Day: January 21, 2023

One ticket won the top prize of NT$200 million (US$6.6 million) in the latest drawing Friday of the twice-weekly "Lotto 6/49," according to Taiwan Lottery.

The top prize goes to any player who picks the six numbers between 1 and 49 that are drawn, with other prizes given to people who have chosen between two and five of the winning numbers and/or an additional special number.

The prize amounts vary based on the total receipts from tickets purchased for each drawing.

For the Lunar New Year holiday, the traditionally twice-weekly lotto will be available everyday until Feb. 5, drawing new sets of winning numbers for 17 days straight.

Only one ticket, issued in Guishan District in Taoyuan, had the six winning numbers -- 16, 25, 27, 31, 34 and 42 -- drawn Friday, earning the winner a prize of NT$200,072,070.

There were four winners of the NT$1,728,222 prize for picking five of the six winning numbers and the special number correctly, and 90 winners of NT$57,402 who had five of the six winning numbers, according to Taiwan Lottery.

A total of 236 tickets won a prize of NT$14,072 for having four of the winning numbers and the special number and 4,529 tickets won a prize of NT$2,000 for picking four winning numbers.

Thousands of ticket holders also won prizes of NT$400 and NT$1,000 for picking fewer of the numbers drawn.

The company estimated sales for the next Lotto 6/49 drawing will be around NT$300 million, guaranteeing a top prize of at least NT$100 million.

The company is also putting up 360 bonus prizes of NT$1 million for special daily nine-number drawings from Jan. 20 to until all of the NT$1 million prizes are claimed, with Feb. 5 scheduled as the last day of the event.

To win, players must correctly pick six of nine numbers between 1 and 49 drawn for the contest, which on Friday were 07, 08, 12, 23, 24, 27, 31, 35 and 45.

A total of 29 sets of the NT$1 million dollar bonus were given out Friday, but because two sets of winning combinations were shared between two sets of tickets, respectively, four tickets shared the million-dollar prize money, which lowered their winnings to NT$500,000 per ticket.

In a statistical oddity, five numbers from the opening drawing of last year's bonus prize were repeated in this year's inaugural drawing, which had an 11.51 million to one chance of occurring.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday reiterated the importance of cross Taiwan-Strait stability, but expressed concern that Beijing no longer seems comfortable with the status quo.

The Taiwan-China status quo is vital to maintaining peace and stability and has "actually been successful in terms of the relationship between our countries in managing what is a difficult situation," Blinken said in a moderated conversation at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

But China apparently has made a decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and has been seen in recent years ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan, he said.

The pressure included not only military and economic coercion, but also efforts seeking to cut off Taiwan's ties to countries around the world and to international organizations, said Blinken, who is to visit Beijing next month.

The cross-strait issue is considered a sovereignty issue for Beijing, Blinken said, but from Washington's perspective it "is an interest to the United States and to countries around the world."

Any disruption of the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait would be a disaster to the world economy, he said, noting that 50 percent of container ships operating around the world go through the Taiwan Strait and 70 percent of higher-end computer chips are manufactured in Taiwan.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel

A former ranking official with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) urged Taiwan to take advantage of its technology capabilities to forge security ties with the 30-member organization.

In a recent interview with CNA, former NATO Assistant Secretary General Giedrimas Jeglinskas said European countries have sensed from China's escalating military threats that it "is not a goodwill player" as once thought, which has created an opportunity for Taiwan to be recognized as a democratic partner by Western nations.

He said of Taiwan that "it's not a developing country that needs a lot of support. It also has a huge technology sector that is incredibly advanced. I think a lot of nations would love to work together with Taiwan."

"If China is putting these emerging disruptive technologies into their military capability, so must we. Taiwan can collaborate with some nations within NATO," Jeglinskas said.

"The more aligned we are, politically, economically, the better we're able to understand each other, the better there's a likelihood that there will be some sort of involvement of other countries in defense as well," he said.

Jeglinskas, who stepped down as NATO's assistant secretary general about a month ago, is currently serving as a nonresident senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

His comments echoed those of Alessio Patalano, a professor of War and Strategy in East Asia at King's College London.

Patalano said in a recent hearing at the U.K. Parliament that Taiwan has the potential to participate in high-tech cooperation with AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Jeglinskas told CNA that this type of defense technology partnership could even extend to QUAD, a strategic security dialogue consisting of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.

Jeglinskas, a former deputy defense minister of Lithuania in charge of military development and industrial and technology cooperation, said he believed many countries were willing to work with Taiwan because of its technological capabilities.

At present, Taiwan rolls out about 90 percent of the world's chips made on high-end processes.

According to Jeglinskas, one avenue for cooperation might be the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), which NATO set up in Madrid in June 2022, with 22 of the organization's 30 member countries participating.

The 1 billion euro capital fund will provide strategic investments in startups developing civilian and military dual-use technologies in areas critical to NATO security, such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and aerospace technologies.

“One of its main functions is to demonstrate leadership so that other democracies, like Taiwan and other Asian countries, would be inspired to create similarly-themed funds. As NATO fund takes off and matures, I believe there can emerge many angles for cooperation with other democracies,‘’ he said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel