**Tai-Ex opening **

The Tai-Ex opened down 31-points this morning from yesterday's close, at

14,678 on turnover of 2.9-billion N-T.

The market gained ground on Tuesday in a volatile (易變的) trading session,

as investors were closely watching the situation in China.

The market fluctuated by almost 300 points during the trading day.

Semiconductor stocks led an initial downturn, but the local main board made a

sharp rebound after investors opted to use temporary declines in the share

prices to increase their holdings.

**NHI Copayment Plan Could be Delayed **

Health Minister Xue Rui-yuan says plans to implement (實施) an increase in

National Health Insurance copayments could be delayed depending on how the

island's economy performs in the coming months.

The plan is currently slated to be introduced sometime in the first quarter

of next year.

However, the health minister says an exact timeframe has not yet been

decided, as the domestic coronavirus situation and how fast the island's

economy can recover from the pandemic could affect the finalizing of an

implementation date.

Xue says his office will be making further assessments of the overall

situation in the coming weeks.

**Central Bank Head Cits Weak NT$ as Contributing to Inflation **

Central Bank Governor Yang Jin-long says the New Taiwan dollar will likely

depreciate by around 6-per cent against the U-S dollar this year, driving up

the price of imports and adding up to 0.3 percentage points to the consumer

price index.

According to Yang several factors have contributed to (成為因素) rising

inflation in Taiwan over the last two years.

They include coronavirus-era supply chain bottlenecks, the impact of the

Russia-Ukraine war on food and energy prices, and Taiwan's vulnerability as a

small economy to price fluctuations on international markets.

While the other major factor is imported inflation, which has been driven up

by both the rising costs of imported materials and products and by the

depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar.

**US Senate Passes SameSex Marriage Bill **

The U.S. Senate has passed a landmark (地標性的) bill protecting same-sex and

interracial marriage across the country - and it did it with the support of

both Democrats and Republicans.

Toni Waterman has more.

**Finland Calls for Weapons for Ukraine in NZ and Australia **

Finland’s leader says it must give more weapons and support to Ukraine to

ensure it wins its war against Russia.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin made the comments today in Auckland as she

embarked on the first-ever visit by a Finnish leader to New Zealand and

Australia.

Among the aims of the visit are improving diplomatic relations and trade

ties.

Since the war began, both Finland and Sweden have abandoned their

longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied to join NATO.

That was the I.C.R.T. news,

Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded

every day in the afternoon.

Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

--

Hosting provided by SoundOn