Barack Obama's unlikely win of this year's Nobel Peace Prize is not the first time the U.S. President—the superpower's first African American commander-in-chief--has made history.

Dr. Yang Chih-liang, minister of health, is proposing a new tax or surtax. Don't think it's an idle recommendation. As a matter of fact, Taiwan should have long collected what he calls betel nut tax.

Wu Teh-yung, Taiwan's top weather forecaster, is tired of his job. Or to be more exact, he is fed up with his prediction work. So he has tendered his resignation to his director of the Central Weather Bureau.

“Fat cats” are as unwelcome in Taiwan as anywhere else in the world. But there is one special breed of fat cats in Taiwan that people may hate the most: retired government or military officials who receive double incomes, plus benefits.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a great mantra to chant. After it came to power in 2000 but had to form a minority government, the party invented “sellout of Taiwan” as an incantation against whatever the Kuomintang (KMT) tried to do.

A quick flip over to the Al Jazeera news channel - available in Taiwan through an inexpensive subscription - shows a documentary being aired on the plight of homeless Americans living in massive storm drainage systems underneath the city of Las Vegas.

China threw a lavish party Thursday to mark its 60th birthday, with awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping pageantry that could only be compared in scale and glitz with the Beijing Olympics last year.

After careful deliberation and a lot of high-powered lobbying, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has finally chosen Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

Jingjing and Chacha have large black eyes, big heads and short, cute limbs. Since their debut in Shenzhen, China, three years ago, the pair has kind of become celebrities.

Stories have often been told how patients waste resources by visiting big hospitals or medical centers for a minor cold that can be treated at small clinics in their neighborhoods.