KMT chair Cheng Li-wun's April visit to China confirmed after official invitation from Beijing. Polymarket contract on Xi-Cheng meeting odds jumped from 38% to 96% within hours, with $436K volume and 4% still betting No.
KMT lawmaker Ko Ju-chun grilled Premier Cho Jung-tai and financial regulators on five key issues. Cho pledged tax incentive direction within a month and a bitcoin spot ETF report in three months. The central bank said no country uses bitcoin as a reserve, but Ko cited Czech precedent.
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defense said two UAE oil tankers were hit by Iranian missiles on July 14 in the southbound lane of the Strait of Hormuz, within Omani territorial waters. One Indian crew member on the Mombasa was killed, while eight others were injured, including four seriously. The vessels, identified as the Mombasa and its sister ship Al Bahiyah, caught fire and suffered damage, though the fires were later brought under control. At nearly the same time, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations office reported that a tanker 40 nautical miles northeast of Qalhat, Oman, had been struck by an unidentified flying object, damaging the starboard engine room. The crew was reported safe. Reuters said it could not immediately verify whether that incident was the same attack. Iran had not commented on the latest strike at the time of publication. The attack came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington would resume a maritime blockade on Iran and keep the Strait of Hormuz open, "but charge a fee." Iranian local media later said a U.S. MQ-1 drone was shot down over the strait late Monday local time by air defenses of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On May 7, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Peng Jin-long delivered a report to the Legislative Yuan on fintech development. The Executive Yuan approved and sent the "Virtual Asset Service Act" draft to the legislature in April 2025, shifting Taiwan's VASP regulation from an anti-money laundering registration system to a stricter licensing regime. The bill sets a 9-month transition period for existing VASPs to apply for licenses, with full compliance required within 18 months. Beyond the Executive Yuan version, four additional drafts have been proposed by the Taiwan People's Party caucus, DPP legislator Lin Chu-yin, KMT legislators Lin Si-ming and Ge Ru-jun, reflecting cross-party consensus. The drafts include a dedicated stablecoin chapter with rigorous reserve and interest regulations, and penalties up to NT$6 million. Concurrently, the FSC is advancing real-world asset tokenization (RWA) experiments focusing on bonds and gold, alongside AI governance initiatives and the "FinLLM" project. The 2025 Taipei Fintech Forum in October attracted over 30 experts from 8 countries and nearly 1,000 on-site participants.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it used cruise missiles to strike the Sariska vessel after an alleged US attack on an Iranian boat in the Gulf of Oman. The UKMTO separately reported an explosion on a cargo ship near Iraq. Regional tensions threaten shipping and energy supply chains.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it struck a vessel linked to US and Israeli interests with cruise missiles in retaliation for a US attack on Iranian ships in the Gulf of Oman. Meanwhile, UKMTO reports a cargo ship hit by an unknown projectile in the Persian Gulf.
