents, the bottle and its label would’ve made a great souvenir. This time around, I was standing in Chukuangkeng (出礦坑) in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), facing a sign that read: Zhongyou Bingbang (中油冰棒, “CPC popsicles”). CPC Corporation, Taiwan (台灣中油) is the country’s state-run petroleum and natural gas company. It’s as unlikely to manufacture frozen treats as a fertilizer company is to make booze. It was also a sweltering afternoon. I needed something to cool me down, so I shelled out for a pineapple-flavored popsicle, and braced myself in case it tasted of gasoline. It turned out to be delicious but ordinary. Refreshed, I marched up the hill for a second time. There was far more to see at Chukuangkeng than I’d expected. Taiwan has never been an oil-producer of significance, but it does have a long history of oil-and-gas exploration and exploitation. In fact, this corner of the northwest is one of the oldest still-productive oil-drilling sites in the world. I’d arrived in Chukuangkeng thinking there’d be a museum of sorts and maybe some rusting infrastructure. I had no idea I’d end up spending the entire afternoon tramping around, examining relics and photographing machinery. Chukuangkeng is every bit as engrossing as better-known industrial-heritage destinations like Lintianshan (林田山) in Hualien. If you enjoyed Houtong Coal Mine Ecological Park (猴硐煤礦博物園區) and/or the Gold Ecological Park

Photo News：Israel and Palestine agree to cease fire in Gaza 從照片看新聞：以巴嚴重衝突 雙方暫時停火

SPEAK UP ! 雙語會話

A: We’ve found Bernard! I got a call from the vet. One of her clients saw a dog sitting on its own in the park, and he called her to see if a dog had been reported missing. She gave him my number. B: That’s great news. I never lost hope. I always knew you would be reunited with Bernard. Was he pleased to see you? A: I think he was exhausted, thirsty and hungry. He was just staring into space. But he was unhurt and still in one piece. B: All’s well that ends well. I bet he got a slap-up meal when you got him back home. A: 我們找到伯納了！我接到獸醫的電話，她說她有個客戶看到一隻狗孤伶伶坐在公園裡，就打電話問她說有沒有人通報有狗走丟了。獸醫就給了那個人我的電話。 B: 這真是個好消息！我從來沒放棄希望。我就知道你會跟伯納團圓的。牠看到你的時候是不是很高興？ A: 我想牠大概是累壞了，又渴又餓，所以只是在那邊發呆。不過牠毫髮無傷。 B: 這真是太棒了。你帶牠回家以後，牠一定可以飽餐一頓！ （Paul Cooper, Taipei Times／台北時報林俐凱譯） English 英文: Chinese 中文:

SPEAK UP ! 雙語會話

A: Bernard is still lost. He’s out there wandering around somewhere, all on his own. B: He’s chipped, isn’t he? If somebody hands him in, the vet, police or animal shelter will read his chip and they’ll call you. Don’t lose hope. A: I’ve been searching in the neighborhood, visiting all our old haunts. I’ve been to the local park five times this afternoon alone. B: Have you covered all the bases? Are you sure you’re not missing anything? A: I don’t know what else I can do. A: 伯納還沒找到，牠不曉得流浪到哪裡去了，孤孤單單的。 B: 牠有植入晶片吧？如果有人找到牠，把牠交給獸醫、警察，或是動物收容所，他們就會掃晶片，然後打電話給你。你不要放棄希望。 A: 我在附近找遍了，我們常去的地方也都找過了，光是今天下午，我就去了附近的公園五次。 B: 所有的情況你都想過了嗎？你確定沒有遺漏的地方嗎？ A: 我不知道還能夠做什麼。 （Paul Cooper, Taipei Times／台北時報林俐凱譯） English 英文: Chinese 中文: