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A Taoist detective on the prowl, surreal sexcapades in the city and a dystopia teeming with werewolves and vampires — these are among the motifs that contemporary readers might encounter on a gleeful romp through the world of Taiwanese comics. Known as manhua in Mandarin (the word uses the same Chinese characters as the Japanese term “manga”), the illustrated medium is enjoying a new heyday thanks to a thriving ecosystem of indie creators, publishers, distribution platforms and government benefactors. Among the industry’s major patrons is the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), established in 2019 by the Ministry of Culture, which supports homegrown cultural production across visual, audio and other domains and operates a number of initiatives especially tailored to manhua. Source link

Energy storage is at the center of the global low-carbon transition. The global energy storage market added a record 45 gigawatts of new capacity in 2023, according to an analysis of BloombergNEF. That’s roughly three times the amount tallied for 2022. As more vehicles run on electricity and renewables become more widespread, the need for batteries and hydrogen fuel cells will only grow. But the rapid expansion of energy storage infrastructure has a cost. The global electric vehicle boom has resulted in a lithium supply shortage since 2022 despite the 180% increase in production compared to 2017. The pressure of mining more minerals for batteries has also threatened some of the world’s largest, most diverse and fragile natural ecosystems. Source link

Japan was battling its largest wildfire in more than three decades on Saturday, one of several blazes that have killed one person and forced the evacuation of more than a thousand. Flames are estimated to have spread over about 1,200 hectares in the forest of Ofunato in the northern region of Iwate since fire broke out on Wednesday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. “We’re still examining the size of the affected area, but it is the biggest since the 1992 wildfire” in Kushiro, Hokkaido, an agency spokesman said. That fire burned 1,030 hectares, the previous record. Around 1,700 firefighters were being mobilized from across the country, the agency said. Aerial footage from public broadcaster NHK showed white smoke billowing up and covering an entire mountain. Local police found the body of one person who had been burned on Thursday. Firefighters work to extinguish a fire, in a location given as Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, on Feb. 28 | Fire and Disaster Management Agency / via REUTERS Over 1,000 nearby residents have been evacuated and more than 80 buildings had been damaged as of Friday, according to the Ofunato municipality. The cause of the blaze remained unknown. Two other fires were also burning Saturday, one in Yamanashi and another elsewhere in Iwate. There were about 1,300 wildfires across Japan in 2023, concentrated in the February to April period when the air dries out and winds pick up. The number of wildfires has declined since the peak in the 1970s, according to government data. Ofunato has seen only 2.5 millimeters of rainfall this month — on course to fall far below the previous record low for February of 4.4 millimeters in 1967. And last year was Japan’s hottest since records began, mirroring other nations as ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions fuel climate change. Source link

NEW DELHI/MANILA – From blackouts, a racing heart, extreme fatigue and brain fog, to severe depression and anxiety, DVL Padma Priya was hit with a constellation of symptoms in 2020, just months after recovering from COVID-19. But without a name for her condition, or support from health professionals, she said she struggled to understand what was wrong. “I intuitively felt it had something to do with COVID because my health spiralled after that. But I wasn’t getting any answers,” Priya, 38, said by telephone from Brisbane, where she moved last year from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Source link

TAIPEI – China has in recent weeks staged military drills off Australia and Vietnam, sending pointed warnings near and far. Neither was a full-fledged exercise. But taken together, China’s recent shows of force, experts said, conveyed a message: the region must not ignore Beijing’s power and claims. Three Chinese naval ships, including a cruiser with 112 missile tubes, showed up in the waters near Australia last week, only announcing plans to fire artillery for practice after the exercise had started. A few days later, on Monday, Chinese forces held live-fire drills in the Gulf of Tonkin, after Vietnam pressed its territorial claims in the gulf. Meanwhile, Chinese military aircraft buzz the skies near Taiwan almost daily. While Washington is consumed with other matters, from Ukraine and the Middle East to budget cuts at the Pentagon, China keeps pressing. The exercises, while relatively brief, highlight that China’s military reach is likely to keep growing, regardless of whether the Trump administration ultimately tries to confront China or pull it into some kind of deal. Source link

Monta Mino, who hosted many television shows in Japan, died in the early hours of Saturday, Nikkoku Corp., the water meter company he chaired, said. He was 80. Mino, whose real name was Norio Minorikawa, joined Nippon Cultural Broadcasting in 1967. After leaving the company, he became a freelance announcer and came under the spotlight for his narration on a TV program featuring Japanese professional baseball. He hosted TV programs such as “Gogo wa Marumaru Omoikkiri TV,” “Mino Monta no Asa Zuba!,” “Dobutsukisotengai” and “Himitsu no Kenmin Show.” “Final Answer?” became a buzzword after Mino made the remark in a quiz show he hosted. In 2006, when Mino appeared on 11 TV shows a week, he was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the TV host with the most hours of live TV appearances in a week. Source link

BEIJING – Coco Wen took advantage of China’s consumer subsidies to buy herself a new iPhone for about two thirds of the original price. At the same time, she’s cutting spending on other things. “I usually celebrate my birthdays with a fancy meal, but this year I skipped that,” said the 31-year-old, who works for a tourism agency that pays her less than before the pandemic as Chinese people cut back on overseas travel. “Our family’s spending habits have changed to only buying what’s necessary,” said Wen, who now cooks at home instead of dining out. Source link

Nippon Ishin no Kai adopted an action plan on Saturday seeking to push Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition into a minority in the House of Councillors in an election in the summer. “I will accept any outcome and take responsibility in the end,” Nippon Ishin leader Hirofumi Yoshimura said at a party convention in Tokyo, referring to the Upper House election. The ruling coalition already lost its majority in the House of Representatives, or the Lower House, in last year’s election. Yoshimura said that Nippon Ishin will work hard to follow through on its campaign pledges, including social security reform. He also said the party will promote discussions on amending the country’s Constitution, including its war-renouncing Article 9. Nippon Ishin co-leader Seiji Maehara said that the party has decided to vote in favor of the government’s fiscal 2025 budget, based on an agreement with the ruling coalition to modify it. “We are not a complementary force to the ruling coalition. We made a political decision to realize our way of thinking,” Maehara said. The action plan says that the ruling coalition’s defeat in the Lower House election paved the way for Nippon Ishin to realize its policies including free education. Nippon Ishin will pursue achieving further campaign pledges by pushing the ruling coalition into a minority force in the Upper House, the action plan says. Source link

Japanese companies started job seminars on Saturday for university students graduating in spring 2026. Companies have been racing to secure talent amid serious labor shortages by taking steps including raising starting salaries. Some 160 companies took part in a joint job fair organized by job information provider Mynavi at the Makuhari Messe convention center in the city of Chiba, near Tokyo, on Saturday. “I want to find a publisher focusing on digital and new businesses,” said a third grader at Seitoku University, who attended the event. A third grader at Nihon University who has already received informal job offers from three companies said, “I will continue job-hunting activities so that I can join a well-known company that is more stable.” A survey conducted on 1,820 companies by Mynavi between January and February showed that 78.1% said that they think they would face increasing difficulty in securing workers. The survey found that 54.1% said they would raise their starting salaries for university students graduating in 2026, up 6.9 percentage points from the previous year. “Companies’ approach has greatly shifted from selecting from hundreds of students to providing information to motivate several tens of students they have contact with,” said Makoto Takahashi, chief editor of the Mynavi website. Source link

Disaster was the word European officials used as Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s long-sought Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump descended into a reality-TV livestream of raised voices and angry bickering. The shock deepened as Trump told the Ukrainian president in a social media post to “come back when he is ready for Peace.” Later, Trump allies said there was little chance of a deal to end the war as long as Zelenskyy remains in power. “Either we’re going to end it or let him fight it out,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday evening. “And if he fights it out, it’s not going to be pretty, because without us, he doesn’t win.” Source link