Mik_G_Taiwan

Taiwan's Israel Charm Offensive Taiwan's appeal to AIPAC is disappointing, but comes as no surprise

Check out @jordynhaime.bsky.social on "Taiwan's Israel Charm Offensive" in the latest issue of her newsletter.

"Now let’s turn to what has been absent from Taiwan’s messaging: any acknowledgement of the accusations of starvation and genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government."

I don't think it really matters that much which orthography one uses, as long as it is used consistently. The big problem in Taiwan is that it is still a mishmash of at least 5 of these systems.

But there are some things I wish people did keep in mind:

In similar fashion to the 2019 White House Halloween event, President Trump was seen placing candy on the head of a child in costume at Thursday night’s event. https://wapo.st/4hKubb6

Time machine set to 1930, orgy investigation pants *check*

Sid Davis, a White House correspondent who witnessed the swearing-in of LBJ as president aboard Air Force One after the 1963 assassination of JFK in Dallas, has died at the age of 97. I believed his final on-camera interview was the one I conducted for VOA. www.voanews.com/a/dateline-d...

ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour Trump ally Laura Loomer took credit for Sami Hamdi’s detainment in move denounced as ‘affront to free speech’

Where are the signatories of the Harper’s letter now?

Happy logical Halloween

USAGM informs hundreds of VOA staffers who were to be fired today that it is complying with a federal judge's order not to implement the terminations and the reduction-in-force proceedings "are currently on hold." #SaveVOA

A Sense of Dread: Isolationists under Trump Lay the Groundwork for Abandoning Taiwan, Marking a Radical Departure in Foreign Policy Hello everyone,

"On the one hand, China’s power is so overwhelming that the U.S. must avoid risking war; on the other, little Taiwan, which is so insignificant it’s not worth defending, is somehow so powerful that it’s driving all the destabilization. Which is it?"
ampleroad.substack.com/p/a-sense-of...

@kerim.one Is there a similar comparison of the culture of informing during Taiwan's martial law era?

Excellent piece from Sheila Fitzpatrick in LRB on the culture of denunciations, ie whistleblowing and snitching. Framing it as class war ("MAGA is Trump's Cultural Revolution") is a great insight that tackles conservatives without sparing liberals. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Same!

Opinion | I Look at This Country and I See a Stranger

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...

Third Stepdad In Row Has Goatee

Third Stepdad In Row Has Goatee

The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich Five-month investigation reveals how four members of one family were shot and killed in a single day and highlights a pattern in which Israeli troops target unarmed civilians

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Pentagon unit steps up tech ties with allies to counter China US preparing to place officials in countries including Taiwan and Japan

"Much of the rhetoric we have heard from Trump officials has been demands for more money or suggestions that we can’t be trusted,” said an Asian national security official.'

I took this quote out of context, but it still stands.
Excellent reporting by Kathrin Hille!
www.ft.com/content/1e71...

Video: Videos Contradict Israel’s Rationale for Deadly Hospital Attack The strikes on Nasser Hospital in Gaza killed at least 20 people. A Times visual analysis calls into question what the Israeli military was initially targeting there, and why its troops attacked a sec...

Videos Contradict Israel’s Rationale for Deadly Hospital Attack www.nytimes.com/video/world/...

the traditional denigration of the last emperor of a dynasty by his successors, in this case a northern steppe people known as Canadians.

Photos by journalist Mariam Dagga Mariam Dagga, a visual freelance journalist for The Associated Press, chronicled the stream of wounded and dead that every day flowed into southern Gaza’s main hospital, where she was often based.

apnews.com/photo-galler...

Please read the full statement on our website: taiwanfcc.org/20250819-gaz...

President Donald Trump on Monday vowed more changes to the way elections are conducted in the U.S., but based on the Constitution there is little to nothing he can do on his own. Relying on false information and conspiracy theories that he’s regularly used to explain away his 2020 election loss, Trump pledged on his social media site that he would do away with both mail voting — which remains popular and is used by about one-third of all voters — and voting machines — some form of which are used in almost all of the country’s thousands of election jurisdictions. These are the same systems that enabled Trump to win the 2024 election and Republicans to gain control of Congress. Trump’s post marks an escalation even in his normally overheated election rhetoric.

The @apnews.com models how you report on Trump's bloviating. apnews.com/article/trum...

YouTube video by Xiaofei小飛 台灣明明這麼美，為什麼觀光客卻不來？制度與文化的真相，三個必須面對的關鍵問題

Outdoor recreation entrepreneur Xiaofei (小飛) has kicked off a firestorm of debate about Taiwan's arguably draconian tourism laws, the difficulty in obtaining proper insurance, and industry in-fighting with a recent YouTube video. In English with Chinese subtitles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x08M...

Foreign Recruits in Ukraine Military Are Killed in Russian Missile Strike Russia has repeatedly targeted soldiers assembled at military academies, barracks and parade grounds.

"Three soldiers, including one who witnessed the strike, described a harrowing assault that hit fresh recruits from the United States, Colombia, Taiwan, Denmark and other places."
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/w...

Explosion at US Steel plant in Pennsylvania leaves people trapped under rubble An explosion at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh has left people trapped under the rubble, with emergency workers on site trying to rescue them.

apnews.com/article/clai...

Anas al-Sharif among five Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza Al Jazeera staff killed in targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.

aje.io/0pa37x

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been a cornerstone of American culture for three generations.

“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.”

apnews.com/article/publ...

Israeli settler kills West Bank activist who worked on Oscar-winning film Palestinian Odeh Hadalin was from Masafer Yatta, a community whose resistance to settlers was featured in No Other Land.

aje.io/8higbv

Pan-blue discourse posits something you might call Schrödinger's recall threshold: it is simultaneously too easy to initiate a recall vote but also too hard for the KMT to muster enough support to trigger one.

Gaza: 'I witnessed war crimes,' former worker at GHF aid site tells BBC A retired US soldier reveals why he quit working at Israel and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid hubs.

www.bbc.com/news/videos/...