Taiwan Tonight - Taiwan News | Jul. 24, 2026

A construction site in Kaohsiung has left locals open-mouthed and not because of the stunning architecture. Instead, it's because of the complete lag of any safety features for the workers during their job on steel beams suspended three floors above the ground. A passerby filmed a video of the workers who can be seen balancing precariously on the building's frame without a harness or rope in sight. Let's hear more. Neither of the two construction workers was wearing any kind of safety gear, and they were walking around as if it were nothing. I was shocked to my core. If there's no safety measures, the moment you fall, it's all over. If they miss a step, they'd come crashing down and lose their lives. They should be wearing a safety harness and be secured to ropes. We've sent staff to carry out an investigation. If they are confirmed to have broken rules, they could face a fine of between 50,000 NT and 3 million NT. The construction site is located in Lingyuan District's Yanhai Road. The workers were left to rely on their own hands to grip the columns of the frame and avoid a deadly fall. Current regulations state that safety measures are a must in situations where workers are at risk of falling from a height of two meters or more. Safety measures could be features such as guard rails or safety nets. In addition, workers must wear personal protective equipment which includes helmets and harnesses to prevent any tragedies. Helios is simply the best AI rack in the world. AMD CEO Lisa Su has a big announcement. Full-scale production for the company's newest AI rack system, Helios. It was specially designed for large AI model inference and features next-gen MI455X GPUs. For the first time, it's also equipped with EPYC server CPUs produced with TSMC's two nanometer processes. We're talking about 320 billion transistors. This is built with TSMC's leading two nanometer and three nanometer process technology. Helios reportedly is more advanced than NVIDIA's Vera Rubin when it comes to peak performance and high bandwidth memory capacity. Su stressed that demand was strong and that shipments would begin in Q3 and in higher volumes in Q4. She said the market for products like these is so big that there's no single company that can do it all. The only way you're going to be able to service a market like that is for us to work together as an ecosystem. There's no one company that can solve it all and we have never been in a better position to lead. With a rival, you push each other to improve. Without a rival, you can just coast by and that's when you stop getting better. In a recent interview, Su's father discussed how the rivalry between AMD and NVIDIA was conducive to faster developments in AI tech. According to Su, demand for AI inference is exploding, with the AI accelerator market expected to hit 1.4 trillion US dollars by 2030. Taiwanese suppliers in the industry all stand to benefit, no matter how the rivalry plays out. Fearing someone had accidentally fallen into Kaohsiung's Love River, police rushed over to the shore, where they saw a foreign exchange student enjoying a late night swim. There's a river, no pool, not a pool. The male student quickly got out of the water and put on his shirt. His girlfriend, who is also a student from Austria, looked nervous as she stood on the riverside walkway. At 1 a.m. this morning, the couple realized that not even cold adult beverages could cool them down in the heat of the Kaohsiung night, so the 22-year-old boyfriend took a late night dip, which he later realized could be a costly error. Apparently, the Love River is for lovers, not swimmers. The police later notified Kaohsiung's Tourism Bureau, who will find the Austrian national anywhere between 5,000 NT and 25,000 NT. This case will be handled according to Article 13 of the Kaohsiung City Self-Government Ordinance for the Management of Love River. Despite the city government's recent policy of returning the river to the people, currently, only a few areas allow people into the water, providing that they use non-motorized floating devices. People are not allowed to swim wherever and whenever they please. You can't swim in Love River. People drowned in it before. It's dangerous. The river's gotten a lot cleaner ever since the government started regulating it. But still, it's not a good place to swim like that because there's dangerous aspects involved. Visitors from other countries might not be familiar with local laws, but even a fine of 25,000 NT will hurt much less than a swimming experience that ends in tragedy. The enemy has captured intelligence personnel. The squad storms in and enters a close-quarters battle, quickly taking aim and opening fire. This weekend, the Ministry of National Defense will hold its first ever airsoft gun shooting competition. The northern regional event will take place at National Defense University's Puxingang campus. Participants will be put to the test on their combat skills and casualty care in close quarters. The T91 airsoft rifle is a realistic replica of a real weapon, which allows competitors to safely train their muscle memory and firearm handling skills. Individual participants will be challenged to shoot in restricted areas, while teams will have to engage in close-quarters combat scenarios. A key goal of the event is for reservists to train physically and hone their teamwork and marksmanship. If you're a beginner, there are clubs all over Taiwan where you can get started. They have online and in-person courses. If you want to get better fast and cheap, airsoft is great as a training aid. Then, when you hold a real firearm, your body will adapt quickly to the recoil from live ammunition. We will also hold events in central and southern Taiwan, and we are also planning to hold semifinals and finals. The contest will run from this July through July next year. The opening event on Friday featured a spectacular helicopter display, as an Apache and a Black Hawk rolled up, flying low and blowing up clouds of dust. The military also showcased the combat capabilities of drones. An attack drone locks into the target, dips down at full speed and fires at the target to demonstrate the power of precision strikes. The defense ministry says it hopes these kinds of events can encourage more people to learn about whole-of-society resilience through hands-on experiences. The Executive Yuan recently passed a proposal to extend the high-speed rail to Yilan, a plan that has supporters and detractors. One critic is Zhang Jingsen, a veteran lawmaker who shockingly announced he was leaving the DPP over the Executive Yuan's decision to extend the HSR to Yilan. Zhang's sudden decision was not understood by many, including Yilan residents, who are looking forward to the HSR being a transportation option. I'm still going to ask Zhang Jingsen to see if he'll be willing to continue working with us on this plan of ours to extend the high-speed rail to Yilan. Having the HSR makes traveling more convenient. Like if we want to go to the south, now we need to transfer first at an HSR station. If we can go down south directly, isn't that more convenient? Driving is tiring. I think he should have pointed out some more data if he wanted to convince us to think the way he does. Because in the end, to those of us living in Yilan, I think this proposal is something that will be an important mode of transportation for us. I think to us, the decision that's been made is shocking. It's even something we can't understand. The only thing that explains it is Zhuo, after something suddenly happened, made a decision in order to skirt some issues. But avoiding something like this is, whether it's a political maneuver or manipulating an election, it's just not something we do as politicians. In general, Yilan residents support the HSR being extended, and this will benefit the area's transportation. Zhang, however, is not the only politician who finds the proposal's timing to be peculiar. Former Transport Minister He Chengdan also questions why the HSR extension was approved in the midst of an upcoming election. Nevertheless, the Executive Yuan passed the proposal, which will cost over 352 billion NT dollars and has a goal of being open by 2036. Once complete, a high-speed rail from Yilan to Nangang will take just 28 minutes. On Friday morning, President Lai Qingde presided over the commissioning ceremony of the indigenous naval vessel ROCS Danjiang, a Tuojiang-class corvette that Lai emphasized is highly capable and can be mass-produced. The ship is the first of its batch to be constructed. President Lai also called on the people in Taiwan as well as the Legislative Yuan to support the Ministry of National Defense's special defense budget. Featuring a design that makes it less detectable by radar, this new patrol vessel's surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles are the brainchildren of National Zhongshan Institute of Science and Technology. The ROCS Danjiang is an important part of Taiwan's defense resilience and asymmetric warfare approach, and its presence represents many aspects. Taiwan's ability to domestically build naval vessels, the Navy's commitment to defense, and how the country is taking a proactive approach to maintain peace. A child squats down on the grass searching for something. Another kid is helped by her mother as she scrounges around under some trees. The entire park is full of kids walking with their heads down, searching. Everyone is looking for these colorful rocks. It's part of a nationwide treasure hunt started by the Facebook group Xiaoshitou, or Pick Up Stones. It now has over 80,000 members, with people who share clues for where to find the rocks. Searchers then comment when they find them. Every day she tells me how excited she is for Saturday, because she knows that's the day we come here. I think it's great. It encourages interaction and gets us to walk around more. These painted stones can increase interaction between parents and kids. The creator of the group is a young married couple. They discovered the game during their honeymoon in Australia three years ago and decided to bring it back with them to Taiwan. It's crazy so many people are doing it. It started spreading this year. Many parents have found it to be a great activity to do with their kids. We first discovered this kind of activity while on our honeymoon abroad. In the group we constantly remind members to only use healthy non-toxic water-based paint. People should also only use rocks. There are also strict rules against hiding the rocks in dangerous places. The founders also recommend buying rocks rather than taking them from the ground and using only eco-friendly paint to ensure everyone stays safe while having fun. A motorcyclist rode into an alley and ran over a patch of paint on the ground. The vehicle then got out of control and the rider crashed. On closer inspection, the motorcyclist realized that the asphalt road here looked a little, well, unusual. The entire area is covered in garish paint, complete with crooked yellow dotted lines and traffic signs never seen anywhere else. It's like stepping into another world. Returning to the scene of the accident, we can actually see that the traffic markings on the asphalt road are extremely sloppy and even include simplified Chinese characters. This mysterious alley is located near Songbai Street in Banqiao District, New Taipei City. The yellow area means no littering, the red circle means no cigarette butts, and the yellow dotted line means be careful of uneven road surfaces. These are not official traffic signs but rather signage painted by the residents themselves. We painted these ourselves. The transportation department didn't paint these lines. Like that slow sign, I spray-painted that myself too. That corner is very dangerous, often downhill and a blind spot. We spray-painted this all ourselves. This alley only leads to one household. People are questioning if they are treating a public road as their private property. However, those involved say they have good intentions. They want to beautify the environment, improve traffic, and make the place even more vibrant. My wife just does what she feels like. She wanted to paint blue colors and green in the back. It's just to keep this place clean and look nice. However, private individuals are strictly prohibited from drawing markings on public roads, especially using regular paint, which has already caused a motorcyclist to slip and fall. The transportation department and Banqiao District office have been notified to restore the road for the unauthorized installation of alteration of traffic signs and markings and the arbitrary placement of obstacles. Our precinct will issue a citation for this violation in accordance with Article 82 of the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act. Road markers can't be painted by individuals on a whim, nor can the public invent their own traffic rules, or they'll end up being ticketed and fined. The National Palace Museum has worked hard on transforming its image in recent years by selling all kinds of creative products inspired by items from its collection. Right now, it's offering entire electric scooters for limited sale, designed with flying dragon motifs from the Tibetan dragon cannon. There are also new items in the store symbolizing wealth and good fortune, hoping to bridge the gap between the collection and the public. Isn't it boring having a scooter that's just one color? The National Palace Museum thinks so. In a creative collab, they're selling electric scooters wrapped with motifs from the Tibetan dragon cannon. Some people love it, while others don't get the appeal. But regardless, it's 100% genuine, made in Taiwan. Combining Taiwanese manufacturing with artistic design to develop an electric scooter based on the Tibetan dragon cannon also incorporates concepts of energy conservation and carbon reduction. The cannon conveys wishes for a smooth journey, as well as peace and attracting wealth. Like the amulet and wallet I'm holding, people can use these items in their daily life. The cannon, packed with images of the Buddha and dragon motifs, is currently on display at the National Palace Museum. Visitors said they had more energy and felt positive after seeing it in person. But did they really? Whether it really brings sudden enlightenment by divine intervention is a matter of personal opinion. Or maybe the key is sincerity. Strong waves crash against this concrete-lined canal, whipping up spray into the air. At least five sea turtles can be seen swimming, paddling with their flippers on the surface of the water. This rare sight was captured by a passerby at a cooling water outlet coming out of a nuclear power plant in Hengchun. The passerby was just taking a walk on the beach to relax when he unexpectedly saw sea turtles poking their heads out of the water. The video was shared online and attracted more than 10,000 likes and comments, with many exclaiming it was incredibly therapeutic. The area near Taiwan's Ma'anshan nuclear power plant outlet has always been a popular diving spot, and snorkelers say they often see sea turtles in the vicinity. From what we can tell, the sea turtles seen in the waterway seem to be using the strong current to swim upstream and wash the algae off their bodies. It turns out that these adorable sea turtles were swimming against the strong current gushing from the outlet, constantly paddling their front flippers to go upstream, sometimes surging forward to breathe in the spray, sometimes being swept back by the current, but persevering and continuing to swim forward. They were taking a turtle bath. The rising tide allowed a member of the public to capture this rare and therapeutic scene.