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[] | 2016-08-28T16:53:00 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | In the latest attack on religious minorities in mainly Muslim Indonesia, a knife-wielding man stabbed a Catholic priest and tried to set off an explosive device at a church yesterday, police said. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654107.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P04-160829-318.jpg | en | null | Indonesian priest stabbed; explosive device said to fail | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, MEDAN, Indonesia
In the latest attack on religious minorities in mainly Muslim Indonesia, a knife-wielding man stabbed a Catholic priest and tried to set off an explosive device at a church yesterday, police said.
The priest, Albert Pandiangan was holding a mass in the city of Medan on the western island of Sumatra when a young man approached him and stabbed him in his left arm, police chief detective Nur Fallah said, adding that the attacker was carrying a homemade explosive device.
“Somebody tried to kill the priest by pretending to attend the church service and at that time tried to explode something, like a firecracker, but the firecracker didn’t explode, it only fumed,” Fallah told reporters.
The priest suffered slight injuries and has been taken to hospital for treatment. A picture of the attacker’s ID card circulating online said he was Muslim.
In recent years there have been a number of attacks on religious minorities and others in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. A suicide attack in the Indonesian capital in January killed four attackers and four civilians, including a Westerner, and injured 19.
In July a suicide bomber linked to the Islamic State group blew himself up outside a police station in Central Java Province.
Churchgoers yesterday quickly caught the attacker and called the police.
Eyewitness Markus Harianto Manullan said the assailant wore a jacket and carried a bag.
“He sat in the same row as I did... I saw him fiddling with something in his jacket, and then I heard a small explosion and he immediately ran to the podium,” Manullan said.
Police are still investigating the man’s motive. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/29/2003654107 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/b3edd0ce501aac1f70ce4b1331c5644078e3f577f7dc932d75c0f6c04c0a0b4b.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:07:55 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun on Wednesday defeated Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman in straight sets 6-4, 6-0 to reach the quarter-finals of the ATP Tour’s Winston-Salem Open. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653884.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P16-160826-001.jpg | en | null | Taiwan’s Lu advances at Winston-Salem | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, LOS ANGELES
Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun on Wednesday defeated Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman in straight sets 6-4, 6-0 to reach the quarter-finals of the ATP Tour’s Winston-Salem Open.
Lu, who is into his fourth consecutive Winston-Salem quarter-final, fired nine aces and did not face a break point in the 62-minute match in North Carolina.
“Fortunately I played really well on game points and on break points,” Lu was quoted as saying on the ATP Web site. “My serve was there when I needed it, and that helped me a lot today. I always seem to play very relaxed, very freely here. Maybe it is something that is missing for me in other tournaments, but I am able to find that feeling here.”
Lu next faces second-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain, who defeated Cyprus’ Marcos Baghdatis 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Top-seeded Richard Gasquet advanced to the quarter-finals with a 6-1, 6-3 win over French compatriot Stephane Robert.
Gasquet saved seven of eight break points and broke the unseeded Robert’s serve five times.
“I have known Stephane for a long time now, so I know how dangerous he can be,” Gasquet said.
“He likes to play close to the baseline. We have practiced together often, so I know his game and he knows mine. I did not make many mistakes today, and that was the difference.”
Gasquet next faces Australia’s John Millman, who came from behind to win 5-7, 6-0, 6-3 against wild card Bjorn Fratangelo.
Fifteenth-seeded Fernando Verdasco fired 10 aces as he rolled over the US’ Steve Johnson 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).
In the quarter-finals, Verdasco faces Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, who toppled the US’ Sam Querrey 6-2, 7-6 (7/5).
Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia advanced when Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic retired at 5-5 in the first set.
Additional reporting by staff writer | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/26/2003653884 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/7a2ac968cf50079f932d6a531f05ee38ec6fbdd738618e3a802dfe9bfc3c220f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:05:46 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | In a church basement in a poor East Baltimore neighborhood in Maryland, a Johns Hopkins doctor enlisted residents to help answer one of the most fraught questions in public health: When a surge of patients — from a disaster, disease outbreak or terrorist attack — overwhelms hospitals, how should you ration care? Whose lives should be saved first? | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653871.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P09-160826-001.jpg | en | null | When disaster strikes, whose lives should be saved? | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Sheri Fink / NY Times News Service, BALTIMORE, Maryland
In a church basement in a poor East Baltimore neighborhood in Maryland, a Johns Hopkins doctor enlisted residents to help answer one of the most fraught questions in public health: When a surge of patients — from a disaster, disease outbreak or terrorist attack — overwhelms hospitals, how should you ration care? Whose lives should be saved first?
For the past several years, Lee Daugherty Biddison, a critical care physician at Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, and colleagues have led an unusual public debate around Maryland, from Zion Baptist Church in East Baltimore to a wellness center in wealthy Howard County to a hospital on the rural Eastern Shore. Preparing to make recommendations for US state officials that could serve as a national model, the researchers heard hundreds of citizens discuss whether a doctor could remove one patient from lifesaving equipment, like a ventilator, to make way for another who might have a better chance of recovering, or could take age into consideration in setting priorities.
At that first public forum in 2012 in East Baltimore, Cierra Brown, a former Johns Hopkins Hospital custodian, said she favored a random approach like a lottery.
“I don’t think any of us should choose whether a person should live or die,” she said.
Alex Brecht, a youth program developer sitting across from her, said he thought children should be favored over adults.
“Just looking at them, seeing their smiles, they have so much potential,” he said.
“Who’s going to raise them?” asked Tiffany Jackson, another participant.
The effort is among the first times, Biddison said, that a state has gathered informed public opinion on these questions before devising policy on them.
“I don’t want to be in a position of making these decisions without knowing what you think,” she told the residents. “We as providers don’t want to make those decisions in isolation.”
Rationing already occurs in delivering medical care in the US, although some practices are little acknowledged. Committees struggle regularly over policies for allocating scarce organs for transplant.
During widespread drug shortages in recent years, doctors have sometimes chosen among cancer patients for proven chemotherapy regimens and among surgical patients for the most effective anesthetics. And doctors sometimes have to choose among patients who need treatment in intensive care units, which are often filled to capacity.
In emergencies, the choices can have immediate life-or-death consequences. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, doctors made ad hoc decisions about which groups of patients to evacuate from hospitals when floodwaters rose, the power failed and heat climbed. At one medical center, many of the sickest, chosen to go last, died.
During the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, thousands of young people developed severe respiratory distress. For some of the most critical cases, doctors tried treatment on heart-lung machines. Rationing took place because the costly and resource-intensive therapy, which doctors were not sure would help, was available in only about 120 hospitals.
Similar scenarios have developed in other countries, wealthy and poor. After the 2011 earthquake and subsequent disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, some patients at nearby hospitals, including babies, were selected for flights to safety, while others languished for days as medical supplies dwindled. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/26/2003653871 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8df973382872886d8960519fbd62e4f5a0bef1471e636dc6d5aaa7563ddb2649.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:08 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Demian Maia on Saturday night backed up his calls for a welterweight title shot with an early submission victory over Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC Fight Night at Rogers Arena. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654090.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Maia dominates Condit, renews call for title bout | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, VANCOUVER
Demian Maia on Saturday night backed up his calls for a welterweight title shot with an early submission victory over Carlos Condit in the main event of UFC Fight Night at Rogers Arena.
Ranked third in the division, Maia said this week that with a victory over Condit, he should be in line for a fight for the title now held by Tyron Woodley. And, at 38, Maia might get his wish later in the year after forcing Condit to tap out at 3 minutes, 8 seconds of the opening round.
Maia made quick work of the fight, which was scheduled for five rounds. He broke down in tears in the middle of the octagon when it was over.
Now he will await word on when a potential title fight could take place.
Maia said during a post-fight interview that if the UFC gives Stephen Thompson, the No. 2-ranked fighter in the welterweight division, the next title shot, he wants his opportunity right after that.
“I’m very grateful for everything I’ve accomplished in my life and very grateful for my family,” said Maia, who has won six straight fights. “My life is complete already. The title shot, that will be something else, something amazing if it happens.”
Tom Wright, executive vice president and general manager for UFC Canada, Australia and New Zealand, called Maia’s performance “dominant,” but said a decision on a possible title fight for Maia has not been made.
Saturday’s fight might have been the last for Condit. There has been speculation about Condit’s future in the UFC, and he strongly suggested following his loss to Maia that his days as a fighter could be over.
He stopped just short of confirming his retirement, saying he hopes the loss will not be his “swan song.”
He said he would talk to his management team and his wife and make a decision after that.
However, he said possible retirement has been “in the back of my mind for a while.”
“I don’t know if I have business fighting at this level anymore. I’ve been at this for a really long time,” Condit said. “It’s been awesome. I’ve got to do what I love for a living for a very long time, but I don’t know if I belong here.”
Anthony Pettis submitted Charles Oliveira in the third round in their featherweight bout.
Pettis, who flirted with a knockout win in the first round, was able to roll Oliveira into a guillotine choke, forcing his opponent to end the fight at 3 minutes, 11 seconds of the third round.
After taking time away from the octagon to appear on Dancing with the Stars, Paige VanZant returned to UFC with a second-round knockout over Australia’s Bec Rawlings.
VanZant, who last fought on Dec. 10 last year, when she lost by submission in the fifth round, was able to land a kick to the head of Rawlings, driving her opponent to the ground. VanZant continued with a series of punches before the fight was stopped.
Jim Miller opened the main card with a split-decision victory over Joe Lauzon in a rematch between the two lightweight combatants following their bloody, gruesome fight from UFC 155 four years ago. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/29/2003654090 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/29515a98bf0e85fabb1b0c5eb605c46019ac507cb5594e301e0d6d71c787345a.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:01:00 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | FINANCE | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653860.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taiwan Business Quick Take | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with agencies
FINANCE
CTBC scuttles China deal
CTBC Financial Holding (中信金控) yesterday announced that it has scuttled a HK$2.35 billion (US$303 million) deal to wholly acquire China CITIC Bank International (China) Ltd (中信銀行國際中國). The decision was due to lengthy delays and lack of progress after a year-long effort, CTBC Financial said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. CTBC Financial announced in May last year that it was planning to buy China CITIC Bank International (China), an affiliate of China CITIC Bank Corp Ltd (中信銀行), for NT$11.67 billion (US$368.49 million). The acquisition would have greatly accelerated CTBC’s bid to establish a full-service banking subsidiary in China, and put the company ahead of its Taiwanese rivals.
PHARMACEUTICALS
TaiGen inks deal with PC
TaiGen Biotechnology Co (太景生技) yesterday said it had signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Mexico-based Productos Cientificos SA de CV (PC) to develop and commercialize anti-infection drug Taigexyn in Latin America. Under the terms of the agreement, Productos Cientificos will be responsible for the development, registration and commercialization of the drug in Latin America and assume all associated costs, TaiGen said in a statement. In exchange for the exclusive rights, TaiGen will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for additional regulatory and commercial milestones in the future, it said. PC will also purchase Taigexyn at a pre-negotiated price from TaiGen for its commercialization in Latin America, it added. The pharmaceutical market in Latin-America is forecast by IMS Health to grow at between 9 and 12 percent from this year to 2020, TaiGen said.
SOLAR ENERGY
Prices of solar cells drop
Prices of Taiwan-made multi-crystalline silicon solar cells have dropped more than 2 percent this week as global demand remained slow, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. The average price of multi-crystalline silicon solar cells fell US$0.224 per watt, or 2.61 percent, from a week earlier on the spot market, TrendForce said. So far this month, prices of some types of solar cells have dropped 11.8 percent after an 8.96 percent decline last month, it said. The situation is not limited to Taiwan, as the average price of China’s multi-crystalline silicon solar cells fell US$0.221 per watt, or 2.64 percent, this week from last week. Trendforce said China’s multi-crystalline silicon solar cell prices dropped 9.38 percent last month and have declined another 11.95 percent this month. Taiwan and China are the world’s two major solar cell suppliers.
AVIATION
India cargo service to restart
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said it will resume cargo services to India amid optimism toward the fast-growing South Asian economy. Partnering with India-based Ascent Air, CAL is scheduled to relaunch the cargo service in the Indian market, starting from Sunday. The Taiwanese carrier suspended its cargo flights to India four years ago. In an initial phase, the two partners will operate one round-trip flight a week, carrying cargo from East Asia to India and then to Europe, and in turn, delivering cargo from Europe to India and then back to Taipei, CAL said. According to a report released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the compound annual growth rate of India’s cargo business is expected to hit 6.8 percent from 2014 to 2018, making it the world’s second-fastest-growing market. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/26/2003653860 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/2e4ef7a31cc93d25e75e1c367b682832e904ca84965638126ef2c33f7e9e4c77.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:50:57 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | The Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems yesterday said that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) proposal to increase the number of train carriages on the MRT’s Line 1 (Wenhu Line) to alleviate traffic congestion in Neihu District (內湖) is not feasible, citing safety risks. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653962.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | More carriages unfeasible: Taipei | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
The Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems yesterday said that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) proposal to increase the number of train carriages on the MRT’s Line 1 (Wenhu Line) to alleviate traffic congestion in Neihu District (內湖) is not feasible, citing safety risks.
Department official Shih Dun-jen (史敦仁) at a monthly meeting to review the city’s transportation policies yesterday briefed Ko on the viability of increasing the number of carriages along the MRT line from four to six.
Shih said it is impossible to connect larger French-made Matra models with Canadian-made Bombardier models due to their different designs, adding that doing so would spark concerns about intellectual property rights.
He said that increasing the length of trains on the Wenhu Line would require the tracks to be reworked and the power supply system to be modified, which would disrupt the line’s operation.
He said there is no precedent of a rail operator using six Bombardier carriages in one train, adding that doing so would require a full examination of the line’s power system; otherwise, it would pose safety risks.
If all 59 trains operating on the line were to have two extra carriages, it would cost the city about NT$15 billion (US$473.6 million), he said.
The Matra carriages are scheduled for decommissioning in 2036, while the Bombardier carriages are to be retired in 2029, Shih said, adding that peak passenger volume for the line, 14,800 passengers per hour, has yet to reach the line’s capacity of 17,100 passengers per hour.
Ko said the city could start thinking about purchasing new carriages for the line in 10 years.
In other developments, the Taipei Parking Management and Development Office said it would expand a project encouraging government agencies and public schools to rent out their parking spaces at night to nearby residents.
Since the project began in 2008, 101 of the city’s 225 agencies and 66 public schools with parking lots have allowed people to rent parking spaces at night when public servants are off-duty.
The office said it plans to free up an additional 1,183 parking spaces at 21 public agencies and schools by the end of next year.
As facilities that agree to rent out parking spaces can receive up to NT$3 million in subsidies, the office plans to allocate NT$66 million for the project.
It would cost the city about NT$2.36 billion to zone out the same number of parking spaces on roadsides, the office said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/27/2003653962 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/d4a624857da43359efb47c58fab1e3c458b8d5537c791000bfdbf3e445545604.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:53:52 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | The world’s first self-driving taxis yesterday began picking up passengers in Singapore. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653861.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P10-160826-305.jpg | en | null | Self-driving taxis debut in Singapore | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, SINGAPORE
The world’s first self-driving taxis yesterday began picking up passengers in Singapore.
Select members of the public can hail a free ride through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy Asia, an autonomous vehicle software startup.
While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo Cars, have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy said it is the first to offer rides to the public.
Its launch in Singapore is beating ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.
NuTonomy is starting small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year.
The ultimate goal, company executives said, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, to help cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads.
Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy said.
For now, the taxis only run in a 6.5km2 business and residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs are limited to specified locations. Riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service.
The company said dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months.
The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in the back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.
The testing time-frame is open-ended, nuTonomy chief executive officer Karl Iagnemma said, adding that eventually, riders might start paying for the service, and more pick-up and drop-off points would be added.
NuTonomy is also working on testing similar taxi services in other Asian cities, the US and Europe, he said.
“I don’t expect there to be a time where we say, ‘we’ve learned enough,’” Iagnemma said.
Autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000, nuTonomy chief operating officer Doug Parker said.
“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward.”
NuTonomy, a 50-person company with offices in Massachusetts and Singapore, was formed in 2013 by Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who were studying robotics and developing autonomous vehicles for the US Department of Defense. Earlier this year, the company was the first to win approval from the Singaporean government to test self-driving cars in one-north.
The company hopes its head start in autonomous driving will eventually lead to partnerships with automakers, tech companies, logistics companies and others.
“What we’re finding is the number of interested parties is really overwhelming,” he said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/26/2003653861 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/b1abbd5196868811a670b1bee068566e7ccb8ff997faaf5b28479a8194a66248.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:36 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Call it fate, or call it chance, but it certainly has been fitting and appropriate that the evaluation period of the first 100 days of the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would coincide with the recent visit of China’s Shanghai Municipal Committee United Front Work Department Director Sha Hailin (沙海林) at the Taipei-Shanghai Forum. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654063.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Presidents and the will of the people | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Jerome Keating
Call it fate, or call it chance, but it certainly has been fitting and appropriate that the evaluation period of the first 100 days of the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would coincide with the recent visit of China’s Shanghai Municipal Committee United Front Work Department Director Sha Hailin (沙海林) at the Taipei-Shanghai Forum.
This timely coincidence provides Taiwanese not only with a chance to reflect on Tsai’s initial performance, but also on their identity and the growing differences between Taiwan’s democracy and China’s one-party state autocracy.
It also serves as a reminder as to why the public elected Tsai. In a democracy, elected leaders are expected to respect and answer to the will of the people; Tsai was chosen as the one most people expect could carry out the public will.
True to his position, Sha trotted out the traditional memes and canards of China.
He said that he has come to show that blood is thicker than water, though he ironically seemed ignorant of the fact that most Taiwanese have abundant indigenous blood in contrast with their Han neighbors.
He also repeated how the shaky fabrication of the so-called “1992 consensus” is to be relied on as the rock solid basis for future negotiations.
He even spoke nostalgically of how he wanted to revive and promote China’s Zhonghua minzu (中華民族, “Chinese ethnic group”) — Chinese nation — presumably at the expense of any Taiwanese minzu, leading one to question what dynasty or one-party state rule the nostalgia was for.
One cannot fault Sha in any of this; he did his job like any loyal puppet in a system that only rewards cooperative players. Certainly he knew the expectations; for if such players want to keep their job, they must not only toe the line, but also do it in a pleasing and not too capricious middle way. He would be well aware of how one must measure up to the expectations of the Politburo without overplaying one’s hand. Even the loyal, but ambitious, Bo Xilai (薄熙來) did not get past such shoals.
On their side, Taiwanese are able to look at this differently and can parlay Sha’s words against their own, separate history.
They have clearly known tyranny. They were part of the Japanese Empire for half a century, and in the latter half of last century they had to live under a Chinese one-party state with its White Terror era martial law and party-designated president.
However, it is seven decades since the end of the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan.
Taiwanese should look at the various presidents of that period and how they could be classified.
One way, of course, is to separate those who have been directly elected by the public — those who ruled from 1996 on — from those of the earlier period during in the one-party state system.
A different and more telling way is to evaluate Taiwan’s presidents on how they perceive the nation and its role in the world.
This division is more complicated. Do they see the nation as Taiwan, or as a part of China?
How does this distinction relate to the sense of identity that is growing in Taiwanese society?
In recent decades, as Taiwanese enjoy the fruits of their democracy, they have also sloughed off previous one-party state propaganda and brainwashing.
They have grown and that has triggered an identity paradigm shift and a shift in how they view the world. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/29/2003654063 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/72afd1a230b4a1ef55e63f2d7ff71aa76b36f9197461de004e62b21ade40c784.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:39 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | People with diabetes can still eat mooncakes, if they learn to eat smart and properly control their blood-sugar levels, a physician said yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654228.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Doctor says people with diabetes can still eat mooncakes | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
People with diabetes can still eat mooncakes, if they learn to eat smart and properly control their blood-sugar levels, a physician said yesterday.
As many people with diabetes or “the three highs” — high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar — often ask doctors whether they are allowed to eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, ShuTien Clinic’s Metabolism Department director Hung Chien-te (洪建德) said yes, but added several provisos.
If people with diabetes pay attention to the glycemic index (GI) and the calories they eat, and take their prescribed medication, they can eat mooncakes to celebrate the holiday, but excessive eating is not suitable for people with diabetes or the three highs, or anyone for that matter, Hung said.
“A food’s GI is defined as the incremental area under the two-hour blood-glucose response curve after a healthy person consumes 50 grams of the available carbohydrates,” Hung said, adding that a diet with a lower GI can help control blood-glucose levels in people with diabetes.
He said the calories in a mooncake are mainly from starch (flour), sugar and fat (oil), and as both starch and sugar affect blood-sugar levels, carbohydrates should also be factored in.
A person with diabetes should obtain 40 to 60 percent of their total daily caloric intake from carbohydrates, so, for example, a man with diabetes who needs a daily intake of 2,000 calories per day would need to consume about 275 grams (about 1,100 calories) of carbohydrates per day, he said.
Hung said that if such a man consumed a piece of mooncake weighing 67.5g to 75g — about 350 calories — then he would have to not eat a bowl of rice — about 200g and 320 calories — that day.
However, he urged people with diabetes, but who “have poor control over their blood-sugar levels, do not take their medication regularly, do not know their glycated hemoglobin level,” people with the three highs and on a controlled diet, or people with eating disorders, to avoid eating mooncakes. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654228 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/004f0dd5d5a8b6306295e1bd3b3e2df05e5492b8bf752d7549a04fe71c6afc55.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:50:10 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | Asian stocks fell to a two-week low, led by shares in Japan, as investors showed a reluctance to take on risk before US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s speech that might provide clues on when the world’s largest economy would raise interest rates. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003653999.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Asian stocks fall as investors wait for Fed direction | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg and staff writer, with CNA
Asian stocks fell to a two-week low, led by shares in Japan, as investors showed a reluctance to take on risk before US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s speech that might provide clues on when the world’s largest economy would raise interest rates.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 0.6 percent to 138.35 on Friday, its second weekly drop and its longest losing streak since June. Japan’s TOPIX sank 1.3 percent, as the yen traded at ￥100.45 to the US dollar.
A rally in equities lost steam this month as investors pulled back risk before a speech by Yellen later on Friday. Odds that the Fed will boost rates next month have jumped to 32 percent from 18 percent at the end of last month, while traders are betting there is a 57 percent chance of tightening in December.
WAIT AND SEE
“It’s a wait-and-see holding pattern now,” said Chris Green, the Auckland-based director of economics and strategy at First NZ Capital Group Ltd. “In some ways, markets may be disappointed if they are looking for clarity for the rate decision. The usual modus operandi would be not to comment explicitly.”
Consumer-discretionary shares and healthcare companies led declines among Asian stocks, while commodity producers tracked Thursday’s rebound in oil after Iran agreed to an informal gathering of OPEC members.
Japan’s TOPIX erased its gains for the week as insurers and carmakers led losses. The yen gained against the dollar after data showed the nation’s core consumer prices last month fell 0.5 percent from a year ago. The TOPIX has retreated 17 percent this year, making the benchmark gauge the second-worst performer among developed markets.
In Taipei, the TAIEX closed slightly higher on Friday in thin trading, as investors were cautious ahead of Yellen’s speech, dealers said.
“Look at the low turnover. It was another boring session as many investors retreated from the trading floor, waiting for the Yellen speech,” Hua Nan Securities (華南永昌證券) analyst Kevin Su (蘇俊宏) said.
The weighted index closed up 0.2 percent, at the day’s high of 9,131.72, after hitting a low of 9,092.08, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. On a weekly basis, it rose 1.1 percent from 9,034.27 on Aug. 19.
While most large-cap stocks in the bellwether electronics sector were sluggish, the financial sector, led by Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金), moved higher, mainly because of its relatively low valuations, dealers said.
Contract chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the market, closed unchanged at NT$177.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), an assembler of iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, also ended unchanged at NT$88.50.
Chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) fell 0.2 percent to close at NT$243.50, while smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) gained 1.53 percent to end at NT$3.640, remaining the most expensive stock on the main board.
FINANCIALS RISE
“Fortunately, the financial sector benefited from bargain hunting to push up the index to close above the previous day’s level. However, the broader market remained in consolidation mode without any fresh incentives for investors to trade,” Su said.
In the financial sector, Cathay Financial rose 1.7 percent to NT$39.40 because of better-than-expected second-quarter results.
E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金) gained 0.55 percent to end at NT$18.25 after foreign institutional investors raised their stake in the company to 55.3 percent, the highest among Taiwan’s financial stocks. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/28/2003653999 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8346fba39c8c997e60784c0faa9195a529f525d015f2c0bcd80871fab3d8d68c.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:08:33 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | The Supreme Administrative Court yesterday upheld a ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court that said the Taipei City Government should lift a work suspension order on the Taipei Dome complex to allow project contractor Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to resolve public safety issues surrounding the beleaguered build-operate-transfer project. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653879.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Court upholds ruling to end work halt on Dome | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
The Supreme Administrative Court yesterday upheld a ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court that said the Taipei City Government should lift a work suspension order on the Taipei Dome complex to allow project contractor Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to resolve public safety issues surrounding the beleaguered build-operate-transfer project.
The city government on Aug. 2 filed a counter-appeal over conflicting interpretations it and Farglory had with the High Administrative Court’s ruling.
The city said Farglory must deliver work plans to the Department of Urban Development for review before it could work at the site, citing the Building Act (建築法) and the Taipei Building Management Bylaw (台北市建築管理自治條例), while Farglory said that it could resume work after notifying the department.
Supreme Administrative Court spokesman Shen Ying-nan (沈應南) yesterday said the city’s appeal was rejected because the court did not see any problem with the High Administrative Court’s ruling.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that the city disputed the ruling so the administrative court would clarify the situation.
However, Shen said that by filing a dispute, the city was disputing the ruling as a whole, adding that this led to the rejection of the appeal.
He said it is not the courts’ responsibility to determine issues with the project that need to be addressed, but did not say why the administrative court did not adjudicate on what should be done before Farglory could resume work.
Taipei Construction Management Office vice chief engineer Yu Chi-hsueh (虞積學) said that Farglory has delivered seven plans for review, but refused to comply when asked to sign the documents, which brought the review process to a stalemate. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/26/2003653879 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/fa4f39ffd498f33cadd72d151f32bb1c77ca6b29b01f24e50ac537b0d1871f2e.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:50:46 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | The Chungyuan Festival (Ghost Festival) is behind us, and the words of late poet Tu Pan Fang-ko (杜潘芳格) from her poem Chungyuan Festival come to mind: “You like to lose yourself in the turbulence of the crowd, while I only understand that I am lonely. The Chungyuan sacrificial pig holds an apple in its big mouth, as if it were happy and willing to be there. If you did not give it that apple, then it was me.” | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654006.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taiwanese culture has stagnated in oppression | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Lee Min-yung 李敏勇
The Chungyuan Festival (Ghost Festival) is behind us, and the words of late poet Tu Pan Fang-ko (杜潘芳格) from her poem Chungyuan Festival come to mind: “You like to lose yourself in the turbulence of the crowd, while I only understand that I am lonely. The Chungyuan sacrificial pig holds an apple in its big mouth, as if it were happy and willing to be there. If you did not give it that apple, then it was me.”
This awareness was also reflected in the new cultural movement during the Japanese Colonial era, but after the war, Taiwanese society has remained lost in a bad custom of burning large amounts of gold and silver paper money.
To grasp the extent of the volume, it is said that if all the silver ghost money burned during the Ghost Festival — as opposed to the gold ghost money that is burned to the gods — was piled up together, it would reach higher than several Taipei 101 skyscrapers. It is burned in the arcades in front of shops on city streets, in front of apartment buildings and even government offices, polluting the air.
However, look at the offerings: instant noodles, canned soft drinks, junk food, canned food. How crude this is compared with South Korea, another place where they like to make offerings. How can anyone with this mindset ever care whether a nation is true to itself, whether it is a normal, regular nation?
Could it be that Taiwanese have not noticed that in South Korean soap operas people clean themselves before a sacrifice, wear formal dresses and are cautious and respectful, or could it be that they have developed these rituals because they have lived through the trials of being ruled by a royal family?
Is it because Taiwanese have never experienced what it is like to have their own nation and because they have always had to toil on this island and praying to the gods has been the only way to gain protection?
Seeing people fight for the offerings after the ceremony is not very dignified. Are they starving, or are they completely poverty-stricken? Or is it just that they are greedy?
In South Korea, Christianity — including Catholicism — and Buddhism are both important. While it is often said that Taiwan is a Buddhist nation, a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism is more common. Taiwanese society is still focused on obtaining the gods’ blessings to achieve peace, promotion and wealth.
However, cultural formality and ceremonies have not been transformed into rituals. Even in the high-tech and fashion industry, the offerings simply highlight a coarse, haphazard attitude. They pollute the air, but they do so even without a drop of respect and sincerity toward the gods. If they necessarily have to pray, at least be serious about it and display some devotion.
Following urbanization and the construction of new buildings, offerings and praying should have gradually moved into the temples. However, all the offerings and religious activities are going on in front of modern buildings, and it is quite jarring to the eye. This is probably a cultural issue.
Tu Pan’s poetry carries the criticism of an intellectual artist: “The Chungyuan sacrificial pig holds an apple in its big mouth, as if it were happy and willing to be there. If you did not give it that apple, then it was me.”
This does not only happen during Ghost Month, but it is repeated on every first and 15th day of every month in the lunar calendar. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/28/2003654006 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/d39d8f418d2c3e6b12241fb800e04941b67803c957a5d13eb0c0d532e4697e7c.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:20 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | People planning an overseas trip in the autumn or winter could consider Europe, following a report from the Travel Quality Assurance Association showing that overall prices for tours there are forecast to drop by NT$3,000 to NT$6,000 compared with last year. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654225.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | European trip expenses may fall | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
People planning an overseas trip in the autumn or winter could consider Europe, following a report from the Travel Quality Assurance Association showing that overall prices for tours there are forecast to drop by NT$3,000 to NT$6,000 compared with last year.
The association yesterday made public reference prices for tours worldwide from October to December, including some popular travel destinations for Taiwanese.
Tours to Europe showed a decrease in prices, partially caused by the depreciation of the British pound, the report said.
The supply of flights is to surpass demand this year, as many airlines — including China Airlines and EVA Air — have begun providing new services to Europe, the report said.
As November and December are off-peak travel seasons in Europe, tours offered in these months are generally cheaper than those available in the peak season, the report added.
In addition, the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar should see prices of tours to the US and Canada drop by NT$1,000 to NT$5,000, it said.
According to the report, tours to Japan in October and November are to rise by NT$2,000 to NT$5,000. In December, tours to cities in Japan are to cost about the same as last year, except for tours to the Hokaiddo area — which are to rise by NT$2,000 — it said.
The report attributed the rising cost of tours to Japan on the appreciation of the yen, while Japanese schools often organize trips in the autumn, adding to demand.
Japan has a strained supply of hotels and accommodation because of an increase in tourists from Thailand and Malaysia, the report said.
Despite an increase in flight services to New Zealand, the report showed that ticket prices are to rise by NT$3,000 because of the appreciation of the New Zealand dollar and increased accommodation costs there.
The cost of tours to northern, northeastern and southwestern parts of China are also expected to increase in autumn and winter, due to increases in admission fees at scenic spots, flight ticket prices and accommodation costs, the report showed.
People planning a trip to central and southern regions of China would see tour fees drop by NT$1,000 to NT$3,000, except for Guilin in Guangsi Province, it said.
The report said that tours to Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, the Middle East, north Africa, South Africa, India, Nepal Vietnam and Cambodia would cost about the same as last year.
People traveling within Taiwan from now to the end of this year should see a slight reduction in costs, thanks to the decrease in the number of Chinese tourists, which makes it easier to book hotels and tour buses, the report said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654225 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/561b5393610b3b469d91e7c9b4cecc4bce3b5381ea449c887f3e6de6b05d2784.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:58:00 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | BANKING | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653866.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | World Business Quick Take | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Agencies
BANKING
EU, Portugal reach deal
The European Commission and Portugal on Wednesday said they have agreed on a 5 billion euro (US$5.64 billion) deal to recapitalize the state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos bank, including through a 2.7 billion euro injection of state funds. The deal was provisionally approved by European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager to meet the 28-nation bloc’s tough rules on preventing unfair government aid for businesses.
PHARMACEUTICALS
AZ to sell antibiotics arm
British drugs giant AstraZeneca (AZ) PLC on Wednesday agreed to sell part of its antibiotics business to US giant Pfizer Inc for up to US$1.6 billion. The deal for the company’s small-molecule antibiotics, or those developed using traditional chemistry, is expected to complete in the fourth quarter, AstraZeneca said in a statement. The news comes days after Pfizer bought San Francisco-based biotech firm Medivation Inc — which specializes in cancer treatments — for US$14 billion.
SOVEREIGN FUNDS
QIA buys iconic stake in US
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has made an iconic purchase in the US — a stake in the company that owns New York’s Empire State Building. The Empire State Realty Trust Inc, which manages the building, said late on Tuesday that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) purchased a 9.9 percent stake in the company for US$622 million. The QIA’s existing US holdings include a more than 10 percent stake in New York-based luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co.
STOCKS
CNOOC stock drops on loss
China’s main offshore oil and gas producer, CNOOC Ltd (中國海洋石油), saw its shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange fall yesterday, after it reported a US$1.16 billion net loss for the first half. It was the company’s first half-year loss since it started trading on the Hong Kong exchange in 2000, with CNOOC blaming low oil prices and write-downs on assets for its performance. CNOOC posted a net loss for the six months ending June 30 of 7.74 billion yuan (US$1.16 billion), alongside a 25.4 percent drop in revenue to 66.83 billion yuan.
TECHNOLOGY
HP downbeat on Q4
HP Inc, which sells personal computers and printers, forecast its fiscal fourth-quarter profit might fall short of analysts’ estimates, hurt by slumping demand for its products. Profit from continuing operations, excluding some items, will be US$0.34 to US$0.37 per share in the current quarter, HP said on Wednesday. That would fall short of analysts’ projections of US$0.40. The company reported profit, before certain items, of US$0.48 per share in the third quarter ended July 31, topping analysts’ estimates of US$0.45. Sales fell 3.8 percent to US$11.9 billion, compared with estimates of US$11.5 billion.
COMMODITIES
South32 earnings surprise
South32 Ltd, the world’s biggest manganese producer, is to pay its inaugural dividend and said it is monitoring two potential investment opportunities after reporting full-year earnings that beat analysts’ estimates. A decline in commodity prices saw underlying earnings fall 76 percent to US$138 million in the year ended June 30, down from a pro-forma US$575 million in the same period last year, the Perth-based company said yesterday. That exceeded the US$111 million average of 18 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. It will pay a final dividend of US$0.01 per share. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/26/2003653866 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/5548cfa34a64f055a3e1cfd911a0780da3b8a9cab0b84038308e634736c12559.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:00 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | About 300 demonstrators from Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) yesterday protested in front of the Executive Yuan in Taipei against the government’s plan to relocate the students of an elementary school due to pollution-associated risks, saying that relocation would not curb pollution, while the move would disrupt students. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654221.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P03-160831-2.jpg | en | null | Mailiao residents protest plan to relocate students | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
About 300 demonstrators from Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) yesterday protested in front of the Executive Yuan in Taipei against the government’s plan to relocate the students of an elementary school due to pollution-associated risks, saying that relocation would not curb pollution, while the move would disrupt students.
The Executive Yuan last week announced that it will move the students at Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo branch to Fongrong Elementary School by the end of the semester to keep them away from pollutants, including vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), allegedly emitted by a nearby naphtha cracker run by Formosa Petrochemical Corp.
The decision was made after a study by the National Health Research Institutes showed that thiodiglycolic acid levels — an indicator of VCM exposure — in the urine of Syucuo students was higher than in students at other schools.
However, protesters asked the government to abandon the relocation plan, saying the research might be biased and the government should solve the pollution issue instead of moving the students.
“Relocation can affect the students psychologically. Can they concentrate on their studies under such conditions?” protester Hsu Fang-yu (許芳餘) said.
Parents are more concerned than anyone else about the children’s health, but they will reject the relocation plan if the government cannot identify the pollution source or prove that relocation is necessary, Hsu said.
“Without an identifiable pollution source, the relocation plan brings an unwarranted bad reputation to the township. Will people believe the township is suitable for living?” he said.
The research was unilaterally carried out by a team led by National Taiwan University public health professor Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) and the government only listens to the team’s opinion, Hsu said, demanding the government commission a third-party research agency to run a health risk assessment.
“Who loves our children and township more than we do? Many academics and politicians who have manipulated the issue have other agendas,” Yunlin County Councilor Lin Shen (林深) said.
If high levels of VCM are detected in the environment, the issue would be more than just about relocating the students and involve the relocation of township residents or the shutting down of the VCM plant, Lin said.
The county government in August last year moved students from the Syucuo branch to Ciaotou Elementary School’s main campus, but they were moved back to the branch the following semester due to their parents’ concern about the cramped learning environment at the main campus.
Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) reaffirmed the relocation plan, saying it is a preventive measure to protect the students’ health, as they are statistically more exposed to pollutants.
“We agree to demands to enlarge the scope of the health risk assessment, pollution source investigation and environmental monitoring. We will stand with Syucuo residents to protect the students’ health,” Tung said.
Tung said the rumor that the government was planning to relocate township residents is not true. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654221 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/734b35a383eef4f249cb8a69e80c4937fb70b517e0b7f2f966a484b376b0eece.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:51:27 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn roared back to form with a superb eight-under-par 64 to claim a three-shot lead at the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open on Friday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654026.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/28/thumbs/P10-160828-324a.jpg | en | null | Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn takes Calgary lead | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, LOS ANGELES
Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn roared back to form with a superb eight-under-par 64 to claim a three-shot lead at the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open on Friday.
British Open champion Ariya limped out of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last week after a knee injury derailed her bid for a medal after she had taken a first-round lead.
However, the talented 20-year-old rediscovered her best form in sunny conditions at Calgary’s Priddis Greens Golf and Country Club to storm to the top of the leaderboard.
The Thai youngster, enjoying a breakthrough season with four victories and nine top-10 finishes, carded eight birdies and no bogeys in a flawless round which left her at 12-under for the tournament.
Ariya said her sore knee had improved gradually over the course of the week following her withdrawal in the third round in Rio.
“I feel like I am okay. I wanted to see how I am feeling. But after that, like on Monday, it did not hurt that much and today it is getting a lot better,” she said.
South Korea’s Chella Choi Woon-jung had started the day in sole possession of the lead, completing her weather-disrupted first round to finish with a seven-under-par 65.
However, Choi was unable to build on her lead in a roller-coaster second round, notching four birdies and three bogeys to finish with a one-under-par 71, four off the lead.
South Korea’s Chun In-gee was three behind Ariya on nine-under after a see-saw five-under-par round which included an eagle, six birdies and three bogeys.
Northern Ireland’s Stephanie Meadow — who lit up the first round with a 66 — was also three back after a second-round 69.
Five players finished the second round on eight-under, four adrift of the lead. They included New Zealand’s world No. 1 and defending champion Lydia Ko, who is gunning for her fourth victory in the tournament.
Ko appeared to be building a head of steam with four birdies in a row between the ninth and 12th holes to move to nine-under, but a bogey on the 14th checked her momentum as she finished the day four behind.
Taiwan’s Min Lee had a great day out on the course, carding five birdies for a second-round score of six-under-par 66, while Cheng Ssu-chia hit an even-par 72.
Hsu Wei-ling and Yani Tseng did not make the cut.
Additional reporting by staff writer | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/28/2003654026 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/469db8423c329a8817061029964363248810a03d67b5690a89e43eba0a88bfa7.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:08 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | A test flight of Japan’s new passenger jet was aborted yesterday for the second time in two days because of an air conditioning defect, its maker said. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654058.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P14-160829-313.jpg | en | null | Japan’s MRJ aborts test flight for second time | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, TOKYO
A test flight of Japan’s new passenger jet was aborted yesterday for the second time in two days because of an air conditioning defect, its maker said.
A Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ) on Saturday left Nagoya Airfield in central Japan for the US, but soon turned back due to air conditioning problems.
The plane took off again yesterday, but problems “in the same air conditioning monitoring system” caused it to return, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and its subsidiary, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp, said in a joint statement.
“After the jet returned yesterday, we checked the system and changed parts. After confirming that there was no problem in a test on the ground, today we launched the flight again, but the same problem occurred,” Mitsubishi Heavy spokesman Yuji Sawamura said.
The MRJ, which can seat as many as 92 people, is the first of four that the firm will fly to US for testing as the company works toward getting certification in the world’s largest economy.
The aircraft made its first flight in November last year and has been undergoing tests since.
Development of the MRJ has suffered a series of delays. In December last year, Mitsubishi Heavy said it was postponing delivery of the planes by one year to the second quarter of 2018 for system software upgrades and other design changes.
The twin-engine MRJ marks a new chapter in Japan’s aviation sector, which last built a commercial airliner in 1962 — the YS-11 turboprop, made by Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corp, a consortium that included Mitsubishi Heavy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. Production was stopped in 1974 after 182 of the planes were sold.
The MRJ will compete with other regional passenger jet manufacturers such as Brazil’s Embraer SA and Canada’s Bombardier Inc.
Mitsubishi Heavy unveiled the jet in October last year and has received more than 400 orders.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654058 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/fddab9281f21e6eb0f744eb37fcff3a87d719323ebb90ec9e0fc4c1967dca76a.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:46 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday criticized radio talk host Clara Chou (周玉蔻), saying that she engaged in “groundless and malignant slander” against him. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654222.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P03-160831-3.jpg | en | null | Ma accuses Clara Chou of ‘groundless slander’ | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Hsiang Cheng-chen and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday criticized radio talk host Clara Chou (周玉蔻), saying that she engaged in “groundless and malignant slander” against him.
Ma made the remarks during a hearing on his lawsuit against Chou at the Taiwan High Court in Taipei.
According to Ma, Chou has since December 2014 repeatedly slandered him by claiming on political talk shows that he has accepted NT$200 million (US$6.3 million) from Ting Hsin International Group to cover up a scandal involving edible oils.
Ma said that Chou, through such TV appearances, was able to make NT$1 million.
Having been a civil servant for more than 30 years, Ma said “fiscal integrity” was his life, adding that he could not accept the district court’s ruling that Chou was not culpable and therefore he filed an appeal to the Taiwan High Court.
The courts are a bastion of protection for the freedom of speech, but it should not be a guarantor for the abuse of such liberties, Ma said, adding the Republic of China (ROC) is a nation that is governed by law and should not tolerate the “special few” who are able to slander others without proof.
Chou told reporters after leaving the session that Ma’s speech was very emotional.
“That Ma has turned toward personal insults in court saddens me. I am further surprised that he treats journalism a tool for money. His remarks about me show the naivete and ignorance of Ma in terms of judicial law,” Chou said.
The collegiate bench at the Taiwan High Court yesterday summoned My-Formosa.com vice chairman Wu Tzu-chia (吳子嘉) and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) for questioning.
Wu said he had evidence that the Ma campaign team received NT$1 billion in political donations from Ting Hsin, adding that the funds were paid to the team and not to Ma.
When asked by Judge Chen Hsiao-pei (陳筱佩) to state his source, Wu said he would rather be fined than reveal his sources.
Hsieh said that the fomer Ma administration should have been more active when the Ting Hsin food scandal broke in 2014.
Hsieh said his feelings regarding such a letdown caused him to hypothesize that if someone took political donations from the company, it would be difficult to carry through the public’s self-imposed ban on Ting Hsin products.
However, Hsieh said his comments were not backed by any evidence. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654222 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/6a7078cbb486de03dea3b885537e005123371c25f3e1bfc579868c7fa5da390d.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:30 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | China will be the “loser” if it does not recognize an international court’s ruling against its territorial claims in the South China Sea, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Perfecto Yasay said yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654238.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Manila, Hanoi needle Beijing on South China Sea | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Reuters, MANILA
China will be the “loser” if it does not recognize an international court’s ruling against its territorial claims in the South China Sea, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Perfecto Yasay said yesterday.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague infuriated China last month when it ruled that China had no historical title over the South China Sea and it had breached the Philippines’ sovereign rights.
China has ignored the ruling that none of its claims in the disputed Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) entitled it to a 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zone. Its construction work on reefs there has alarmed other claimants, including Taiwan.
“We are trying to make China understand especially when the dust settles that unless they respect and recognize the arbitral tribunal, they will be the losers at the end of that day on this matter,” Yasay told a Philippine congressional hearing.
Prior to starting bilateral talks, the Philippines plans to seal a deal for China to allow Filipino fishermen to access the resource-rich waters, Yasay said.
China seized Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in 2012, denying Philippine fishermen access, one of the factors that prompted Manila to seek arbitration.
“When we start formal negotiations or bilateral engagements with China, we will have to do it within the context of the arbitral decision. There are no buts or ifs insofar as our policy on this matter is concerned,” Yasay said.
In related news, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang yesterday said there would be no winners in any armed conflict sparked by territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Quang, who is on a state visit to Singapore, told a forum that recent developments there were threatening regional security.
The Vietnamese leader did not mention any country but there is growing unease over China’s actions.
“The South China Sea, located at the heart of Southeast Asia, not only brings about many important benefits to nations in the region but it is also a vital route to maritime and air transport of the world,” Quang said. “Recent worrying developments” there “have had a negative impact on the security environment of the region, especially maritime security and safety, freedom of navigation and overflight.”
“Should we allow instability to take place, especially in the case of armed conflicts, there will be neither winners or losers but rather all will lose,” he said.
The Vietnamese leader was speaking to diplomats, academics and students at a forum organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies’ Yusof Ishak Institute.
Taiwan and four Southeast Asian states — Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam — have competing claims in the sea.
Vietnam has been among the most vocal critics of China’s blanket territorial claims. In 2014 China moved a controversial oil rig into contested territory, prompting riots in Vietnam.
The sea row has also driven a wedge between members of ASEAN, which has failed to forge a unified front against Beijing’s actions.
Additional reporting by AFP | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/31/2003654238 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/db3a1788c5b2ce56970c79e0b002be8d32059191ddddbce3d082ee596fd53e3c.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:53:19 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) yesterday apologized again for his criticism of Hualien City voters after the party lost a mayoral by-election on Saturday, saying his remark hurt voters’ feelings and the party’s image. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654156.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | DPP legislator apologizes again after election remark | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) yesterday apologized again for his criticism of Hualien City voters after the party lost a mayoral by-election on Saturday, saying his remark hurt voters’ feelings and the party’s image.
“As someone who has worked in politics for a long time, I sincerely apologize for making the remark more or less to vent my anger,” Tuan said as he made his first public appearance after he said on Facebook on Saturday that: “I can pretend to respect the election’s result, but I cannot pretend not to despise the voters.”
Following condemnation from KMT members and netizens, Tuan deleted the post and published an apology, which nevertheless accused the KMT of vote-buying.
He delivered another apology yesterday amid snowballing criticism.
Tuan said his remark hurt the feeling of Hualien voters and the electorate as a whole, as well as damaging the DPP’s image and the party’s supporters.
“I will make fewer public statements for the time being. I will continue to reflect on myself and deal with my impulsive nature,” he said.
“If the public is not satisfied with my performance in the legislature, I am naturally unqualified to reassume the position [of legislator],” Tuan said in reply to demands that he resign.
Tuan said he did not come forward until yesterday because he was still emotional and did not want to make another mistake, and neither the DPP nor President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) asked him to apologize.
In response to media queries on whether he had evidence that the KMT was involved in vote-buying as he alleged, Tuan said about 10 percent of the alleged vote-buying cases at the level of township elections happen in Hualien, and reports of vote-buying were numerous during the mayoral election.
He called on prosecutors to speed up investigationa into vote-buying allegations to stem the illegal practice. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/30/2003654156 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/94b2424bb87018c5a045f0d1ab097e6b01e45c1c8ff0941baddfaec95bfbd1c0.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:51:58 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Japan’s household spending last month fell for a fifth straight month and retail sales also dropped, underscoring the weakness in domestic demand. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654195.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Japanese spending, unemployment down | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
Japan’s household spending last month fell for a fifth straight month and retail sales also dropped, underscoring the weakness in domestic demand.
The jobless rate was the lowest since 1995.
Household spending fell 0.5 percent in July from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said yesterday (forecast minus-1.5 percent).Retail sales fell 0.2 percent from a year earlier (forecast minus-0.9 percent), according to a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry report. Compared with a month earlier, they rose 1.4 percent (forecast plus 0.8 percent).
The unemployment rate was 3 percent (forecast 3.1 percent). The number of employed women (28.3 million) and women’s labor participation rate (66.3 percent) rose to a record high, according to the statistics bureau.
Japan’s economy is struggling to gain momentum, evidenced by slower expansion in GDP than economists forecast in the second quarter. Even as the job market remains tight, the yen’s gains since the start of this year are hurting exports, making businesses more reluctant to invest.
Meanwhile, consumers are wary of spending because wages are barely rising.
This is putting pressure on the Bank of Japan to consider more monetary stimulus at its meeting on Sept. 20 and Sept. 21.
“Overall, consumer spending remains weak as wage growth is dull,” Yoshiki Shinke, an economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo, said before the reports were released. “Households have been keeping their purse strings tight since the sales-tax increase in 2014.”
SMBC Nikko Securities Inc economist Koya Miyamae said spending is recovering since the start of the year, though “won’t grow dramatically.”
Miyamae said big gains in household spending would require “structural reforms like changing labor market rules.”
Atsushi Takeda, an economist at Itochu Corp in Tokyo, said retailers were helped as last month had more weekends compared with other months, and people shop more on weekends.
He sees the gains as temporary.
“Demand among consumers isn’t worsening but isn’t improving,” he said.
Compared with June, household spending rose 2.5 percent last month. The job-to-applicant ratio was unchanged at 1.37 (forecast 1.38). | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/31/2003654195 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/840e97d949960b3c6409746ad149c2396ccec353f28149482c81fb6e159c783d.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T12:56:45 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | The nation’s chemical industry might continue to feel the impact of softening global demand for the rest of the year, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653853.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Demand to drag chemicals: TIER | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter
The nation’s chemical industry might continue to feel the impact of softening global demand for the rest of the year, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said yesterday.
“Sales this year might decline slightly from last year, dragged by lower-than-expected global demand for chemical products,” TIER analyst Lo Kai-chen (羅凱禎) said at a conference in Taipei.
Lo said that Beijing is trying to address overcapacity in China’s industrial sectors, which has led to lackluster demand for chemical products.
Domestic demand has also not completely recovered and overall industrial production is unlikely to improve significantly by the end of this year, she said.
“Sales of chemical products to downstream electronic companies might slow later this year,” Lo said, adding that demand from the plastics and textile industries would also be weak.
In the first half, chemical industry sales dropped 10.3 percent year-on-year to NT$72.6 billion (US$229.24 million).
However, gross profits during the same period increased 10.38 percent to NT$15.5 billion annually, which TIER attributed to local firms’ product differentiation strategy.
For instance, some chemical companies have tapped into “green” businesses to produce environmentally friendly products with higher margins, Lo said, adding that such products include “green” coatings, non-toxic adhesives and bio-based surfactants, she said.
It is mostly low-end Chinese chemicals that are in oversupply. Taiwanese firms’ product differentiation strategies have helped them retain advantages while competing with global rivals.
China is the largest importer of Taiwan’s chemical products and accounted for 43 percent of the local industry’s total exports last year, TIER said.
“However, sales contributions from China are declining, while revenue from Southeast Asian nations is rising,” Lo said, adding that an increasing number of local companies are expanding into emerging markets, including Vietnam, Malaysia and India.
TIER’s latest survey of the local manufacturing sector indicated that business sentiment improved last month, as the nation’s exports rebounded.
The survey released yesterday indicated that the manufacturing composite index rose 1.97 points to 98.63 last month after falling in June.
However, TIER Economic Forecasting Center director Gordon Sun (孫明德) said that although sentiment in the manufacturing sector rebounded, only the semiconductor segment saw an increase in shipments.
In the local service sector, sentiment remained cautious, with the transportation, logistics and warehousing segment maintaining a conservative outlook amid rising global crude oil prices, TIER said.
The composite index for the local service sector last month fell 1.17 points month-on-month to 84.37, TIER said.
Additional reporting by CNA | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/26/2003653853 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/d7d45e66e815e2f059e5b55a7fee52f5b03bcaf351e93f3ea654251bc836259b.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:13:42 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | SOUTH KOREA | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653919.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | World News Quick Take | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Agencies
SOUTH KOREA
Reparation funds detailed
Seoul yesterday said that surviving “comfort women” who served the Japanese military in World War II will be eligible to receive 100 million won (US$90,000) each from a foundation that is to be funded by the Japanese government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the families of those killed will be able to receive 20 million won, adding that it expects the Japanese government to soon transfer ￥1 billion (US$9.9 million) to a foundation formally launched in Seoul last month. The two sides agreed to set up the foundation in December last year.
ISRAEL
Alleged attacker shot dead
A soldier on Wednesday shot dead a Palestinian motorist who allegedly stabbed him and threw rocks from his car at a military vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the army said. An army spokeswoman said the assailant hurled rocks from his moving car at an oncoming military patrol vehicle, which then gave chase, forcing the car to a standstill shortly afterward. When the soldier approached the vehicle, the assailant stabbed him, inflicting light wounds, she said. The soldier responded by pushing the assailant backward and shooting him, an army statement said. A picture of the dead assailant circulated on social media showed him sitting in the driver’s seat.
UNITED STATES
Prison officials attacked
Prison officials in Nebraska said that nine staff members at the Lincoln Correctional Center were assaulted by inmates who were refusing to return to their cells. Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith told reporters in an e-mail on Wednesday night that all nine were taken to hospitals after the attack and were treated and released. The prison was placed on lockdown. It was not clear how many inmates were involved in the attack or whether any were hurt. The Lincoln Correctional Center is a medium-maximum security prison for adult males.
NEW ZEALAND
Police mull hiker case
Police were trying to figure out why a tourist from the Czech Republic ended up spending nearly a month in the wilderness after her partner died during a hike. The woman was found on Wednesday living in a park warden’s hut on the scenic Routeburn Track in the “highly unusual case,” police said in a statement yesterday. The couple began their winter hike on July 24 and the man fell down a steep slope four days later, police said. The woman was able to reach him, but he died soon after. Police said she then made her way to the hut where she has been living since. Police said they launched a search on Wednesday morning after finding out the couple were missing.
UNITED STATES
Arrest after pepper-spraying
Police say a woman has been arrested after pepper-spraying a crowd of students at a high school in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta Public Schools spokeswoman Kimberly Willis Green told local media that Shawanda Favors was apprehended after allegedly spraying a crowd of students on Wednesday morning during a fight to stop her son from being jumped at Carver High School. Green said four students were treated for injuries and one student was taken to hospital. Favors was charged with disorderly conduct. The school system’s police department was investigating the incident. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653919 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/fc95be2ec99813efd7a39f90b279d4af9672ae6d8bebc9f1b15c624c4737e52c.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:13:11 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Nigel Farage, the divisive figure at the heart of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, on Wednesday threw his support behind US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653914.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P07-160826-316.jpg | en | null | Trump finds an ally in Brexit’s Farage | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, WASHINGTON
Nigel Farage, the divisive figure at the heart of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, on Wednesday threw his support behind US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Farage, the outgoing leader of the UK Independence Party, was instrumental in Britain’s vote to pull out of the EU on June 23, painting the decision as a chance for fed-up Britons to take back control of their country.
“Folks the message is there. The parallels are there,” Farage told a rally for the Republican nominee in Jackson, Mississippi.
“There are millions of ordinary Americans who have been let down; who have had a bad time; who feel the political class in Washington are detached from them; who feel so many of their representatives are politically correct parts of the liberal media elite. They feel people are not standing up for them,” Farage told a crowd of about 1,000 people.
“So you have a fantastic opportunity here with this campaign. You can go out and beat the pollsters, you can beat the commentators, and you can beat Washington,” he said.
Farage, who was in Ohio for the Republican National Convention last month when Trump was appointed party standard bearer, said the campaign of the billionaire property mogul echoed his own fight to take Britain out of the EU.
“Everybody said we’d lose, [but] we did it,” he said. “If you want change in this country, you’d better get your walking boots on.”
Farage, a privately educated former stockbroker who cultivated an everyman image during Britain’s referendum campaign, acknowledged that he could not vote in November’s presidential election.
“But I will say this: If I was an American citizen, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary [Rodham] Clinton if you paid me,” he said, referring to the US Democratic presidential candidate.
“In fact, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me,” he said.
It is unusual for a candidate for the US’ highest office to wheel out a foreign politician, but Trump’s campaign has made a virtue of breaking with convention.
Taking to the stage after Farage’s speech, the former reality television star was effusive.
“Wow... what a job he did. Thank you Nigel. That was some job that he did,” Trump said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653914 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/1ad70b8968b3903cf86706cc9067aa466ae386a1eaff7fb196fc2339af741c7e.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:19 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Before National Freeway No. 5 was built, New Taipei City’s Pinglin had been a major midpoint between Taipei and Yilan going all the way back to the Japanese colonial era. The Pinglin Bridge, now called the Old Bridge, used to be a simple beam bridge spanning the Beishih River one hundred years ago. The Pinglin Tea Museum is currently holding a special exhibition on Pinglin, its tea and its stories. It has a picture showing the late Japanese colonial administrator Shinpei Goto inspecting Pinglin. Compared with what the Old Bridge in front of the museum looks like now, the old bridge in the historical picture speaks of a bygone era . | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Flang%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654182.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P14-160831-001.jpg | en | null | Bridges of Pinglin | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Before National Freeway No. 5 was built, New Taipei City’s Pinglin had been a major midpoint between Taipei and Yilan going all the way back to the Japanese colonial era. The Pinglin Bridge, now called the Old Bridge, used to be a simple beam bridge spanning the Beishih River one hundred years ago. The Pinglin Tea Museum is currently holding a special exhibition on Pinglin, its tea and its stories. It has a picture showing the late Japanese colonial administrator Shinpei Goto inspecting Pinglin. Compared with what the Old Bridge in front of the museum looks like now, the old bridge in the historical picture speaks of a bygone era .
The construction of the Pinglin Old Bridge began in 1908 and was completed in 1911. The original beam bridge was destroyed by floods in 1924, and engineers had to be sent from Japan to repair it. At that time Taiwan lacked the necessary building materials, and so reinforcement steel and cement had to be shipped to Taiwan from Japan, transported through Shenkeng and Shiding, and then carried through the mountains by men and horse-drawn carts.
After the Beiyi Road was inaugurated in 1946, the bridge was heavily used. It was not until 1970, when the Pinglin New Bridge was built, that the Old Bridge was finally relieved of its responsibilities. In 1996 the Pinglin Arch Bridge was built, with the Old Bridge sandwiched between the two larger bridges.
The museum hopes to promote Pinglin’s local culture. This special exhibition is a collection of memories of Pinglin’s past, leading visitors back in time to learn how Pinglin evolved.
(Translated by Ethan Zhan)
國道五號高速公路未通車前，坪林從日治時期就是台北宜蘭的重要中點站，其中跨越北勢溪的坪林橋（現稱舊橋），百年前還是條木棧橋。坪林茶業博物館正在舉行「任意門—坪林．茶．故事」特展，展出民間珍藏的台灣總督府民政長官後藤新平巡視坪林照片，再與茶博館前的舊橋現況比對，充滿懷古幽情和跨越時空的趣味性。
坪林舊橋於一九○八年動工興建，一九一一年完工啟用，原本的木橋於一九二四年遭洪水沖毀，日本派工程師來台修復，當時台灣物資缺乏，搭建橋墩的鋼筋水泥皆由日本船運來台，途經深坑、石碇，再用人力馬車載運翻過山頭，過程艱辛。
西元一九四六年北宜公路通車後來往車輛頻繁，直到一九七零年「坪林新橋」完工，舊橋才卸下重擔，一九九六年「坪林拱橋」完工，舊橋便夾在兩座大橋中間。
茶博館希望能為坪林地區推展在地文化，此一特展蒐羅坪林的過往記憶，帶領觀眾穿越時空界限，以在地故事認識坪林的歷史演變。
〔自由時報翁聿煌〕
FOLLOW UP 讀後練習
1) Which river does the Pinglin Bridge cross?
坪林橋跨越哪一條溪流？
2) There is a museum in Pinglin. Does it show modern art, tea, or dinosaurs?
坪林有一座博物館，請問這是一間當代藝術博物館、茶業博物館、還是恐龍博物館？
3) Exactly how many bridges are there near the museum in the previous question?
上題提及的博物館週邊究竟蓋了幾座橋？ | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2016/08/31/2003654182 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/62309a62e5270064ada398f7ffb47c3b1415cce096043c01ebe1aa0cfaa6071d.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:52 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Nairo Quintana successfully attacked Chris Froome on the demanding summit finish of the Vuelta a Espana’s eighth stage to take the lead of the Grand Tour on Saturday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654079.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P10-160829-328.jpg | en | null | Quintana takes lead at Vuelta as Lagutin claims eighth stage | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, LA CAMPERONA, Spain
Nairo Quintana successfully attacked Chris Froome on the demanding summit finish of the Vuelta a Espana’s eighth stage to take the lead of the Grand Tour on Saturday.
Russia’s Sergey Lagutin won the 181.5km stage from Villalpando, finishing at the category-one La Camperona summit in just over four hours.
Quintana claimed the red jersey from fellow Colombian Darwin Atapuma, who fell behind the title favorites on the final ascent, which had gradients reaching 25 percent.
Quintana, a Giro d’Italia winner, has twice finished runner-up to Froome at the Tour de France. Froome’s supposed challenger at this summer’s Tour, Quintana never put the Briton’s third Tour title in serious danger.
However, Quintana proved he is a rival for Froome at the Vuelta as he stuck with his late charge and dropped Froome over the last few hundred meters.
“Everyone was cautious at the start of the climb, but then Froome went for it, as we expected, and I responded,” Quintana said. “I now have that extra bit of confidence knowing that, today, I was a bit better than my rivals.”
Quintana’s Movistar teammate, Alejandro Valverde, remained in second place overall, at 19 seconds back, after crossing the line pegged to Froome’s wheel.
Froome was third, 27 seconds back, followed by Esteban Chaves, who fell to almost a minute behind.
Alberto Contador rebounded from his painful crash at the end of Friday’s stage by also surging ahead of Froome in the final meters to stay in striking distance at 1 minute, 30 seconds off the pace.
The three-time Vuelta winner on Saturday made the decision to keep racing, something that was in doubt after he took a hard knock and scrapes at the end of the seventh stage.
“I am satisfied because the goal was simply to stay alive,” Contador said. “I was not sure I was going to start the stage. When I could see that I could pass [Froome] at the end I knew I had to take advantage of it.”
Lagutin was a member of an early breakaway of 11 riders who opened up a 10-minute gap over the mostly flat stage that ended in a final 8.5km ascent.
It was the Katusha rider’s first major win.
“Finally the dream came true,” Lagutin said. “I have been dreaming of this since I was little, to win a stage at a Grand Tour. I am 35 years old. At some point I was thinking it was too late.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/29/2003654079 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/65a95abb3f6e9d52d71327e3bc78eefeb501c9806bf4dbf060c152239244ecca.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:10:53 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | One of the nation’s profitable cable television channels yesterday confirmed that it is laying off 67 employees as part of a restructuring plan amid rumors of plans for a larger downsizing. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653897.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | SET denies rumor of mass layoff | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
One of the nation’s profitable cable television channels yesterday confirmed that it is laying off 67 employees as part of a restructuring plan amid rumors of plans for a larger downsizing.
Sanlih E-Television (SET), known for producing popular TV series such as My Queen (拜犬女王), The Fierce Wife (犀利人妻) and You’re My Destiny (命中注定我愛你), yesterday issued a statement dismissing rumors that it was going to lay off 200 people as a result of the financial losses from its new media platform Vidol.
It said it was undertaking corporate restructuring, including personnel changes, to stay competitive and ensure the sustainability of its operation.
“The personnel arrangements were made after taking into account the “status quo” of the media industry, the company’s competitive edge and its corporate responsibility. There is no such thing as a second wave of mass layoffs,” SET said.
The company said it is complying with the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) and other government regulations as it carries out the restructuring.
SET said it has about 1,500 employees, and that its new media department, which includes Vidol, SET News and TV shopping network SETDDG, would be hiring more personnel.
It also promised to uphold its corporate culture, which it said embraces originality and stresses self-generated content.
While many were surprised by SET’s announcement, an industry expert told the Taipei Times that similar changes have been made at other TV networks since the end of last year, adding that several networks have offered compensation packages for people volunteering to leave or choosing to retire early.
The expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said that SET was quite profitable last year, reporting a profit of NT$6.2 billion (US$195.77 million at current exchange rates).
However, there has been an across-the-board recession in the media industry this year, with TV networks seeing an average drop in advertising revenue of 20 to 30 percent, she said.
While the nation’s economic woes have contributed to the network’s problems, it has also been hurt by copyright infringement by over-the-top (OTT) content providers in other countries.
SET’s popular series can be seen online via OTT operators, who are not authorized to broadcast the copyrighted content, she said.
This has led to low ratings and a decline in advertising revenue, and the situation will only worsen if the government ignores it, she said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653897 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/37354e4c804bd40baeadd813aeb2ce9544ad5d45a14288808f63d5b305636e7b.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:57 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | The government should not have let the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) lead an administrative investigation into Mega International Commercial Bank’s violation of US rules against money laundering, New Power Party Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654218.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Lawmaker pans FSC probe on Mega | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The government should not have let the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) lead an administrative investigation into Mega International Commercial Bank’s violation of US rules against money laundering, New Power Party Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
People have been mostly concerned with the suspected money-laundering activities, which have been put under judicial investigation, Huang said in a radio interview yesterday.
However, “as a lawmaker I am more concerned about the administrative negligence and the question of who will foot the bill for the US$180 million fine levied on Mega Bank,” he added.
The incident “has made us highly suspicious of internal controls at the bank and the role of the FSC, because we know now, despite the FSC’s initial claims of innocence when the incident was first reported, that the bank’s Australian branch made similar violations in 2009, and its two branches in Panama were fined in 2010 and 2012 for flaunting Panama’s regulations against money laundering,” Huang said.
That the branches in Panama were fined was reported to the bank’s board of directors and to the FSC, Huang said.
“I wonder whether it was the top echelons at the bank and FSC who failed to regard the matter as something of importance,” he said.
Huang said he has been “deeply disappointed” by the moves made by the Ministry of Finance and the FSC so far.
“Besides Mega Financial Holding Co chairman Hsu Kuang-shi (徐光曦) being allowed to investigate misconduct at his bank, I have also found it ridiculous that the administrative investigation is led by the FSC, an agency that is likely to be found guilty of administrative negligence” over past violations, he said.
“This makes us doubt the determination of the Executive Yuan to carry out a full investigation of the incident and question whether it only wants to have those involved to continue their mutual cover-ups,” Huang said.
Regarding the question of who will pay the fines, the lawmaker said he “almost passed out” when he heard Deputy Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) say on Monday that there is no plan on the ministry’s part to take legal action against former Mega Financial chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才).
“It is now clear that there was negligence on the bank’s part and Tsai had been the chairman the whole time when the misconduct took place, while Hsu was the general manager. In terms of protecting creditors’ rights, I do not think small shareholders and taxpayers would be happy to see that they are the ones who will cover the fine,” Huang said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654218 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/4c0fa5ce03bc15a460f78d4c5102996c408cd96a0bf4e8d16104b05c2c3c8982.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:51:31 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | The US dollar yesterday rose against the New Taiwan dollar in Taipei, gaining NT$0.129 to close at NT$31.801, as renewed fears over a US Federal Reserve rate hike pushed the NT dollar down to a one-week low, dealers said. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654124.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | US dollar closes higher in Taipei on Fed rate fears | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
The US dollar yesterday rose against the New Taiwan dollar in Taipei, gaining NT$0.129 to close at NT$31.801, as renewed fears over a US Federal Reserve rate hike pushed the NT dollar down to a one-week low, dealers said.
The weakness of other regional currencies and selling by foreign institutional investors in the local equity market gave an additional boost to the US dollar, lifting it to its highest level since Monday last week, when it closed at NT$31.820, dealers said.
The greenback opened at NT$31.860 and moved between NT$31.780 and NT$31.878 before the close. Turnover for the session totaled US$912 million.
Soon after the market opened, the US dollar extended its momentum from the previous session and continued to gain as traders cut their NT dollar holdings on cues from speech by Fed Chair Janet Yellen on Friday.
Speaking at the annual central bankers’ meeting in Wyoming, Yellen said the US economy has been improving and she thinks “the case for an increase in the [US] federal funds rate has strengthened in recent months.”
Her comments prompted many currency traders in the region to reduce their holdings in regional currencies, dealers said.
The South Korean won, which the NT dollar tracks closely, also suffered sales, indicating to traders in Taiwan that they should dump the NT dollar, dealers said.
On the main board yesterday, foreign institutional investors shifted to the sell side, recording net sales of NT$1.33 billion (US$41.82 million) worth of shares, which helped send the TAIEX down 0.24 percent at the close, and put more pressure on the NT dollar, dealers said.
However, after the US dollar breached the US$31.80 mark, some Taiwanese exporters jumped onto the trading floor, taking advantage of the US dollar gains by exchanging their US currency holdings for the NT dollar, dealers said.
The exporters’ move helped the NT dollar recoup some of its early loses, dealers said.
In Europe, the dollar yesterday rose to a three-week high against the yen.
Amid thin volumes in Europe, with London shut for a public holiday, the dollar rose 0.5 percent to ￥102.39, its highest since Aug. 9. Against a basket of major currencies, it was trading a touch firmer at ￥95.608, its highest in nearly two weeks.
Additional reporting by Reuters | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/30/2003654124 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/93f7a0eee9e9af31f65ece39419728a490d21a539b17ee422b2f9d06369cf682.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:08 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | EasyCard users can now donate money to the Huashan Social Welfare Foundation with a tap of their card. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654231.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | EasyCards ease donations | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chen Ping-hung and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
EasyCard users can now donate money to the Huashan Social Welfare Foundation with a tap of their card.
A machine at MRT Taipei City Hall Station’s Exit 2, decorated with a family of cartoon bears and a large heart, allows commuters on the city’s metro rail system to make NT$50 donations and provides receipts.
SMART, the company that designed the machine’s graphics, said that the bears and heart are a play on the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) expression, “How considerate.”
As animals are something that people of all generations are drawn to, it added a mouse to the image, among other things, it added.
The foundation said the system would allow commuters to conveniently make donations while passing through the station.
Donations are to go toward helping older people who are mentally or physically challenged, or who are otherwise dependent on others for their everyday needs, with funds paying for the foundation to send staff to older people’s homes to assist them, it said.
“More than 3 million commuters pass through MRT Taipei City Hall Station every month. If only 1 percent of them make donations through the machine, we could help 100 older people for an entire year,” foundation deputy secretary-general Kuo Hui-ming (郭慧明) said.
EasyCard Investment and Holdings Co chairman Kenneth Lin (林向愷) said this is the first time the EasyCard system has been used as a payment method for donations in the MRT system, adding that the company is always happy to work with groups engaged in socially beneficial activities.
Lin said he hopes the relatively small sum and the ability to obtain receipts will attract donations and help society and the foundation. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654231 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/b939456126c768d042b2a36157e7cfff482a3eb07625a0a472c65b9776f3c218.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:02 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | During the febrile, topsy-turvy days after Britain voted to leave the EU, there were plenty of tough messages from European leaders. However, few sounded more uncompromising than the EU trade commissioner. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654204.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/p09-160831-gp.jpg | en | null | Swedish politician ready to play hardball with the UK on Brexit | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Jennifer Rankin / The Observer
During the febrile, topsy-turvy days after Britain voted to leave the EU, there were plenty of tough messages from European leaders. However, few sounded more uncompromising than the EU trade commissioner.
A week after the result, Cecilia Malmstrom, Europe’s lead trade negotiator, said that the UK could not even begin discussing a trade deal until it had left the bloc.
“First you exit and then you negotiate the terms of the relationship,” she told Newsnight, opening up the prospect of the world’s sixth-largest economy being left dangling for years.
When the BBC interviewer suggested this would damage businesses in Britain and on the continent, her response was straightforward: “Yes, but the vote was very clear.”
Such plain speaking provoked fury among leading Brexiters.
Conservative MP Liam Fox condemned her remarks as “bizarre and stupid.”
While legally correct that Britain cannot sign a trade deal before it has left, by taking such a tough line against early negotiations, she walked into a political minefield.
In a few months’ time, Fox, who has since been appointed Britain’s secretary of state for international trade, might find himself sitting opposite Malmstrom. Nobody knows exactly how big a role the 48-year-old Swede will play in Brussels’ team Brexit.
Former French minister of foreign affairs Michel Barnier has been given the task of leading Brexit talks by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Belgian diplomat Didier Seeuws is handling Brexit for his boss, European Council President Donald Tusk. Another EU president, Martin Schulz of the European Parliament, is unlikely to stay quiet, as parliamentary members have a vote on the UK divorce and any subsequent trade deal.
If the cooks are in Brussels, the master chefs are in Berlin, Paris and other national capitals. Anyone negotiating a future EU-UK trade deal is going to find many political leaders looking over their shoulders, European Centre for International Political Economy director Fredrik Erixon said.
The British deal will not be a normal trade negotiation, akin to Vietnam or Canada, he said.
“Member states are going to play a far more prominent role in defining the ambitions or the objectives of where these negotiations land,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Swedish commissioner has plenty more on her plate: She wants to conclude a deal on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the most controversial trade deal the EU has ever negotiated. Talks are to reach a moment of truth in the autumn as both sides strive for an agreement before US President Barack Obama leaves office.
However, doubts are mounting about whether a deal is possible. To critics, the TTIP is a charter for deregulation that threatens the UK National Health Service. EU and US officials say the reality has become buried under myths and strenuously reject charges of secret negotiations.
“She is very open and transparent in what we are doing,” said one EU source close to the commissioner, who cites Malmstrom’s decision to publish EU negotiating positions after the talks.
Although not exactly unusual, the volume of criticism is a far cry from Malmstrom’s early political days. As a member of the European Parliament from 1999 and 2006, Malmstrom was a hero of the liberal left, known for taking a firm stance against sweeping data-retention proposals. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/31/2003654204 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/3838f8c0caf80db408b9d51612b2cf58568d803aee131698746f4554c280716e.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:53:44 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Dabajian Mountain, which borders Miaoli and Hsinchu, is known for its unique geographic features. According to Atayal and Saisiyat legend, it was from this mountain that their ancestors originally came from. The Forestry Bureau has recently renovated the hiking trails in the area. Upon their completion, the Shei-pa National Park Headquarters, following local aboriginal traditions, held a ceremony to give blessings to hikers and pay respect to spirits in the mountains. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Flang%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654117.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/30/thumbs/P14-160830-001.jpg | en | null | Shei-pa National Park: Renovated trails and blessing ceremonies | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Dabajian Mountain, which borders Miaoli and Hsinchu, is known for its unique geographic features. According to Atayal and Saisiyat legend, it was from this mountain that their ancestors originally came from. The Forestry Bureau has recently renovated the hiking trails in the area. Upon their completion, the Shei-pa National Park Headquarters, following local aboriginal traditions, held a ceremony to give blessings to hikers and pay respect to spirits in the mountains.
Officials in the Shei-pa National Park Headquarters say Dabajian Mountain is a sacred place for the Atayal and Saisiyat, adding that it invited heads of local governments from Hsinchu’s Wufong Township and Jianshih Township, Miaoli’s Taian Township and Taichung’s Heping District, representatives of local aboriginal tribes, members of the Forestry Bureau and others to take part in the ceremony.
The Shei-pa National Park Headquarters and Hsinchu Forest District Office have renovated a number of hiking trails by repairing trail facilities, cutting down grass on the trails and updating signs along the trails. The blessing ceremony was administered by tribal leaders, who chanted prayers and offered millet wine, pickled fish, pork and other things to bless hikers.
(Liberty Times, translated by Tu Yu-an)
位於苗栗縣和新竹縣交界處的大霸尖山地形特殊，向來有「世紀奇峰」稱譽，更被視為泰雅族與賽夏族傳說中的祖先發源地。雪霸國家公園管理處基於當地原住民信仰，並配合林務局近期整修步道，日前舉辦祈福敬山儀式，祈祝山友登山安全。
雪管處表示，大霸尖山是泰雅和賽夏族人心目中的「聖山」，此次祈福敬山儀式邀集新竹縣五峰鄉、尖石鄉、苗栗縣泰安鄉、台中市和平區等行政區域首長、地方原住民代表，以及林務局代表等一起參與。
雪管處與新竹林區管理處完成部分路線步道整修與砍草並更新牌示。祈福儀式透過部落長老祈福吟誦，並準備傳統小米露、醃魚、豬肉等祭品祭祀，為山友祈求平安。(自由時報記者蔡政?) | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2016/08/30/2003654117 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/1524d58d713d83e50edf2849d8c8b5aba785e8b9b66baec87b6c67eae5a89412.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:29 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Amid heated criticism, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) yesterday apologized for his remarks directed at Hualien City voters after the party lost a mayoral by-election on Saturday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654071.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Lawmaker apologizes for criticizing Hualien voters | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
Amid heated criticism, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) yesterday apologized for his remarks directed at Hualien City voters after the party lost a mayoral by-election on Saturday.
“I can pretend to respect the election’s result, but I cannot pretend not to despise the voters,” Tuan wrote on Facebook on Saturday after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Wei Chia-hsien (魏嘉賢) won the by-election against his DPP opponent, Chang Mei-hui (張美慧).
Tuan deleted the post following an online furor and wrote an apology on Facebook yesterday, which nevertheless accused the KMT of vote-buying.
“I apologize for my post-election comment yesterday... I apologize for allowing a party with a long history of vote-buying to be able to continue attacking a DPP candidate after the election, and for embarrassing our supporters,” he wrote.
“Why can a clean election environment not be maintained without threatening words and continuous oversight?” wrote Tuan, who has repeatedly been critical of the involvement of Wei’s family in vote-buying cases and its connection with China Unification Promotion Party Chairman Chang An-le (張安樂).
Tuan’s comments drew heated criticism, especially from KMT members.
KMT Legislator Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚) yesterday called a news conference condemning Tuan and demanding that he resign immediately.
Hsu called on Tuan and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to apologize to the city’s residents, saying they were duly exercising their rights and did not deserve to be scorned.
Hsu said Tuan, a legislator-at-large, was elected by pro-DPP voters in Hualien, and she asked that Tuan resign and return the ballots to voters.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said any party that does not respect democracy would be eliminated.
“Do you [Tuan] despise anyone who does not support whom you support? Is universal suffrage and public participation not democratic enough without your approval?” Hung said.
“Politicians who talk about being humble all the time, but privately despise the public are the ones who really deserve contempt,” KMT Legislator Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said, adding that the DPP has “incessantly” talked about being a humble administration, but all it has done is provoke conflict.
KMT member Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) said Tuan’s comments were not an exception, as there have been many similar remarks during elections.
It has become common for pundits to criticize an electorate as having failed an intelligence test if an election’s result is undesirable, but criticism that disrespects voters and provokes hatred only harms the critics and the party they are affiliated with, Hsu Chiao-hsin said.
DPP spokesperson Yang Chia-liang (楊家俍) said the election is over and all parties should act with discretion, and called on the KMT to not use the occasion to incite unnecessary conflict.
The DPP’s attitude toward the election’s result was clear, as it acknowledged defeat immediately after the election, Yang said.
All party members will carry on with reforms in Hualien and continue late Hualien mayor Tien Chih-hsuan’s (田智宣) legacy, Yang added. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/29/2003654071 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/5c5f8684c78998284aa3d86c8992cdc8627ad257a52b5c92f2a2dd3349216bf3.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:07 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Kenyan security guard Michael Douglas Ongeri has a dream — and will not be daunted by poverty, a 13-hour workday or training in Qatar’s searing heat, far from his family. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654089.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Security guard in Qatar overcomes heat, poverty in quest to fulfill running dream | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, DOHA
Kenyan security guard Michael Douglas Ongeri has a dream — and will not be daunted by poverty, a 13-hour workday or training in Qatar’s searing heat, far from his family.
Nor will he let the 11km he has to walk from work to the track then back home slow him down.
“You get used to it,” Ongeri said matter-of-factly. “I have to do it, it is something which is me, I like running, I have to run.”
While many dream of becoming an international track star, the 22-year-old Kenyan might actually have a chance.
Six days per week, he leaves work at about 5pm and heads to Doha’s biggest park, Aspire Park, in the shadow of the city’s Khalifa International Stadium that is to host the IAAF World Athletics Championship in 2019.
In temperatures greater than 40°C and stifling humidity, the Kenyan puts on his training gear and, sweat pouring, runs up to 12km through Aspire’s green expanses.
If it is close to his payday — 1,400 Qatari riyals (US$384.57) per month — it is possible Ongeri will go without food as he has no cash left, sleep for five hours in a room he shares with five others and then start all over again.
“He is talented and I think he could achieve his dream as a 1,500m/5,000m runner,” said former athlete Liz McColgan, who with her husband, John Nuttall, founded and runs the Doha Athletics Club (DAC).
The couple help Ongeri train twice per week.
A former 10,000m world champion, silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and winner of the New York and London marathons, whose husband competed in the 1996 Olympics and whose daughter just ran in the 5,000m final in Rio, McColgan’s opinion carries weight.
“He has a really good running style, so I could see him being a better track runner,” said McColgan, who has has been based in Qatar for the past two-and-a-half years.
“I met Michael when he sent me an e-mail to the DAC Web site, but I had seen him training alone at the park where we train, as it was unusual to see someone running so fast on his own,” McColgan said.
On the night reporters watched him train, Ongeri was surrounded by younger members of the club as Nuttall barked out instructions.
“Come on Michael! Stop being so lazy!” he joked as the security guard sped at a pace that marks him out from the other runners.
“Madame Liz,” as Ongeri calls McColgan, worries that any hopes he has of competing professionally could be scuppered by his lack of time to train.
“Unfortunately, he works ridiculous hours, so can only run once a day,” she said. “If he wanted to race internationally you need twice a day.”
Ongeri grew up poor in Kenya’s Nyanza Province and always loved running. However, as the oldest son of five siblings, his duty was to his family, not his passion.
“My background wasn’t good, I faced hardship. I had to feed my family,” he said.
He ended up working on the same farm as his father and mother, but word of a job in Qatar offered a chance to earn more money and to run as well.
To secure his passage to the Persian Gulf he paid an agent about US$1,000 — cash he did not have, but borrowed from an Italian boss at a shop where he worked in Kenya.
Three years on and he has just repaid the loan, and with the cash he sends to his family, Ongeri survives in Doha on about US$100 each month.
“Of course, now everybody [back home] is looking at me — ‘Please, I need this. Please I need that.’ It’s difficult, Doha is a very expensive place,” he said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/29/2003654089 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/17574805c1253479ffb88226bef6f141c2821a197bc8d5d6dca594a6cf995f69.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:38 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Nostalgia is too big a force in pop culture to belong to any one institution. But Netflix owns a bigger percentage of it than most, simply because the past is built into its business model. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffeat%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654141.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/30/thumbs/P13-160830-301.jpg | en | null | Tickling the memory center | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By James Poniewozik / NY Times News Service
Nostalgia is too big a force in pop culture to belong to any one institution. But Netflix owns a bigger percentage of it than most, simply because the past is built into its business model.
“If you liked that, you’ll like this” is the watchword of the streaming service’s algorithm. But it’s also the essence of cultural nostalgia: the longing to find some “this” that reproduces the cherished pleasures of some long-ago “that.”
As Netflix has shown us, there are different ways to chase the thrills of yesterday. You can reboot it, as when Fuller House brought the characters of Full House into this year. You can revive it, as with the coming continuation of Gilmore Girls.
Or — as in Netflix’s two throwback shows of the summer, Stranger Things and The Get Down — you can rethink it.
Neither of them — unlike this year’s The X-Files or Ghostbusters — is based on an existing franchise. They tickle our memory centers without inviting unflattering comparisons to some sainted original. They might succeed or not, but they’re at least trying to reproduce part of what made us love our childhood favorites way back when: the joy of discovering something for the first time.
‘STRANGER THINGS’
With Stranger Things, Matt and Ross Duffer have made something you might imagine coming from child prodigies who grew up in an abandoned Blockbuster full of VHS tapes, a monster sewn from pieces of Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Wes Craven and more.
Part of the series’ pleasure is how well it re-creates the details not only of life in 1983 but also of storytelling in 1983, from the synth music to the Benguiat typeface of the title credits. (This was also the mode of Red Oaks on Amazon and Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.) It even cast Winona Ryder, star of the 1988 Heathers, in the same talismanic way that Quentin Tarantino recruited the 1970s icon Pam Grier for the blaxploitation-inspired Jackie Brown.
In its individual pieces, Stranger Things is an Easter-egg salad of references, story lines and tropes. What elevates the series is the way it looks back on its inspirations with the benefit of hindsight. (Or at least secondhand hindsight: the Duffers, twin brothers, were born in 1984, a year after the season takes place.) The vintage artifacts are scuffed, some of the Spielbergian glow rubbed off. Its Indiana hometown feels a little rusty and dangerous, even before the monster and wicked scientists turn up.
As Joyce, whose son Will is sucked into a parallel plane of existence, Ryder plays the kind of single-mom character common in movies like E.T. the Extraterrestrial from the early ‘80s, a time of high divorce rates. But her circumstances are a little more raw and dire. (It’s a financial hardship, for instance, for her to replace the landline phone Will blows up in his attempt to communicate.) The teenage characters, meanwhile, both recall and respond to their horror-movie forebears, like Nancy (Natalia Dyer), who has sex with her boyfriend yet doesn’t become monster food as punishment.
Stranger Things isn’t revolutionary — it’s a tasty campfire s’more, the kind of summer movie that the actual summer movie season didn’t provide. But it manages to deliver on the appeal of nostalgia — the allure of simpler, innocent times — while letting on that it realizes those times were neither simpler nor more innocent. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2016/08/30/2003654141 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/9e9fe5ab25dddec4dacbf2cab445af03c8410c22aa4ec777e74704740a91bcea.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:13:29 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Thieves coming across dead moose on Alaska roads are stealing the carcasses, making away with hundreds of kilograms of meat that normally goes to a program run by state troopers that gives it to the needy and others willing to butcher the carcasses, officials said on Wednesday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653916.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Alaska roadkill thieves target moose meant for charity | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Thieves coming across dead moose on Alaska roads are stealing the carcasses, making away with hundreds of kilograms of meat that normally goes to a program run by state troopers that gives it to the needy and others willing to butcher the carcasses, officials said on Wednesday.
Two moose killed recently by cars or trucks were set to be picked up by the trooper-sponsored program that alerts the Alaska Moose Federation so carcasses can be quickly delivered to recipients on a state troopers’ list of people who want them.
However, federation drivers could not find the two dead moose last month and this month when they went to roadkill sites between Anchorage and Denali National Park, federation director Don Dyer said.
Moose are the property of the state in Alaska when killed on the road and the thefts hurt Alaskans who like moose meat and depend on wild game to supplement their diets, he said.
“Sometimes there willa be 10 people waiting for this moose to be delivered,” Dyer said. “Then we have to call them up and say: ‘Sorry, this moose has been stolen.’”
Roadkill moose provide plenty of food because adult bulls weigh up to 748kg, yielding more than 250kg of meat each.
Alaska’s cold weather allows residents to take advantage of roadkill meat as food, because carcasses stay fresh long enough for federation drivers to retrieve them in time for them to be butchered rapidly.
“In Arizona, something like this might not work because of the spoilage factor,” Dyer said. “Here, where the climate is cooler, we’re able to salvage the meat quickly enough so that it’s not spoiled.”
Any Alaskan can sign up for the moose salvage program. Recipients are not allowed to sell the meat, wildlife trooper Captain Rex Leath said.
Before the moose retrieval program started in 2012, Alaskans on the troopers’ list were notified about moose roadkill locations and told they could go get the meat. Dyer said the retrieval program saves time for troopers and police.
“At 3 o’clock in the morning at 30 [degrees Fahrenheit] below in February, you might have a group of grandmothers out there cutting up a moose on the side of the road in a snow storm with kitchen knives, and the officer would have to sit there for an hour or two hours while they’re cutting up this moose, protecting them from traffic,” Dyer said.
The federation with funding from a federal grant receives US$200 for each moose picked up, using big pickups outfitted with winches and ramp systems to lift the carcasses from the roads.
Dyer suspects the moose thieves dragged the carcasses onto snowmobile trailers to tow them away. Last weekend, federation drivers arrived at another roadkill site and found that part of a moose’s shoulder had been sliced off.
Two moose were also missing last winter when federation drivers went to pick them up.
Most moose die on Alaska roads from October through March when they meander onto roads to avoid struggling through deep snow.
The federation picked up about 500 moose over the past year and retrieves as many as 800 during years with heavy winter snows.
Besides depriving the needy of moose meat, the roadkill thieves waste the time of troopers and the federation, Dyer said.
“The impact these thefts have is not minimal,” he said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653916 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/bb94f8cf0f4fe7344f4351a6bd7b3b9828a53cad249cff61e1fcdf9b0bf52221.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:51:54 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Explorers last year discovered only about a tenth as much oil as they have annually on average since 1960. This year, they will probably find even less, spurring new fears about their ability to meet future demand. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654194.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Oil discoveries at a 70-year low | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
Explorers last year discovered only about a tenth as much oil as they have annually on average since 1960. This year, they will probably find even less, spurring new fears about their ability to meet future demand.
With oil prices down by more than half since the price collapse two years ago, drillers have cut their exploration budgets to the bone. The result: Just 2.7 billion barrels of new supply was discovered last year, the smallest amount since 1947, according to figures from Edinburgh-based consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
This year, drillers found just 736 million barrels of conventional crude as of the end of last month.
That is a concern for the industry at a time when the US Energy Information Administration estimates that global oil demand will grow from 94.8 million barrels a day this year to 105.3 million barrels in 2026.
While the US shale boom could potentially make up the difference, prices locked in below US$50 a barrel have undercut any substantial growth there.
New discoveries from conventional drilling, meanwhile, are “at rock bottom,” said Nils-Henrik Bjurstroem, a senior project manager at Oslo-based consultant Rystad Energy AS. “There will definitely be a strong impact on oil and gas supply, and especially oil.”
Global inventories have been buoyed by full-throttle output from Russia and OPEC. They have flooded the world with oil despite depressed prices as they defend market share.
However, years of under-investment will be felt as soon as 2025, Bjurstroem said. Producers will replace little more than one in 20 of the barrels consumed this year, he said.
Global spending on exploration, from seismic studies to actual drilling, has been cut to US$40 billion this year from about US$100 billion in 2014, Wood Mackenzie vice president for global exploration Andrew Latham said.
Moving ahead, spending is likely to remain at the same level through 2018, he said.
Exploration is easier to scratch than development investments because of shorter supplier-contract commitments.
This year, it will make up about 13 percent of the industry’s spending, down from as much as 18 percent historically, Latham said.
The result is less drilling, even as the market downturn has driven down the cost of operations. There were 209 wells drilled through this month, down from 680 last year and 1,167 in 2014, according to Wood Mackenzie. That compares with an annual average of 1,500 in data going back to 1960.
Ten years down the line, when the low exploration data being seen now begins to hinder production, it will have a “significant potential to push oil prices up,” Bjurstroem said.
“Exploration activity is among the easiest things to regulate, to take up and down,” Statoil ASA CEO Eldar Saetre said in an interview at the ONS Conference in Stavanger, Norway on Monday. “It’s not necessarily the right way to think. We need to keep a long-term perspective and maintain exploration activity through downturns as well, and Statoil has.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/31/2003654194 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/aaa06e77577f745cfd89f332a98d57a9f960f2835c0e69076fad84084b3516a5.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:06:40 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Jason Roy overcame a dizzy spell to lead England’s charge to a 44-run win under the Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-marred first one-day international (ODI) against Pakistan in Southampton on Wednesday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653886.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P16-160826-324.jpg | en | null | Dizzy Roy sets up ODI win for England | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, SOUTHAMPTON, England
Jason Roy overcame a dizzy spell to lead England’s charge to a 44-run win under the Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-marred first one-day international (ODI) against Pakistan in Southampton on Wednesday.
Surrey opener Roy’s quickfire 65 fired England toward an initial victory target of 261.
However, after a third and final rain interruption of the fixture at 9:37pm, the umpires eventually called the game off with England 194-3.
England captain Eoin Morgan was 33 not out and Ben Stokes 15 not out.
Earlier, Pakistan were held to a modest 260-6, with captain Azhar Ali top-scoring with 82 after he won the toss.
Sarfraz Ahmed made 55 and Babar Azam 40 before he was unluckily out LBW.
Pakistan were going well at 173-3 after 35 overs, but then lost Azhar before a rain stoppage put a further break on their run-scoring.
Roy and Joe Root (61) took England to the brink of victory with a second-wicket stand of 89 in 14 overs.
Roy sparked England’s chase with three fours in four balls off Umar Gul in the third over of the hosts’ innings.
His boundary-rush started with a superb vertical bat shot through the legside.
Two balls later, Roy worked paceman Gul through long-on and the next delivery saw him force through the covers.
However, there was a worrying moment when Roy, on 20, needed several minutes’ on-field treatment for what a team spokesman later confirmed was a dizzy spell.
Meanwhile, opening partner Alex Hales, who managed just 145 runs in the preceding 2-2 drawn Test series against Pakistan, again fell cheaply.
Hales was out for seven when he guided Gul straight to Mohammad Hafeez at slip.
Mohammad Amir had had five catches dropped off his bowling during the Test series and the Pakistan paceman’s bad luck continued on Wednesday.
Roy, on 24, skied left-arm quick Amir high on the legside.
The ball appeared to be heading straight to Gul at square-leg.
However, wicketkeeper Ahmed called for the catch, only to make insufficient ground and drop the chance despite getting both gloves to the ball.
AUSSIE SKIPPER RESTS
AFP, COLOMBO
Australia’s Steve Smith has been rested to focus on next month’s tour of South Africa, leaving David Warner to lead the side for the remainder of the Sri Lanka series.
Smith captained Australia to an 82-run loss in the second ODI on Wednesday, which tied the series 1-1.
“I hate missing cricket, but in the long run it will do me a world of good,” said Smith, who is returning home with three ODIs and two Twenty20s still to be played.
“The schedule is very busy. I still want to take on the role in all three formats and do it to the best of my ability,” he added.
Cricket Australia’s chairman of selectors Rod Marsh said Smith needed time off.
“Steve has a large amount of cricket coming up in the next 12 months and we wanted to find a time for him to freshen up and these last five matches provide a good opportunity to do so,” Marsh said in a statement.
“Regardless of the results of the first two matches, our plan was always for Steve to take a break and refresh ahead of the ODI Series against South Africa next month. This is a great leadership opportunity for David, he has really embraced his role as vice-captain and we are confident he will do a great job in Steve’s place.”
Australia will also have to do without injured quick bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile for the rest of the tour. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/26/2003653886 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/9670b31b0694aa6b805c7c74a1237233a0e2fc2bd242bedd060ca06edbec6162.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:21 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) was ranked the world’s third-best-loved airline in a review of 420 airlines conducted by air travel Web site Skytrax. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654051.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | EVA ranks third among ‘best-loved airlines’: Skytrax | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) was ranked the world’s third-best-loved airline in a review of 420 airlines conducted by air travel Web site Skytrax.
Garuda Indonesia came in first and South Korea’s Asiana Airlines Inc placed second, according to the review.
Skytrax said in a statement that the most-loved airlines are chosen based on reviews of flight services, including seat comfort, onboard services, inflight entertainment, onboard Wi-Fi, airport services, value for money, food and beverages.
China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), which has been embroiled in a labor dispute with its flight attendants, was ranked No. 29.
Rounding out the top 10, in descending order, were Aegean Airlines SA, Korean Air Lines Co, Bangkok Airways PCL, Singapore Airlines Ltd, AirAsia X Bhd, All Nippon Airways Co (ANA) and Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn Bhd.
Aegean is a Greek carrier, while all the others are Asian.
Last month, the US-based Travel+Leisure Magazine rated EVA Airways as one of the world’s best international airlines, ranking it in eighth place. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654051 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/be97773a61550d6e56228898457294be3cd921d34cbb32118179eec634966eef.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:43 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Liberty Times (LT): How would you diagnose the symptoms of Taiwan’s economic ills? | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654095.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P03-160829-1.jpg | en | null | INTERVIEW: Taiwan needs to attract investors: premier | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Liberty Times (LT): How would you diagnose the symptoms of Taiwan’s economic ills?
Premier Lin Chuan (林全): Comparing Taiwan’s economic growth with those of Southeast Asian nations over the past 20 years, Taiwan has really not performed very well.
This is related to inadequate structural growth, particularly in the form of investment, which has been declining annually. Why is there a decline in investment? The way I see it the problem lies in the effects on the desire to invest.
There are a few causes at play, such as factors of uncertainty. For example, there is a long-standing conflict between environmental protection and business interests; many large-scale development proposals get delayed indefinitely by environmental impact assessments.
Many new investors or investors in recent creative projects are unable to ascertain the stipulations of future assessments. In the end, many simply back out. This is a problem we need to address. However, I am not saying we should undermine assessment standards; rather, we should find a way to reduce the level of uncertainty that potential investors face.
Second, there is the issue of labor. There should be more stability in labor regulations and administrative systems.
There has been too much delay in making decisions that affect certain industries. If there can be more stability in the enforcement of the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), then there would be much fewer disputes.
Also, there is the issue of relaxing outdated restrictions that affect new industries like digital services, communications technology and network systems. These industries create a wealth of economic activity and opportunity, but they need to be freed from outdated regulations or they cannot thrive.
As you can see there are no new investors to speak of in Taiwan, only the investors that were already here, and even they are disappearing with the changes to industry structure. Therefore, overall investment has been declining — a very serious problem that we must face.
Among things that must be changed, the Company Act (公司法) is the most obvious; it must be updated to allow new industries into the market. Maybe new business styles can spur old businesses and bring change to the economy.
There is also the problem of the market. To put it simply, are investors in Taiwan investing only in the local market, or in the world market? The local market is limited, but that is fine. However, to be more multifaceted and see more benefits, a company has to be international.
I want to know: What companies in Taiwan can sell their products to the world? Such companies must maintain their competitive edge. Signing free-trade agreements with other nations is something this nation must work toward. However, at a time when the global economic situation is not very good, opposition to globalization is growing and the voices of opposition can be heard here as well.
However, if we do not become more international, there are simply not many investors to draw from. We must seek free-trade agreements and expand our presence in the global economy.
We do not have free-trade agreements with any major nations, we only have the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [with China], but it is just a framework, and its associated goods and services trade has been blocked, and not for only political considerations. We need to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or sign free-trade agreements with the US or EU. The effect on the local economy will be relatively large. How will we handle this? We will have to have systems in place to moderate its effects. Honestly speaking, we were not well-prepared in the past. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/29/2003654095 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/088bd270b2eb5c4225124f6e07c0f3e70a63a401836dc76fdaf611dc9490e0c0.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:00 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Facebook Inc on Friday said that it is further automating its “trending” stories feature, a move that will scale back human input to prevent personal bias from influencing which stories get highlighted. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654059.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Facebook to make trending news more automated | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, SAN FRANCISCO
Facebook Inc on Friday said that it is further automating its “trending” stories feature, a move that will scale back human input to prevent personal bias from influencing which stories get highlighted.
The social media giant will rely more heavily on an algorithm to operate the feature — which lists what news or events are hot topics — no longer requiring people to write descriptions, according to a Facebook blog post.
The feature prompted controversy earlier this year, with critics saying that Facebook’s news curators were deliberately omitting stories from politically conservative outlets, allegations the firm denied.
Facebook said relying more heavily on software will allow the feature to cover a wider scale, while lessening the risk that personal bias could manipulate the list of trending topics.
“We looked into these claims and found no evidence of systematic bias,” Facebook reiterated on Friday in its blog post, but added that “making these changes to the product allows our team to make fewer individual decisions about topics.”
With the change, instead of seeing story summaries in the trending list, users will simply see topics and the number of people talking about them.
Letting a cursor hover over a topic will show “an automatically selected original news story with an excerpt pulled directly from the top article itself.”
Humans will still be involved in the process to ensure that topics are real-world news and not based on an Internet trend like #lunch.
Facebook in May made changes aimed at keeping political bias out of its “trending” stories list even though an internal investigation revealed no evidence that it was an issue.
“Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature,” Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said in a letter responding to a query from Republican US Senator John Thune, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
“Our analysis indicated that the rates of approval of conservative and liberal topics are virtually identical in Trending Topics,” he said.
Facebook updated terminology in its guidelines to be clearer and gave reviewers refresher training that emphasized content decisions may not be based on politics or ideology, the letter said.
The review team became subject to more oversight and controls, and Facebook stop relying on lists of external Web sites and news outlets to assess the importance of topics in stories.
“We’ve built Facebook to be a platform for all ideas,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said on his social network page after a meeting at the company’s California headquarters to discuss the allegations about anti-conservative bias.
Zuckerberg called the meeting after technology news outlet Gizmodo reported allegations that Facebook was deliberately omitting articles with conservative viewpoints from its sidebar list of popular stories. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654059 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/90e1acc8b4ef181dda7b1a5e6e8f030d46b0bebb656c795b86b1ac29555e15d1.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:52:05 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | The US Marine Corps’ new commander for the Pacific said he aims to advance his predecessor’s work helping allies and partners develop their skills storming beaches and moving forces ashore. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654043.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | US Marines’ Pacific leader vows to keep up assistance | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii
The US Marine Corps’ new commander for the Pacific said he aims to advance his predecessor’s work helping allies and partners develop their skills storming beaches and moving forces ashore.
Lieutenant General David Berger made the comments on Friday after assuming command of US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific from Lieutenant General John Toolan.
Berger said he would make sure his new command understands what capabilities its allies want and need and how the marines can help them.
Toolan told reporters there is growing interest in amphibious capabilities in the Pacific because of China’s land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea, where several nations have contested territorial claims.
“The Vietnamese, the Filipinos, all those guys have a vested interest in the Spratlys [Nansha Islands, 南沙群島], the Paracels [Xisha Islands, 西沙群島]. So they want to protect their sovereign territory,” Toolan said. “And amphibious is the way to handle islands.”
US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific includes units in California, Hawaii, Japan and South Korea. Some are in Australia on a six-month rotation.
Berger most recently served as the commander of a marine expeditionary force at Camp Pendleton, California.
Toolan was retiring after 40 years in the marines.
“The momentum that he’s generated — I need to make sure that that doesn’t stall,” Berger said.
Toolan told reporters that helping Japan, Australia and South Korea develop their amphibious operations had been one of his top accomplishments.
Toolan also pointed to the work the marines have done to help the Philippine Armed Forces build its army so it can defend its territory and address internal security challenges.
He cited the growth of what he called a “community of interest” in amphibious operations. The US has been working with two dozen nations interested in developing amphibious skills, bringing them together for conferences and exercises.
“It is paying huge benefits for us, and in the long run it will help us give them areas to focus on while we focus on the high end,” he said.
Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank, said Berger will have to ensure his new command’s combat capabilities remain sharp amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
“The tip of the spear, which the marines tend to be, needs of course to be sharp,” Glosserman said. “That’s the immediate concern that he’s got. You’re always concerned about your war-fighting capability.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/28/2003654043 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/286597330a84ed71627f163bdb7d10704831fe33f301869f3f8e148279b935e1.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:31 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday confirmed a case of enterovirus 68 (EV68) in a five-year-old child, who has also been diagnosed with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), the first time that combination of diseases has been reported in Taiwan. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654229.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | CDC confirms enterovirus EV68 case in five-year-old | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday confirmed a case of enterovirus 68 (EV68) in a five-year-old child, who has also been diagnosed with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), the first time that combination of diseases has been reported in Taiwan.
The centers said it received a report about the boy from a hospital last week and after the centers performed DNA sequencing of the viral genome, it was found to be similar to a strain found in the US.
CDC physician Cheng Hao-yuan (鄭皓元) said the child, who lives in Taipei, has not traveled to the US recently.
The boy was examined on Aug. 14 after showing weakness in his left arm, coughing and respiratory symptoms. He was hospitalized on Aug. 17 as more symptoms began to develop.
Cheng said the main transmission route of EV68 is the fecal-oral route and respiratory secretions — similar to enterovirus 71 (EV71) — but typical symptoms of the EV68 are respiratory illness, ranging from mild respiratory tract symptoms to severe pneumonia.
“EV68 can potentially trigger serious complications of the central nervous system, such as AFP, which can cause weakness in the upper and lower limbs,” Cheng said, adding that although some of the boy’s symptoms have eased, the weakness in his left arm had not fully disappeared.
He said poor recovery from AFP can sometimes result in permanent hemiparesis — weakness of the entire left or right side of the body.
The centers said an AFP surveillance system was initiated in June last year, requiring physicians to report all cases and collect fecal and throat swabs. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654229 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f9558049423403a01e1ca07bdcfda7dbdd8f479754cb8a1b9e85cdf29ca18656.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:52:12 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | French resort towns were defiant after a ban on the Burqini in a Riviera town was overturned, vowing to keep the restrictions in place and continue imposing fines on women who wear the full-body swimsuit. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654042.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | French towns defiant after court repeals Burqini ban | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, MARSEILLE, France
French resort towns were defiant after a ban on the Burqini in a Riviera town was overturned, vowing to keep the restrictions in place and continue imposing fines on women who wear the full-body swimsuit.
In a judgement expected to lead to bans being overturned in about 30 coastal towns, the State Council, France’s highest administrative court, on Friday ruled the measure was a “serious and clearly illegal violation of fundamental freedoms.”
The suspension of the ban on the Muslim swimsuit, which has triggered a fierce debate in France and sparked critical headlines around the world, was welcomed by the UN, while a French Muslim group said that it was a “victory for common sense.”
However, the ruling, which only applied to the ban imposed by Villeneuve-Loubet, was quickly dismissed by several other towns, including Nice, which vowed to keep the restrictions in place and continue imposing fines on women who wear the full-body swimsuit.
In its decision, the court said local authorities could only introduce measures restricting individual freedoms if wearing the swimsuit on beaches represented a “proven risk” to public order.
The judges said there was no such risk in the case concerning Villeneuve-Loubet, a resort between Nice and Cannes.
Police action to fine Muslim women for wearing Burqinis on beaches in several towns, including in the tourist resorts of Nice and Cannes, has triggered a fierce debate about women’s rights and the French state’s strictly guarded secularism.
“From now on, it is up to everyone to take responsibility for cooling off, which is the only way to avoid public order disturbances and to try and live together,” French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve said.
However, the ruling provoked defiance from several Riviera resorts, which pledged to continue imposing fines.
In recent weeks, about 30 French municipalities decided to ban access to public beaches “by anyone not wearing proper attire, which is respectful of good morality and the principle of secularism and not respectful of the rules of hygiene and bathing security.”
Nice said it would “continue to fine” women wearing the Burqini, while far-right Frejus Mayor David Rachline insisted his ban was “still valid,” telling reporters there was “no legal procedure” against his ruling.
Ange-Pierre Vivoni, Socialist mayor of the Corsican town of Sisco, said his Burqini ban, introduced this month following a confrontation between Moroccan bathers and locals, would also remain “for the safety of property and people in the town, because I risked having deaths on my hands.”
Amnesty International said Friday’s court decision had “drawn an important line in the sand.”
“These bans do nothing to increase public safety, but do a lot to promote public humiliation,” said Amnesty’s Europe director John Dalhuisen, who added that it was time that French authorities “drop the pretense” that the ban was about protecting women’s rights.
The debate has split both the left and the right, with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy calling for a nationwide ban on the Burqini, while former French prime minister Alain Juppe has expressed opposition to “an exceptional law.”
The ruling Socialists are also divided, with French Minister of Education, Higher Education and Research Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and French Minister of Health Marisol Touraine concerned over the “drift” in the local orders, while French Prime Minister Manuel Valls backed the mayors. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/28/2003654042 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/02917917bb9851f2c8f2949103862c930f08429bcf36f3aaaad4c32676cef4e1.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:17 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | The objections of military personnel, public-school teachers and civil servants have been the loudest since the National Committee on Pension Reform convened in June to tackle the problems plaguing the nation’s various pension systems, most of which are likely to go bankrupt within a few decades. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654135.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | EDITORIAL: Working and caring for the nation | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | The objections of military personnel, public-school teachers and civil servants have been the loudest since the National Committee on Pension Reform convened in June to tackle the problems plaguing the nation’s various pension systems, most of which are likely to go bankrupt within a few decades.
A group of former military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers is planning to take its appeal to the streets on Armed Forces Day on Saturday. Saying that they have sacrificed their youth to the nation and suffered long absences from their families, representatives from the group said that the protest was aimed at defending their dignity and respect, adding that they support pension reforms, but that any change should not be carried out retroactively.
What they mean is that the controversial 18 percent preferential interest rate given to military personnel, civil servants and public school teachers who started working before 1995 should stay.
This begs the questions: Who in their respective work does not contribute to society as a whole? Should everyone not be treated with dignity and respect? If the group’s logic is to be accepted, all workers in the nation should have the same reasons to take to the streets.
Former military personnel, public-school teachers and civil servants enjoy generous benefits compared with their counterparts in the manufacturing and farming sectors, particularly with the 18 percent preferential interest rate that was implemented to alleviate hardship among civil servants during the 1950s and 1960s. However, the circumstances that necessitated the policy have since changed.
No one is denying the contributions to society made by former military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers, nor is anyone stigmatizing them. However, being on the government’s payroll and having served the nation, should the group, more so than anyone, not be more attentive about and understanding of the financial woes facing the nation?
According to reports by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics and the Ministry of Finance, the government allocates about NT$310 billion (US$9.75 billion) annually to the pension system for military personnel, public-school teachers and civil servants, with NT$77.8 billion being spent on the 18 percent preferential interest rate payments.
Considering the government has about NT$17.75 trillion in unfunded liabilities, it is practically borrowing money to pay the pensions.
While it is reasonable for the group to enjoy relatively higher salaries given their positions, it is simply absurd when they retire, but still receive monthly payments that are equal to, or higher than, their pre-retirement salaries.
According to a study by the Ministry of Civil Service, the average monthly pension for the nation’s 134,849 retired and claiming public servants, including the 18 percent interest paid on special savings accounts and monthly pension payments, is NT$50,000 per person per month, and 646 retired civil servants receive more than NT$100,000 per month, while 8,292 receive between NT$80,000 and NT$100,000.
The Council of Grand Justices’ Constitutional Interpretation No. 485 states that, given limited state resources, social legislation must “consider the economic and financial conditions of the state” and “ensure fairness between the beneficiaries and the rest of society.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/30/2003654135 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/4e6ab04f76e2ab6941202fe50a80d9b17527acafde8878a42cc31ac00a57c3a0.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:51:36 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | The government is not afraid of controversies, as “they could help us face the core of the problems,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, as she acknowledged that the administration over the past three months has been encountering disputes on various fronts. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654029.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/28/thumbs/P03-160828-1.jpg | en | null | Government can take controversy: Tsai | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The government is not afraid of controversies, as “they could help us face the core of the problems,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, as she acknowledged that the administration over the past three months has been encountering disputes on various fronts.
Tsai attended a seminar, titled “Direct Election of President and Taiwan’s Democratic Development in the Past 20 Years,” held by the Lee Teng-hui Foundation in Taipei, along with former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Lee, 94, said that although Taiwan in the past faced internal democratic dysfunction and is still under external pressure from China, he is optimistic about the nation’s democracy, which, if its values and rule of law are bolstered, will allow Taiwan to become a sound democracy and a normalized nation.
Speaking after Lee, Tsai said that in 1996 Taiwanese for the first time elected their own national leader.
“The direct election of the president, the milestone of the nation’s democratic development, is not a historical contingency, but the outcome of the joint effort of social and political powers,” she said.
“We have reached a preliminary success after more than 100 years of pursuit, and Lee Teng-hui’s direct election and his time in office signifies a special meaning in Taiwan’s history of democratization,” she said.
Tsai said she was not only there to talk about the past, “as I am also willing to share the government’s views on the seminar’s subtopics of civic power, the economic outlook, transitional justice, cross-strait relations and innovation.”
“We have entered an era in which civic society has become vibrant; pluralism and participation are the characteristics of a democratic society in which it takes more time and effort for the government to engage communication,” she said.
“Now people have more channels for direct participation; the government cannot be indifferent to various opinions, but needs to sort out all kinds of disputes and carry out comprehensive communication via democratic procedures, and make decisions based on the interests of the whole,” Tsai said, adding that is exactly what the government has been doing over the past three months.
She said that there is a common root of all the disputes that have taken place in the past three months, which is the “deterioration of the economic environment.”
“We have to admit that decreasing job opportunities, stagnant wages and the widening income gap are the nation’s reality, and that is why we are pushing new polices about industrial innovation that would not only spur economic growth, but also render sound social development,” she said.
Besides aiming for a transformation that puts an emphasis on innovation, employment and distribution as aspects of economic and social reforms, political reforms are also a priority for the government, Tsai added.
“A society that is extremely polarized due to historical issues cannot unite or march forward together. We will initiate a project of historical investigation, re-examine authoritarian history, reconstruct the experiences of the victims and promote reconciliation through conversation and reflection,” Tsai said, calling transitional justice “the last mile of Taiwan’s democratization.”
Redressing the injustices that Aborigines suffered is also the government’s goal, Tsai said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/28/2003654029 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/9a68d14ade53ed365bc8890dcb1207254137d049630a4eafc42dddc71021c104.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:40 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | A record-high 24 female green sea turtles laid eggs on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) this year, with 83 hatchlings counted as of Wednesday evening, a National Taiwan Ocean University research team said, calling the development “heartening.” | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654102.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Record number of laying green turtles counted on Lanyu | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chang Tsung-wei and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
A record-high 24 female green sea turtles laid eggs on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu) this year, with 83 hatchlings counted as of Wednesday evening, a National Taiwan Ocean University research team said, calling the development “heartening.”
The university’s College of Life Sciences dean Cheng I-Jiunn (程一駿) said the green sea turtle population has increased in the past five years, because they were protected both on Orchid Island, where local residents do not hunt turtles for food, and in the seas near the south of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, where the turtles travel to after laying eggs on Orchid Island.
Cheng said the university’s team has conducted research in Orchid Island’s Siaobadai Bay (小八代灣) in late June or July every year since 1997, and according to their observations, female green sea turtles usually return to the same area to lay eggs every four to six years.
The number of turtles the team has observed has risen from a yearly average of 10 in the past five years to 24 so far this year.
One female turtle identified as No. 3934, which was last recorded visiting Orchid Island six years ago, was temporarily trapped in a bush after laying and burying her eggs, Cheng said, adding that the team and local volunteers worked for two hours to free the turtle from its predicament.
According to Cheng, No. 3934’s eggs were dug up by other female turtles and five were broken in the process, while researchers saved the rest.
The Siabadai Bay team hopes to increase turtle numbers by digging up eggs and moving them to a more elevated area, so that they are not crushed by other turtles as they arrive later, Cheng said.
The team examined all of the 83 hatchlings and released them into the sea, Cheng said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/29/2003654102 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/950be3bf54c16b1343fdfeb8db52d1463dcaf68ff9e36ff0cb24b74ccdc22a4b.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:52:40 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Fiji has ramped up overtures to rugby sevens coach Ben Ryan, giving him land and a chiefly title to keep the popular Englishman in the South Pacific island nation. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654217.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Fiji offers land, title and passports to try to keep coach Ryan | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, SUVA
Fiji has ramped up overtures to rugby sevens coach Ben Ryan, giving him land and a chiefly title to keep the popular Englishman in the South Pacific island nation.
Ryan has become the most venerated person in Fiji since guiding them to their first Olympic medal when they won the rugby sevens gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Games earlier this month.
He has already been awarded Fiji’s highest civilian honor, the Companion of the Order of Fiji, and moves are under way to give Ryan and his family Fijian passports.
The 44-year-old has been swamped with lucrative offers around the world since his Olympic success and has signaled he will look for new challenges elsewhere.
However, authorities in cash-strapped Fiji say they are doing everything they can to get Ryan to change his mind.
Villagers in Serua, one of the 14 provinces of Fiji, on Monday gave Ryan a 1.2 hectare plot of land and the title Ratu, which is used by Fijians of chiefly rank.
Ryan has made no secret that he likes the uncluttered Fiji way of life.
He told the people of Serua that unlike overseas teams who have analysts and abundant resources, Fiji has talent in abundance and the players were his resources.
“We have no analysts and computers, because I have 12 mighty computers, they’re the boys that play,” he said.
Ryan has said that if discussions with the immigration department are successful, passports could change his mind about leaving Fiji permanently, because his wife also wanted to stay and work.
“If the passport comes, that means suddenly she’s allowed to work here and that’s the sort of thing that might mean we have a return here,” he said.
“The prime minister had spoken to me about that, I just need to send him some confirmation that I want it and they will activate it,” Ryan said.
“So yeah, if I can get that before I leave, that will be pretty awesome, and if I do come back it will make things so much simpler for permit and visas for me and my wife,” he added. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/31/2003654217 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/68ad54996470a381cf6750606d5fe111730f373d4f2f74170f3d977c75513a2c.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:05 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday pledged to increase the government’s budget for food safety by 50 percent next year to improve the nation’s food safety management and inspection system. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654223.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P03-160831-1.jpg | en | null | Tsai pledges to increase spending for food safety | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff Writer, with CNA
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday pledged to increase the government’s budget for food safety by 50 percent next year to improve the nation’s food safety management and inspection system.
Food safety has become an important issue worldwide and her administration has made it one of its top priorities, Tsai said during a speech at a food safety summit held by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and National Taiwan University’s College of Public Health.
The key to maintaining food safety is establishing communication between the government, farmers, food companies and consumers, Tsai said.
When there is a loophole in the process from raw produce to food on the table, it is likely to trigger a food safety crisis, she said.
As part of its heightened food safety efforts, the government is preparing to set up an independent committee responsible for assessing food safety risks, and it will also step up food inspections and establish a regulatory agency for toxic substances, she said.
Along with those measures, the government will focus on improving production management systems, Tsai said, without elaborating.
The government allocates about NT$920 million (US$29 million) annually for food safety, Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said in late June.
Chen said the budget will be increased to NT$1.37 billion to support the government’s new food safety policies.
Taiwan has been hit by several food safety scandals in the past few years, including a case in which toxic plasticizers were found in sports drinks, teas and fruit jams in 2011 and a case of adulterated cooking oils in 2014. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654223 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/412fea3a68272a60422c40bd21196a93a7f1d4ed1afc8bc85141c4853d315388.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:52:23 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | China’s influence in the global metals markets just stepped up a gear after the owner of its top supplier of aluminum products agreed to buy Aleris Corp of the US for US$2.3 billion, marking the nation’s biggest-ever overseas purchase of a metals processor. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654189.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Chinese firm snaps up US metals processor Aleris | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
China’s influence in the global metals markets just stepped up a gear after the owner of its top supplier of aluminum products agreed to buy Aleris Corp of the US for US$2.3 billion, marking the nation’s biggest-ever overseas purchase of a metals processor.
The purchase of the Cleveland, Ohio-based company by Zhongwang USA LLC, owned by Liu Zhongtian (劉忠田), founder and chairman of China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd (中國忠旺控股), will open up new markets for the Chinese company among aerospace and automotive companies.
Monday’s deal underscores China’s shift to higher value-added products and will give Zhongwang access to technological know-how and more demanding customers, said Paul Adkins, managing director of Beijing-based aluminum consultancy AZ China Ltd.
“Aleris supplies the Boeings and the big carmakers of this world — very advanced consumers,” Adkins said by phone. “Buying it has to provide some sort of opportunity for Zhongwang to bring that know-how back to China. When you’ve got more than half of the world’s primary aluminum supply in China, there is a natural momentum for China to pull other parts of the supply chain into its orbit.”
China Zhongwang is Asia’s biggest producer of extruded aluminum and already has ambitions to sell aluminum sheet to China’s emerging auto and aerospace industries. It is due this year to start up a flat-rolled aluminum plant in Tianjin, which will supply products that China still has to import.
The acquisition will leave Zhongwang founder Liu overseeing “companies that have complementary geographic footprints and capabilities,” Zhongwang USA said in a statement.
Aleris has its own mill in China’s Zhenjiang Province, producing aerospace plate, “which Zhongwang lacks the know-how to produce,” according to a note from Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Yi Zhu.
China Zhongwang is being probed by the US Department of Commerce for possible circumvention of US anti-dumping duties. The inquiry was launched in response to a complaint from the US Aluminum Extruders Council. The company has denied any wrongdoing.
The purchase of Aleris is unlikely to face any regulatory hurdles from US authorities, chief executive officer Sean Stack said.
Liu offered China Zhongwang the opportunity to buy Aleris directly, but it declined because of concerns the deal would adversely affect its cash flow and financial planning, the Hong Kong-listed firm said in a statement.
China Zhongwang said it would consider buying Aleris “as and when appropriate” after Liu’s US holding has completed the deal.
Aleris’ clients include Airbus Group, Siemens, Bombardier, Boeing and ABB., Bloomberg Supply Chain data showed. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/31/2003654189 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/7c0fe1c34c841fa54ddca3ca4c682a4887ab387e9690208ac3ba502054121a44.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:22 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Bruce Lee (李小龍) was 14 years old, and on the losing end of several street fights with local gang members, when he took up kung fu. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffeat%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654068.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P08-160829-321.jpg | en | null | Exit the dragon? | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Charlotte Yang / NY Times News Service, HONG KONG
Bruce Lee (李小龍) was 14 years old, and on the losing end of several street fights with local gang members, when he took up kung fu.
It was 1955, and Hong Kong was bustling with schools teaching a range of kung fu styles, including close-combat techniques and a method using a daunting weapon known as the nine-dragon trident.
Lee’s decision paid off. After perfecting moves like his 1-inch punch and leaping kick under the tutelage of a grand master, he became an international star, introducing kung fu to the world in films like Enter the Dragon in 1973.
Decades later, cue the dragon’s exit.
DECLINE OF AN ART
The kung fu culture that Lee helped popularize — and that gave the city a gritty, exotic image in the eyes of foreigners — is in decline. Hong Kong’s streets are safer, with fewer murders by the fierce crime organizations known as triads that figured in so many kung fu films. And its real estate is among the world’s most expensive, making it difficult for training studios to afford soaring rents.
Gone are the days when “kung fu was a big part of people’s cultural and leisure life,” said Mak King Sang Ricardo, the author of a history of martial arts in Hong Kong. “After work, people would go to martial arts schools, where they’d cook dinner together and practice kung fu until 11 at night.”
With a shift in martial arts preferences, the rise of video games — more teenagers play Pokemon Go in parks here than practice a roundhouse kick — and a perception among young people that kung fu just isn’t cool, longtime martial artists worry that kung fu’s future is bleak.
“When I was growing up so many people learned kung fu, but that’s no longer the case,” said Leung Ting, 69, who has been teaching wing chun (詠春), a close-combat technique, for 50 years. “Sadly, I think Chinese martial arts are more popular overseas than in their home now.”
According to Leung’s organization, the International WingTsun Association, former apprentices have opened 4,000 branches in more than 65 countries, but only five in Hong Kong.
Few kung fu schools remain in Yau Ma Tei, a district of Kowloon that was once the center for martial arts. Nathan Road — where the young Bruce Lee learned his craft from Ip Man (葉問, often spelled Yip Man), the legendary teacher who was the subject of Wong Kar-wai’s (王家衛) 2013 film The Grandmaster (一代宗師) — is now lined with cosmetic shops and pharmacies that cater to tourists from the mainland.
Though he lives in Yau Ma Tei, Tony Choi, a recent college graduate, has never been tempted to check out the remaining schools. Choi, 22, said that “kung fu just never came to mind.”
He added, “Kung fu is more for retired uncles and grandpas.”
When they do train in martial arts, younger people here tend to pick Thai boxing and judo.
DISCIPLINE THROUGH HARD WORK
In English, kung fu is often used as an umbrella term for all Chinese martial arts. But in Chinese, it refers to any discipline or skill that is achieved through hard work.
Kung fu traces its history to ancient China, with hundreds of fighting styles developing over the centuries. But it soared in popularity at the beginning of the 20th century, as revolution swept the nation.
After the fall of the Qing dynasty a century ago, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) used martial arts to promote national pride, setting up competitions and sending an exhibition team to the Olympics. But the government also tried to suppress wuxia (武俠), a martial arts genre of literature and film, as superstitious and potentially subversive. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2016/08/29/2003654068 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/2bd39abcf95589932bfaf331082b7d71778ae8d4242053f6f9ef1aee84e9c523.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:53:16 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, which is to open on Sept. 30, will likely run a considerable deficit, the National Audit Office said, drawing the ire of city officials. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654165.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/30/thumbs/p04-160830-aa1.jpg | en | null | Taichung Opera House faces big deficit | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Huang Chung-shan and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, which is to open on Sept. 30, will likely run a considerable deficit, the National Audit Office said, drawing the ire of city officials.
The Taichung City Government on Thursday last week donated the National Taichung Theater (Metropolitan Opera House) — designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning Japanese architect Toyo Ito — to the Ministry of Culture.
The theater is likely to operate at an annual deficit of NT$150 million (US$4.7 million), the office said in a report and made suggestions for improving the theater’s operations.
The report was based on last year’s assessment of the theater’s financial plan. It suggested that the theater completely overhaul its financial plan to improve the use of resources, adding that only 21 international performances are planned for this year.
The office said that the quality of performances should also be improved to appeal to a broader audience.
The ministry separately anticipated an annual loss of NT$200 million for the theater.
Democratic Progressive Party Taichung city councilors Chiang Chao-kuo (江肇國) and Yang Tien-chung (楊典忠) said the arts are not meant to be business endeavors, calling the office’s report “unbelievable.”
“The nation should be investing more resources to promote education in the arts. The National Audit Office views the government’s responsibility in promoting the arts as just running a business: They only pay attention to profits and losses. This is a narrow-minded approach,” Chiang said.
“The government should be thinking about how to use the resources at hand to develop the arts at a level appropriate for the population of central Taiwan,” Chiang said.
“And this is to say nothing of the superior quality of the facilities at the theater. The Ministry of Culture and the Taichung City Government should be thinking about how to positively develop soft resources,” Chiang added.
The office on one hand says that the financial losses by the theater will be a drain on the treasury, while on the other, it says that the number of international performances is too low, Yang said.
International performances are big expenditures and the office’s comments lead to a confusing situation in which it seems it is “wrong to spend money and wrong to save money,” he said.
He said he hopes that the office will not elevate arts in “Taipei while looking down on central and southern Taiwan.”
The theater is an official center for the performing arts and operates according to public policy, the theater’s vice supervisor for promotional affairs Lin Chia-feng (林佳鋒) said, adding that the policy comprises more than just selling tickets.
The Taipei National Theater and Concert Hall operated for more than 20 years before turning a profit, he said.
“Those outside of the arts should see the function of the arts as more than earning money. Although it is a venue for the performing arts, the theater also has a mission of assisting and fostering the development of local and national performance troupes,” he said.
“Initially we were aiming for a ratio of 40 percent international performances and 60 percent domestic. Some of that would account for programs held cooperatively with international performers. It is our hope to bring recognition to Taiwanese performance troupes,” he added. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/30/2003654165 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/40a0e60220d1c89b5bbb65926dbcb0f8f7c5ec5d70385cd23a74c75212af7638.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:44 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | A Facebook-based survey found Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) to be the most unpopular Cabinet member, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said yesterday in its appraisal of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration’s first 100 days in office. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653891.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Defense chief least popular: survey | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
A Facebook-based survey found Minister of National Defense Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) to be the most unpopular Cabinet member, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said yesterday in its appraisal of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration’s first 100 days in office.
The caucus said it commissioned Sway Strategy, a research institute, to conduct a survey on Facebook users’ perception of the Cabinet, led by Premier Lin Chuan (林全), since it took office on May 20.
As of Tuesday, the survey — which tallied the posts, shares, likes and comments made on Taiwan’s public communities on Facebook about ministers and department chiefs — found Feng, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) and Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) as the three officials who received the most complaints among the 29 ministries and departments.
They were trailed by Executive Yuan spokesperson Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維), Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮), Minister of Labor Kuo Fong-yu (郭芳煜) and Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光).
“Feng drew the highest number of dislikes, 53.2 percent of which stemmed from the misfiring of a Hsiung Feng III missile on July 1. Hochen came in second, with his most criticized measure being the cancelation of the toll-free measures on highways during national holidays,” KMT caucus secretary-general Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) told a news conference.
Lin was blasted for failing to mention Taiwan in his WHA speech, while Tung was panned for his remarks about the Okinotori atoll controversy, Chiang added.
Facebook users were most dissatisfied with David Lee and Yeh in their dealings and responses concerning the South China Sea ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and associated potential fishery disputes, the survey showed.
“The minister of labor, unsurprisingly, received the greatest number of critical comments for the ‘one fixed day and one rest day’ policy, which has given rise to a series of protests and censures, and the minister of economic affairs was criticized for a proposal to reactivate the [mothballed] nuclear power plant,” Chiang said.
“The complaints against the officials can be grouped into two main categories: upholding the nation’s sovereignty and promoting public livelihood,” Chiang said.
The survey shows that the “public is displeased with the Tsai administration’s handling of these issues,” Chiang said.
He called on Tsai to “seriously consider whether these ministers should remain in their posts.”
“It would be better than apologizing and stepping down after making major mistakes,” Chiang said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653891 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/c9880cf15599bce82c01b22c96c8b43fb21ff6efa61be6c728841222bb2234a1.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:49:04 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) expects to post higher earnings growth in the second half of the year, as macroeconomic conditions in Taiwan and internationally continue to improve. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653923.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | E.Sun forecasts profit growth on economic pickup | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Ted Chen / Staff reporter
E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) expects to post higher earnings growth in the second half of the year, as macroeconomic conditions in Taiwan and internationally continue to improve.
“We believe the nation’s sluggish economic growth reached a trough at the end of the first half of the year and that a recovery is at hand, despite persistent volatility in global markets due to Brexit and looming US Federal Reserve interest rate hikes,” E.Sun president Joseph Huang (黃男州) told an investors’ conference on Thursday.
The lender expects earnings to pick up as the nation’s sluggish exports recover and GDP expands to a predicted 1.22 percent this year, Huang said.
The company, which derives more than half of its profits from overseas branches and offshore banking units, is expected to commence operations of its new Myanmar branch next quarter, while its Tokyo branch is expected to open in the final quarter of next year, Huang said.
Amid concern over Mega Financial Holding Co’s (兆豐金控) troubles with New York regulators, Huang said the company established a money-laundering control department about 18 months ago.
The department has more than 10 staff members and more company resources are to be dedicated to satisfy international compliance, Huang said.
He added that the company has begun offering incentives to encourage employees to earn certification from the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists, the largest international membership organization dedicated to advancing controls against financial crimes, including terrorism financing.
Employees are given subsidies for courses and examination fees, as well as bonuses should they earn the certificate, Huang said.
“The costs of compliance will only rise in the future,” he said, adding that it is difficult to quantify costs due to the varying degree of complexity in each of the company’s overseas and offshore businesses.
E. Sun Financial recorded an 8.5 percent gain in first-half profits to NT$7.2 billion (US$227.33 million), of which its flagship company, E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), saw earnings rise 16.7 percent annually to NT$7.41 billion.
However, the company’s venture capital subsidiary reported a net loss of NT$15.6 million during the period, compared with profits of NT$79.1 million a year earlier, impacting aggregate earnings by 0.2 percent, the company said.
Its securities brokerage subsidiary also saw earnings plummet from to NT$28.7 million in the first half from NT$105.9 million in the same period last year, E.Sun Financial said.
Overall, the company’s pre-provision operating profits fell 6.4 percent annually in the first half of the year, due to weaker fee income growth, lower trading and other non-interest income, as well as higher operating expense growth.
E.Sun Financial’s earnings per share were NT$0.83 in the first six months of the year, with return on equity and return on assets reaching 11.73 percent and 0.8 percent respectively. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/27/2003653923 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/ce0e501b1cd5bef7c20ffe6da0611748aba16b8a26dbe92ccd93eae2ddb5521d.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:16 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | TENNIS | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654092.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | SPORTS BRIEFS | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Agencies
TENNIS
Busta wins at Winston-Salem
Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta won his first ATP World Tour title on Saturday, beating fellow Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut in three sets in the Winston-Salem Open final. Busta, ranked 49th in the world, overcame dropping a first-set tiebreaker at the Wake Forest Tennis Center to upset 17th-ranked Agut 6-7(8), 7-6(1), 6-4 and win his first tour title in three final-round appearances, all coming this year. Busta, 25, needed just over 2 hours to become the sixth first-time winner on the ATP World Tour this season, and the first to do so in a US tournament. Agut, 28, was trying to win his third tournament this season, becoming the fifth player on tour to win three or more titles, and the fifth of his career. He won earlier this year at Auckland, New Zealand, and Sofia, Bulgaria.
CRICKET
Windies down India in T20
The West Indies beat India by one run in a remarkable Twenty20 match featuring a record haul of 489 runs in Florida on Saturday. In the first game featuring two full-strength international teams on US soil, the West Indies amassed 245-6 with opener Evin Lewis smashing a century off 49 balls on his second T20 appearance. Lewis belted nine sixes while fellow opener Johnson Charles chipped in with 79 off 33 deliveries at the Central Broward Stadium in Lauderhill. Lokesh Rahul then crashed 110 in 51 balls as India went close to reaching their target, sending the large pro-Indian crowd into a frenzy. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on strike for the final delivery bowled by Dwayne Bravo. He needed to score two runs to clinch victory, but was caught by Marlon Samuels at third man. The teams were scheduled to play a second Twenty20 at the same venue yesterday.
OLYMPICS
Irish businessman freed
Brazilian authorities on Saturday provisionally released an Irish businessman held over an alleged ticket scam at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one of his lawyers said. Kevin Mallon, director of British hospitality firm THG, had been held in a Rio prison since his arrest on Aug. 5. Police said at the time that they seized hundreds of tickets from Mallon which they suspect were offered for sale for thousands of US dollars. One of his lawyers, Thiago Andrade, said Mallon was freed from jail in Rio late on Saturday after a judge gave written authorization. “He has just been released,” Andrade told AFP by e-mail shortly after 10:00pm, without elaborating. He said Fallon’s release did not affect the case of another detained suspect, European Olympic chief Patrick Hickey.
NFL
Anthem stance criticized
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem before a pre-season game on Friday, drawing boos from some fans and criticism on social media, but his team said it backed his right to protest. Kaepernick, a former starter who led San Francisco to the 2013 Super Bowl, but has since been demoted to backup, said he sat on the bench during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner to make a statement about racial injustice in the US. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick later told NFL Media in an article posted on Saturday. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.” Kaepernick appeared to be referring to police use of deadly force, which has come under increased criticism in recent years. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/29/2003654092 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/2ef9b408efa1a534838e9eb069627c652c52aac18da7e0266b3aa5072f82ec69.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:16 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Enterex International Ltd (英瑞國際), an auto radiator manufacturer, plans to further penetrate the European market this year while seeking to diversify its export markets. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654049.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Enterex seeking to boost European sales | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter
Enterex International Ltd (英瑞國際), an auto radiator manufacturer, plans to further penetrate the European market this year while seeking to diversify its export markets.
“We hope to raise Enterex’s product awareness in Europe by first cooperating with international distributors to meet local customers’ needs,” chairman and president Windsor Wong (翁文鍾) told an investors’ conference in Taipei on Friday.
Tainan-headquartered Enterex, which was incorporated in the Cayman Islands, distributes many of its products to North America. It has a distribution center in Texas and two production bases, one in China and the other in Cambodia.
During the first half of this year, the 32-year-old company saw its net profit surge 177 percent to NT$249 million (US$7.86 million) from a year ago, or earnings per share of NT$2.52, compared with NT$0.89 during the same period last year.
Aggregate sales in the first half of the year increased 14.51 percent to NT$2.96 billion on a yearly basis.
Gross margin was 34.34 percent in the first half, compared with 32.26 percent for the same period last year, while operating margin expanded by more than 6 percentage points to 5.96 percent.
In the first six months, North America contributed 85 percent of the firm’s total revenue, while sales from China and Europe accounted for 9 percent and 7 percent respectively, company data showed.
To diversify risks and sustain growth, Enterex said that it intended to expand business in Europe and then in China.
As for the company’s capital expenditures this year, Wong said Enterex has invested US$20 million in a new plant in Cambodia because of that nation’s low labor costs and tariff rates.
The new plant began trial production last month and it is to produce brazed radiators and mechanical bonded radiators for the European market, he said, adding that the company is considering expanding the plant’s capacity next year.
The company said it hopes to win a bigger share of the Chinese market by providing original equipment manufacturing components for Chinese car brands.
Enterex said it has produced items for Beijing Automotive Group Co, Ltd (北京汽車) and is hoping to work with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co (廣州汽車) and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd (吉利汽車).
“In the long term, we hope to lower our sales contribution from North America to about 30 percent of total revenue, while raising the contributions from China and Europe to 30 and 40 percent respectively,” Wong said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654049 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/dffd2c0056ab4aa1cdf4161a690277b3711ff10a557562847f5acbc32b2e58e7.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:53 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | A British man who police say was seriously wounded when he tried to save a British woman being stabbed to death at an Australian hostel died of his injuries on Tuesday, authorities said. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654236.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | British man dies after intervening in attack in Australia | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, SYDNEY
A British man who police say was seriously wounded when he tried to save a British woman being stabbed to death at an Australian hostel died of his injuries on Tuesday, authorities said.
Thomas Jackson, 30, died in a hospital in the northeast Australian city of Townsville, Queensland state police said.
Jackson was wounded last week when he tried to stop an attack at a hostel in the town of Home Hill, south of Townsville.
Police have accused 29-year-old Smail Ayad of stabbing 21-year-old Mia Ayliffe-Chung to death in front of dozens of backpackers.
Jackson received serious injuries to his head when he intervened during the attack in a bid to save Ayliffe-Chung. Another man was also wounded, and a dog was killed.
Ayad was charged last week with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, one count of serious animal cruelty and 12 counts of serious assault.
Police said they would be upgrading one of the attempted murder charges against Ayad as a result of Jackson’s death.
He had not yet entered a plea and is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 28.
Jackson’s father flew to Australia last week to be by his son’s side.
On Sunday, he released a statement praising his son’s actions.
“There are many and varied reasons why we are, and always will be, immensely proud of Tom,” Les Jackson said in a statement. “His actions in response to this horrific attack only add to that sense of pride.”
Witnesses told police that Ayad, a French national, had been acting out of character in the hours leading up to the attack.
Police said he had likely taken cannabis during the evening.
Ayad had traveled to Australia twice in the past year. He returned in March on a temporary visa and had been in Home Hill for about a month, police said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/31/2003654236 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/51665b72f2c64c37708355bdac6f6931bd41b72253a1967abf4c3e64bdc33bd5.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:53:45 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday arrived in Bangladesh to offer help as the government confronts growing extremism that has resulted in deadly attacks against locals and foreigners and raised concerns the Islamic State is putting down roots in the country. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654171.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/30/thumbs/P06-160830-310.jpg | en | null | Kerry to offer help on security in first trip to Bangladesh | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday arrived in Bangladesh to offer help as the government confronts growing extremism that has resulted in deadly attacks against locals and foreigners and raised concerns the Islamic State is putting down roots in the country.
In meetings with Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and others during the one-day visit, Kerry might present new military and law-enforcement support. He was also to meet opposition leaders who argue the government has used the extremist threat to crack down on political opponents.
Hasina’s government is seeking to project an image of order in the weeks since five attackers killed 22 people, mostly foreigners, at a cafe in the capital, Dhaka. Globe-trotting Kerry has never visited Bangladesh, and his decision to stop there reflects how the attacks have sharpened US focus on the predominantly Muslim country as a potential Islamic State breeding ground.
“The Dhaka attack did create a strong impression for many in the US and elsewhere that if left to fester, ISIS will plant roots in South Asia,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, referring to the Islamic State by one of its many acronyms.
The US and Bangladesh have long-standing counterterrorism and security programs, and their dialogue has intensified in recent months, a senior US Department of State official told reporters.
The official said Kerry would speak to Bangladeshi leaders to see what more the US can do to bolster that relationship.
The official asked not to be identified, citing government policy.
The Dhaka attack, which the assailants broadcast on the Internet and was later claimed by the Islamic State, spooked investors who have helped make Bangladesh the world’s second-largest garment manufacturer behind China. That has raised fears that annual growth, projected to be more than 6 percent this year, might falter.
The US wants to ensure the group does not expand its network outside the Middle East to places such as Bangladesh as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.
Police also continue to investigate the disappearance of dozens of young men feared to have been radicalized by the Islamic State. Some of the men who staged the attack on the cafe grew up in wealthy families and had shown no signs of extremism before the attack. Five of six of them were killed in the standoff that followed.
In a video released days after the attack, the Islamic State promised more assaults.
“This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win,” a man says in the video.
The group has claimed responsibility for several other incidents in Bangladesh.
While officials acknowledge Muslim extremist groups in Bangladesh might have links to outsiders, the government denies that the Islamic State is operating there on its own.
Instead, it says the extremism is largely homegrown and has been fomented by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
Hasina’s government points to a wave of killings that targeted about 40 secular and moderate bloggers, as well as others, as further evidence of the opposition’s agenda.
The opposition denies the claim and says Hasina’s government is using the fear of extremism to harass or limit its supporters as part of a campaign that has included thousands of arrests. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/30/2003654171 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f5120a53dc5bbebe8849c88714d9f42bfc5e34ee743c86b8bb8a7ad8f86bdc11.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:53:10 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | FRANCE | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654115.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | World News Quick Take | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Agencies
FRANCE
Militant’s relative charged
Investigators have handed preliminary terrorism charges to the brother-in-law of one of the extremists who attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last year. Mourad Hamyd, 20, was arrested on a French warrant in Bulgaria last month on suspicion he was trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group. He has denied the allegations. The Paris prosecutor’s office on Saturday said that he was given preliminary charges of association with terrorist criminals. Hamyd is the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi, one of two brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office in January last year, killing 12 and shocking the nation. A high-school student at the time, Hamyd was briefly detained on suspicion of having a role in the attack, but classmates said he was in school.
MEXICO
Gangster’s nephew killed
A nephew of one of the leaders of the powerful Sinaloa cartel was murdered, the state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday, the latest attack on the group’s family members. Edgar Juvanny Parra Zambada, 42, the nephew of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, was shot dead alongside another victim on Friday, the prosecutors said. Parra, a seafood merchant, was killed by two unidentified assailants after a car chase in the streets of Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Earlier this month, one of the sons of Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, the imprisoned Sinaloa cartel leader facing extradition to the US, was among a group of people abducted from a restaurant in the Mexican tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta.
UNITED STATES
Hit man’s execution stayed
A convicted hit man scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday for a murder-for-hire plot that left a woman dead more than 23 years ago has received a reprieve from a state appeals court — the second he has received within a week of an execution date. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday voted 5-2 to issue a stay of execution in the case of Rolando Ruiz. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller and Judge Michael Keasler dissented without comment. Judges Barbara Hervey and Kevin Yeary did not participate in the ruling. Ruiz, 44, had gotten within an hour of a lethal injection in 2007 when a federal appeals court intervened. Evidence showed Ruiz collected US$2,000 to kill Theresa Rodriguez of San Antonio in 1992 at the request of her husband, Michael, and a brother-in-law in a life insurance scheme.
UNITED STATES
Plane lands with one engine
A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Orlando, Florida, on Saturday morning made an emergency landing due to a major problem with one of its two engines. Flight 3472 from New Orleans diverted the airplane to Pensacola, Florida, after the pilot detected something had gone wrong with an engine, according to a Southwest statement. The jet, a Boeing 737-700, landed in Pensacola around 9:40am with no apparent injuries to the 99 passengers or five crew members on board, according to Southwest. Pictures taken from the plane and posted online made it appear that part of the engine had blown apart, but Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said there was no explosion. He said Southwest will work with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to determine the cause. It is rare for Southwest or any other major airline to have such serious engine trouble, airline consulting firm Boyd International’s president Michael Boyd said. “It’s a one-off, almost unheard of,” Boyd said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/29/2003654115 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/e265f0f667af46f608a1591b5873a49e9af7c6476196e744f13bb92316c52b82.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:52:20 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | At a seminar on the democratization of Taiwan yesterday, academics warned the government against its spontaneous response to civic groups and a plan to “co-opt” their strengths, which they said was what former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) tried to do. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003654030.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Be wary of civic groups: academics | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
At a seminar on the democratization of Taiwan yesterday, academics warned the government against its spontaneous response to civic groups and a plan to “co-opt” their strengths, which they said was what former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) tried to do.
At the event, several academics deliberated over the interactive relationship between civic power and national identity and made suggestions to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration on how to deal with the demands of civic groups.
National Chengchi University sociology professor Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said that while younger people are now described as “naturally independence-leaning” with their active participation in social movements or activities, “we have to ask whether ‘local’ identity naturally leads to national identity.”
Ku said that Taiwanese are inclined to “suspend” talk of national status, which could leave the nation in an unstable state.
“However, what is more curious and crucial is that despite the suspension, civic consciousness has been growing vigorously,” Ku said.
He called for a commitment to local movements and studies which would connect the public to the nation and, with the central and local governments’ joint efforts, could turn local studies into Taiwan studies that could give rise to a spirit exemplifying a national collective will.
Regarding the recent pressure from civic groups on the government to make concessions, Ku said that while the government has been attentive, it should have a better understanding of different groups’ stances and the relationships between the parties involved.
“Do not agree to whatever the groups are asking for after only one meeting, as there are issues involving regulations, interest distribution and other involved parties. The administration is sensitive to social calls, but has not come up with systematic measures, the consequence of which is that it not only fails to obtain social support, but becomes further embroiled in battles on various fronts,” Ku said.
Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology research fellow Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌) agreed, saying that Tsai’s administration should learn from Chen’s 2000 to 2008 tenure, when he tried to co-opt civic society.
“The government could incorporate civic groups into decisionmaking processes, during which they should not simply voice opposition, but provide a clear list of things to be done,” Hsiao said.
The co-opting of civic powers in those years diminished civic society’s power and failed to foster a healthy relationship between the state and society, Academia Sinica research fellow Wu Jieh-min (吳介民) said.
“During the years that the Democratic Progressive Party administration was a minority government, civic groups were worried that their opposition might be turned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against the weak government. Now there are no more excuses,” he said, proposing a “frenemy” relationship between the government and civic society.
Wu said that while the Sunflower movement in 2014 — an eruption of years of dissatisfaction among civic society with the KMT government’s under-the-table dealings with the Chinese Communist Party — consolidated Taiwan’s democracy, “it has also, unintentionally, supplemented and strengthened the Taiwan state.”
“A demise of the KMT as a party is highly possible in the future, but what should be noted is that in the post-KMT era, Taiwan-China policies would continue to evolve and the nation’s civic resistance movement should always stay alert,” he said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/28/2003654030 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/3a27b8362c2e047bb27ff7cb673be217761094ebd690f8a095d716af0b129851.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:46 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | A 60-year-old man was diagnosed with benign prostatic hypertrophy causing the swelling of the prostate, hydronephrosis, numerous bladder stones and a suspected kidney cyst after he sought medical help due to slow urine flow and excessive urination at night. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654101.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Problem urinating leads to variety of conditions for man | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
A 60-year-old man was diagnosed with benign prostatic hypertrophy causing the swelling of the prostate, hydronephrosis, numerous bladder stones and a suspected kidney cyst after he sought medical help due to slow urine flow and excessive urination at night.
An ultrasound of the man’s urinary tract showed that he had serious hydronephrosis (swelling of the kidneys due to urine build-up), uneven honeycomb-like ridges on his bladder wall and numerous bladder stones, with the largest up to 2cm wide, said Chou Ku (周固), attending physician at the Shu Tien Clinic’s Department of Urology who treated the man.
After performing a lithotripsy, or the use of ultrasound shock waves to break up kidney stones, and installing a bladder catheter, the bladder stones were removed and the patient’s kidneys recovered, Chou said.
He said bladder stones occur more often in men above 50, and about half of all men with benign prostatic hyperplasia have bladder stones.
Bladder stones might show no symptoms until they obstruct the bladder outlet, causing difficulty urinating, intermittency, nocturia, hematuria, or blood in urine, abdominal distention, abdominal pain or other symptoms; while some people might also suffer from pain at the tip of the penis during urination, Chou said.
He suggested that men maintain smooth urination by drinking water frequently and urinating regularly. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/29/2003654101 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/25739a48bf7639a2deb4d0542daa2d2e088324775a1ee145d8a04075db1afedd.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:13:03 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Using brooms and their hands, soldiers and residents of an ancient city famous for its historic Buddhist temples yesterday began cleaning up debris from a powerful earthquake that shook the region, damaging nearly 200 pagodas. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653905.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P05-160826-313.jpg | en | null | Cleanup begins after quake in Myanmar | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, BAGAN, Myanmar
Using brooms and their hands, soldiers and residents of an ancient city famous for its historic Buddhist temples yesterday began cleaning up debris from a powerful earthquake that shook the region, damaging nearly 200 pagodas.
At least four people were killed and at least 171 pagodas were damaged in Bagan after a magnitude 6.8 quake struck the area on Wednesday. The tremor was centered about 25km west of Chauk, just south of Bagan.
The city is one of Myanmar’s top tourist attractions, drawing visitors from all over the world who can view a panorama of temples stretching to the horizon flanked by the Irrawaddy River.
Maria Gomez, a Portuguese tourist, said she was walking to the river to watch the sunset when “we felt the Earth moving. Everybody was very scared and everybody was shouting.”
“Only after maybe 30 seconds we realized what was happening,” she said.
Burmese President Htin Kyaw yesterday arrived in Bagan to assess the damage and speak with local officials about how to repair it.
The city has more than 2,200 structures, including pagodas and temples, constructed in the 10th to 14th centuries. Many are in disrepair while others have been restored in recent years, aided by the UNESCO.
According to the Burmese Ministry of Religion and Culture, 171 pagodas in Bagan were affected and 19 elsewhere in the country were damaged.
Zaw Naing, a caretaker at one of the city’s pagodas who paints and sells his work to tourists, said he was saddened by the damage — but also concerned that the quake could endanger the livelihood of villagers.
“I’m very worried ... there will be less tourists to Bagan,” Zaw Naing said. “I have three children to take care of.”
As he spoke, soldiers and residents were picking up broken red bricks with their hands and placing them in sacks. Others swept walkways leading to temples that had been engulfed in huge clouds of dust when the tremor struck and the tops of some of the pagodas collapsed.
Myanmar Earthquake Committee General-Secretary Myo Thanton on Wednesday said that other areas apparently were not badly affected.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was in contact with authorities in Myanmar and was ready to support the government and local groups, he said.
Vincent Panzani, a staff member in Pakokku for the aid agency Save the Children, said that several of his colleagues from the area described the earthquake as the strongest they have experienced.
“We felt quite heavy shaking for about 10 seconds and started to evacuate the building when there was another strong tremor,” he said in an e-mail. “Most of the reports of damage have been to the pagodas in the area with dozens impacted.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653905 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/7a2a64615e16e325dc1444d0b8aeb6836dbe251cb95a18f00946be292a838a2e.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:09:31 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) was the nation’s largest carbon emitter in 2014, producing more than 37 percent of industrial carbon emissions, with Formosa Petrochemical Corp and China Steel Corp coming in second and third respectively, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) data showed. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653901.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taipower tops carbon list | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) was the nation’s largest carbon emitter in 2014, producing more than 37 percent of industrial carbon emissions, with Formosa Petrochemical Corp and China Steel Corp coming in second and third respectively, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) data showed.
Taipower generated 84.59 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CDE) in 2014, accounting for 37.36 percent of total industrial carbon emissions, the data showed.
Formosa Petrochemical and China Steel produced 29.77 million tonnes and 19.38 million tonnes of CDE, accounting for 13.15 percent and 8.56 percent of total industrial emissions respectively, the EPA data showed.
The other high-level industrial emitters include: Mailiao Power Corp (5.24 percent), Dragon Steel Corp (4.31 percent), Heping Power Corp (3.49 percent), state-run oil refiner CPC Corp (3.4 percent), Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (2.97 percent), Taiwan Cement Corp (2.25 percent) and Formosa Plastics Corp (1.83 percent), the data showed.
Factoring in emissions contributed by subsidiary companies, the Formosa Plastics Group, including Mailiao Power, accounted for 23.19 percent of industrial carbon emissions, while China Steel, parent company of Dragon Steel, contributed 12.87 percent.
Following the passage of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) in July last year, the EPA earlier this month published the emissions data of the first group of industries to be subject to the act, including power, steelmaking, cement, semiconductor, liquid-crystal display and oil refining industries, and businesses that emit more than 25,000 tonnes of CDE every year.
More than 200 companies are regulated under the act, accounting for 88.9 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA said.
The total carbon emissions of the regulated industries was 226.4 million tonnes of CDE.
Taipower’s Taichung Power Plant alone contributed 17.5 percent to industrial carbon emissions.
Other individual contributions include Taipower’s Hsinda Plant in Kaohsiung (8.84 percent), China Steel’s complex in Kaohsiung (8.56 percent), Formosa’s Mailiao Plant No. 1 (7.43 percent), Formosa’s Mailiao cogeneration plant (5.24 percent), Dragon Steel’s complex in Taichung (4.31 percent), Taipower’s Datan Power Plant in Taoyuan (4.07 percent), Heping Power Plant in Hualien (3.49 percent), Formosa’s Mailiao Plant No. 3 (3.45 percent) and Formosa’s Mailiao Plant No. 2 (2.27 percent).
Taipower said its high emissions level was a consequence of power generation, but it would improve energy efficiency and increase the use of natural gas and renewable sources.
The EPA said it is drafting measures to incentivize industries to improve efficiency and reduce emissions in preparation for a carbon cap-and-trade system. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653901 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f16c81dd9dc20c06ebed9ec14428789e8066f455ba019969b93c54b1c1b4f536.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:09:21 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | A plastic surgeon who is an amateur magician has brought home a gold medal from the UGM Magic Convention in Japan, the first Taiwanese to do so in the competition’s 32-year history. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653899.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/p02-160826-aa1.jpg | en | null | Taiwanese physician wins major magic prize | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Yan Yang-ting and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
A plastic surgeon who is an amateur magician has brought home a gold medal from the UGM Magic Convention in Japan, the first Taiwanese to do so in the competition’s 32-year history.
Tsai Chih-tung (蔡之棟), 35, competed in Nagoya against magicians from 48 countries, including Japan and South Korea, which are considered regional powerhouses, and won on Aug. 14.
The UGM Magic Convention is considered the top competition of its kind in Asia and several professional magicians on the international scene have won UGM awards, including South Korean Lee Eung-yeol and Taiwanese Lu Chen (劉謙), who won the gold and silver medals respectively in 2001.
The convention competition alternates yearly between “stage magic” and “close-up magic,” and this year’s event focused on close-up work, which is considered the more demanding.
Tsai’s card routine, which included four techniques, was praised by the panel of five professional illusionists as “incredible.”
The doctor said that when he was a child, his grandfather liked to show him “very neat tricks,” and although he joined Taipei Medical University’s magic club, he had to give up his hobby in his final years of medical school and residency.
He took it up again after finishing his residency and decided to enter this year’s competition even though he has just seven years of active performance under this belt, Tsai said.
“In principle, being a doctor is not that different from being a magician. A doctor’s way of thinking needs to be cognitive and logical, using analysis and prediction to find the best method for dealing with a situation. Magic works in the same way by taking apart and putting together techniques to form new routines. The process demands calm analysis and willpower,” he said.
Tsai said he has no plans to turn his hobby into a professional sideline, but he does want to establish a magicians’ association with some friends to change the public’s perception of magicians from street performers to artists. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653899 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/c19cdc5b0a09243b096284ae83d5ea32717d9c2a1eb888770d5b934255584d77.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:14 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | A historic ceasefire on Monday came into effect in Colombia, ending a 52-year war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government and taking a major step toward ending a conflict that has claimed more than 250,000 lives. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654243.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P07-160831-312.jpg | en | null | Colombia ceasefire ends half-century war with FARC | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, BOGOTA
A historic ceasefire on Monday came into effect in Colombia, ending a 52-year war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government and taking a major step toward ending a conflict that has claimed more than 250,000 lives.
The full ceasefire ordered by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the FARC, Timoleon Jimenez, began at midnight.
‘WAR IS OVER’
“This Aug. 29, a new phase of history begins for Colombia. We silenced the guns. The war with the FARC is over,” Santos wrote on Twitter one minute later.
A message from the official FARC account at the same time was more restrained: “From this moment on the bilateral and definitive ceasefire begins.”
The Colombian government’s chief peace negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, grew visibly emotional at a news conference, describing how church bells and sirens had rung out in some of the areas hardest hit by the conflict.
“A lot of human lives are going to be saved with this giant step we are taking today,” Colombian High Commissioner for Peace Sergio Jaramillo told journalists.
“The morning of peace has dawned,” the FARC’s chief negotiator Ivan Marquez tweeted.
The ceasefire is the first in which both sides are committed to a definite end to the fighting.
“The ceasefire is really one more seal on the end of the conflict. It is the test of fire,” said Carlos Alfonso Velazquez, a security expert at the University of La Sabana.
The conflict began in 1964 with the launch of the FARC, a guerrilla group born out of a peasant uprising. It has left 260,000 dead, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million uprooted from their homes.
To end the war with the FARC for good, Colombians must vote in an Oct. 2 referendum on the peace accord hammered out in about four years of talks in Cuba.
Santos said the exact question that will be put to voters in the referendum would be announced “in the coming days.”
“We are on the verge of perhaps the most important political decision of our lives,” he said in a speech on Saturday.
NATION DIVIDED
Opinion polls show Colombians are divided ahead of the referendum.
Santos’ top rival, former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, is leading a campaign to vote “No” to the peace deal.
He says a special justice system envisaged for crimes committed during the conflict would give FARC fighters impunity.
Opponents question the FARC’s commitment to peace.
“I don’t think we can believe them,” said Felipe Giraldo, a 25-year-old unemployed man in Bogota.
Others have a high personal stake in the vote.
Adelaida Bermudez, 50, said she hopes it will bring home her daughter, who joined the FARC nine years ago.
“I hope we’ll have peace ... so the children come home,” she said in Gaitania, in the central region where the FARC was born.
Santos and Jimenez are due to sign the peace agreement sometime between Sept. 20 and Sept. 30 — possibly at the UN General Assembly in New York, Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said.
The end of hostilities is to be followed by a six-month demobilization process.
Starting on Monday, the FARC’s estimated 7,500 fighters are to go to collection points to surrender their weapons under UN supervision.
Guerrillas who refuse to disarm “will be pursued with all the strength of the state forces,” Santos told El Espectador newspaper.
Before the demobilization, the FARC is to convene its leaders and troops one last time before transforming into “a legal political movement,” according to a statement published on Saturday. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/31/2003654243 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/bcc792147d006e8aef6a3a07aa5c6fc33ec6eb8d9f1d152c062002801ead1215.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:21 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Taiwan has been named the world’s best place to live for expatriates in the latest InterNations Expat Insider survey, impressing foreigners living in the nation with quality healthcare and the ability to make a good living. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654230.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taiwan best for expats: survey | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwan has been named the world’s best place to live for expatriates in the latest InterNations Expat Insider survey, impressing foreigners living in the nation with quality healthcare and the ability to make a good living.
In addition to replacing Ecuador atop the overall ranking of 67 nations, Taiwan was ranked among the top 10 in each of the survey’s five indices, according to the annual survey.
“Taiwan holds first place in the Quality of Life and Personal Finance indices, impressing with the quality and affordability of its healthcare and the enviable financial situation of expatriates living there,” InterNations said.
Taiwan ranked second in the survey’s “Working Abroad” index, with 34 percent of expatriates in Taiwan completely satisfied with their jobs, more than double the global average of 16 percent, it said.
“This small island country also holds second place for overall satisfaction with life abroad, with 93 percent voicing their general contentment,” behind only Spain, the survey said.
In the other two main categories, Taiwan finished 10th in the “Ease of Settling In” index and eighth in the “Family Life” index.
Founded in 2007, InterNations is the largest network for expatriates in the world, with a total of 2.3 million members.
The InterNations network has a presence in the communities of 390 cities worldwide.
Taiwan was included for the first time among nations covered by the annual survey, now in its third edition.
The survey polled more than 14,000 respondents representing 174 nationalities and 191 nations or territories, with respondents talking about their experiences in moving, living and working in the 67 destinations.
InterNations said that a majority of expatriates in Taiwan planned to stay for more than three years (64 percent), and many of them (36 percent) even considered the possibility of living in the nation permanently.
In a report on the InterNations survey, Forbes cited an expatriate from Sweden who has lived in Taiwan for almost a decade as saying that the nation made him feel at home.
“Taiwan is one of the best hidden gems of the Asia-Pacific,” Martin Lindstrom, general manager of IKEA in Taiwan, told Forbes. “It is very easy to feel at home here.”
Lindstrom told Forbes that Taiwan has a beautiful countryside with “scenic mountains and great opportunities for hiking or biking,” adding that he also enjoyed the local cuisine and amazing coffee shops.
Most importantly, Taiwan has really friendly people, Lindstrom said.
Lindstrom’s comments echoed the InterNations survey, which showed that Taiwan did best in terms of friendly attitude toward families with children, with 58 percent of respondents saying that in this regard Taiwan was “very good,” compared with an average of 39 percent worldwide.
“Looking at these results, it comes as no surprise that one in six expats living in Taiwan has entered the country seeking — and obviously finding — a better standard of living,” the survey said.
Following Taiwan, Malta ranked as the second-best place for expatriates in the survey, ahead of Ecuador, Mexico, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Australia, Austria, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic.
On the bottom of the survey were Kuwait (67th), Greece (66th), Nigeria (65th), Brazil (64th), Saudi Arabia (63rd), Egypt (62nd), Mozambique (61st), Qatar (60th), Italy (59th) and Tanzania (58th). | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654230 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f4b2b0bd3b2bab1ae5f9e2001f8c536b1deaa2443ba0b62fafceffedc80f74e2.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:12:26 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | French schools are to hold three security drills per year — including one in which a mock assailant enters their premises — as the French government ramps up security measures after a string of deadly attacks. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653911.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | French schools to teach terror response | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, PARIS
French schools are to hold three security drills per year — including one in which a mock assailant enters their premises — as the French government ramps up security measures after a string of deadly attacks.
French Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve on Wednesday announced a series of measures to improve how schools and children handle terror threats.
Students are to be taught how to hide or to escape, depending on the situation and where they are.
All students aged 13 and 14 and class representatives will get a basic training on life-saving measures.
Vallaud-Belkacem said, as of now, only 30 percent of students are trained.
In pre-school and kindergarten, for children aged two to six, no mention of an attack or a danger should be made, but children must be taught to hide and keep quiet through games, Vallaud-Belkacem said.
“It’s not a question of succumbing to panic or into paranoia, but simply to face our responsibilities,” Vallaud-Belkacem said.
Cazeneuve said that the plan is aimed at “preventing the risk of an attack and at the same time guaranteeing a serene atmosphere in schools.”
Other security measures are already in place since deadly attacks in Paris last year. Some police forces patrol in school areas and parents and students are requested to avoid gathering near schools and systematically report any suspicious behavior or object.
School principals will hold meetings with parents to detail the security measures at the beginning of the school year next month.
The French government is to provide 50 million euros (US$56.2 million) to local councils in charge of the school buildings to help them pay for security equipment such as video door phones and new alarm systems. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653911 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/96de5d0c4f49a9d53fa6016242ed8a14212304eec8d9f6150938842c956f73a8.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:43 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) June order to reactivate the fallow No. 1 reactor at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) was prompted mainly by a power shortage “crisis” engineered by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), according to former national policy adviser Rex How (郝明義). | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654160.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taipower manufactured supply ‘crisis’: Rex How | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
Premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) June order to reactivate the fallow No. 1 reactor at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門) was prompted mainly by a power shortage “crisis” engineered by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), according to former national policy adviser Rex How (郝明義).
How on Saturday said on Facebook that he suspected that Taipower deliberately ordered 10 percent of the nation’s aging electricity generators to undergo annual repairs on May 31, when the mercury hit 37.3°C, pushing the nation to the brink of a power shortage.
With power rationing on the horizon, Lin ordered Taipower to reactivate the Jinshan plant’s No. 1 reactor, which had been unused for 18 months, How said.
The decision triggered protests from groups that advocate a nuclear-free Taiwan, which President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has pledged to bring about.
In the post, How cited Taipower data saying that on May 31, Taipower’s peak supply was 34.99 gigawatts (GW), just 0.57GW above the peak consumption of power that day.
How then quoted Taipower chairman Chu Wen-chen (朱文成) as saying that his company was able to function that day because business clients were encouraged to save 0.4GW in consumption under a program offering incentives to industrial users that cut electricity use during peak hours.
However, 3.14GW of electricity output — 9 percent of peak supply on May 31 — was unavailable because of the scheduled repair and maintenance of many old generators at various power plants, How said.
“With nearly 10 percent of the nation’s power generators being repaired as part of annual maintenance how could it not put pressure on power supplies?” How asked.
He said Taipower certainly knew that the weather begins to get hotter in May.
“So why did it arrange for annual repairs that would affect 10 percent of power generators late in May? … If it had not done that, would it have to ‘borrow’ 0.4GW of electricity from business clients? Doesn’t this mean that Taipower itself deliberately created a crisis of power shortage?” How wrote.
His accusation drew mixed responses from netizens.
One called his attention to the fact that most of Taiwan’s power generators require an average of one to two months of repairs per year, which means between 8.3 percent and 16.6 percent of them are undergoing maintenance at any given time.
“How would do better to understand that the ‘industrial traits’ of these numbers indicate a good performance rather than something to blame on the part of Taipower,” the netizen wrote.
“Will How give Taipower some advice on which months are the best for the annual repair of the generators?” another netizen wrote. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/30/2003654160 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8540e8b4edb36e07a8c89c54492fc4dfaff870ca0aeca0f18e65cab07eb7346d.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:13 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | None of the five Chinese cities invited to an international forum organized by Kaohsiung have said whether they plan to attend, Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Hsu Li-min (許立民) said on Wednesday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653894.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Kaohsiung says no word from China on global cities forum | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
None of the five Chinese cities invited to an international forum organized by Kaohsiung have said whether they plan to attend, Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Hsu Li-min (許立民) said on Wednesday.
Kaohsiung sent out invitations to Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Fuzhou in June for the Global Harbor Cities Forum it is hosting from Sept. 6 to Sept. 8, but the five cities have neither confirmed nor rejected it, Hsu told reporters at a press conference on the forum.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said 47 cities in 25 countries have confirmed their attendance of the three-day event, which will cover issues such as industrial transformation, marine tourism and sustainable development.
With the exception of Shanghai, the mayors or deputy mayors of the Chinese cities traveled to Kaohsiung when it hosted the Asia Pacific Cities Summit in 2013, and the city government approached them in the same manner this year, Hsu said.
He said the city holds a constructive and friendly attitude toward China and seeks to narrow the gap between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait by encouraging exchanges.
Earlier this week, Taipei held its annual forum with Shanghai, the seventh since it was launched, but the first after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in May.
In a city council session on May 31, Chen said she is willing to visit China to promote the forum and invite her Chinese counterparts, as she did in 2009 for the World Games and in 2013 for the cities summit.
Chen was the first DPP local government head to visit China in 2009, after the party lost the 2008 presidential elections, and the trip paved the way for visits by other DPP local government chiefs.
China suspended official dialogue with Taiwan after the DPP regained power with the May 20 inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), whom Beijing blamed for creating the rift by refusing to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed agreement reached between Taipei and Beijing in 1992 that there is only “one China,” with each side free to interpret what “China” means.
When asked on Aug. 13 about the lack of response from the Chinese cities to Kaohsiung’s invitation, Chen said it would fall short of everyone’s expectations if the situation across the Taiwan Strait remains “stuck,” and the two sides should strive to establish a common ground despite their differences. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653894 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/5bf02217574a1e34439d706ec686576d393fc829c0bcf8065ac7fadc70395ad8.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:57 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | An investigation into Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) contravention of money laundering regulations escalated yesterday, as prosecutors and regulators grilled a former minister of finance and the bank’s former chairman. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654145.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Prosecutors question former minister of finance, Mega Bank’s ex-chairman | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Ted Chen / Staff reporter
An investigation into Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) contravention of money laundering regulations escalated yesterday, as prosecutors and regulators grilled a former minister of finance and the bank’s former chairman.
Prosecutors questioned former minister of finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) as part of the probe into the violation of money laundering rules by Mega Bank’s New York branch that resulted in a US$180 million fine on the state-run bank.
Chang said that he was not aware of any regulatory infractions by Mega Bank, the main subsidiary of Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), during his term as minister of finance, because the state-run company did not report the incident to the ministry.
The ministry is a major shareholder in Mega Financial and other state-run financial institutions.
Regarding media reports suggesting that he had met with former Mega Bank chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才) and two accountants on Aug. 22, three days after Mega Financial received the fine, Chang said that the appointments were made prior to the incident.
Media reports said Chang and Tsai had met with accountants to help them prepare for questioning by authorities.
Chang said the meeting was intended to celebrate Tsai’s appointment as chairman of an investment unit controlled by Ruentex Group (潤泰集團) chairman Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) to carry out a hostile takeover of CTBC Financial Holding (中信金控).
Prosecutors also questioned Tsai for the second time as a suspect.
The questioning came after the Financial Supervisory Commission on Sunday questioned Tsai for seven-and-a-half hours to gain a better understanding of the incident.
The commission has summoned 27 persons of interest for questioning, including Mega Financial managers, since Friday last week.
Tsai declined to comment after leaving the prosecutors’ office last night.
The nation’s top financial regulator said it would have a complete report of its findings by the end of next month.
Although Tsai tendered his resignation from Mega Financial in March, the commission could classify his departure as a termination, allowing authorities to punish Tsai and bar him from holding positions in a banking or financial institution for the next five years, the commission said.
In related news, Deputy Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) yesterday confirmed that Mega Financial chairman Shiu Kuang-si (徐光曦) has left for the US to check on the operations of the company’s branches there.
Su’s statement came in the wake of media reports that Shiu and a delegation were on their way to the US to meet with financial authorities in New York, Chicago, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, where Mega Bank has branches.
According to the reports, it was Shiu’s second trip to the US in two weeks to deal with the fallout of the scandal.
Mega Bank was the first Taiwanese bank to receive a penalty for flouting money laundering regulations in the US.
Shiu, who was appointed chairman of Mega Financial earlier this month, is traveling to the US to gain firsthand information about the bank’s overseas business, Su said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/30/2003654145 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/d02808067533a982c302f109ec248c9318c81026325e5f457560bb46b59070c3.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:46 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Juventus won 1-0 at SS Lazio on Saturday in a Serie A match dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in central Italy. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fsport%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654085.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/29/thumbs/P11-160829-325.jpg | en | null | Juventus down Lazio as quake victims honored | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, ROME
Juventus won 1-0 at SS Lazio on Saturday in a Serie A match dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in central Italy.
Fans held aloft banners to mourn the nearly 300 people killed in the earthquake on Wednesday last week, and a minute of silence was observed before kickoff.
Also, Lazio’s shirts featured a message that read “Noi con voi” — “We are with you” — including an image of the clock tower in the hardest-hit town of Amatrice, which was stopped at 3:36am when the quake hit.
In the 66th minute, Sami Khedira took a pass from Paulo Dybala and angled his shot inside the far post as Lazio’s defense appeared distracted by prized Juventus signing Gonzalo Higuain, who came on a minute earlier.
Khedira also scored in Juve’s season-opening 2-1 win over ACF Fiorentina last weekend.
“It was not easy to play in this heat against a Lazio side that was well organized,” Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri said. “In the first half, they closed off all the open spaces, but in the second half we played well. We have started better than last year.”
Last season, Juventus lost their opening two matches.
In the day’s other match, Arkadiusz Milik and Jose Callejon each scored twice for SSC Napoli in a 4-2 win over visiting AC Milan.
Poland forward Milik scored twice in the first half then M’Baye Niang and Suso drew Milan level after the break. Callejon got the decider in the 74th then added another in stoppage time. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/29/2003654085 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f6d7466f573ff692e31ccf5d774f4e4d83b7cfb51ec5b04c92fe8dcd98d828da.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:37 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Traffic on the streets near the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei was held up for about three hours yesterday morning as hundreds of drivers protested regulations imposed after a deadly tour bus fire last month. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653880.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/p01-160826-aa1.jpg | en | null | Buses clog Taipei road as drivers rally | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
Traffic on the streets near the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei was held up for about three hours yesterday morning as hundreds of drivers protested regulations imposed after a deadly tour bus fire last month.
Members of the New Taipei City Tour Bus Drivers’ Union said 200 buses and 400 drivers were mobilized, with buses stopping on Renai and Hangzhou S roads, paralyzing traffic.
Protesters gathered at the front of the building and demanded that the regulations be relaxed.
About a dozen protesters pushed past barriers at the ministry’s main entrance and entered the lobby.
A few protesters went to the 19th floor, demanding to see Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦).
The protest ended after two hours of talks between union representatives and ministry officials.
Union chairman Lee Shih-chia (李式嘉) said it is almost certain that the bus driver killed in the July 19 bus fire was suicidal, but people are focused on the issue of bus operators buying vehicle parts from overseas and having them assembled in Taiwan.
The ministry reinforced that impression by launching a massive crackdown on tour bus operators, Lee said.
Some operators said that the government wants tour buses to pass an excessively high standard of safety, requiring buses to be in use for only a certain number of years.
However, operators cannot get a return on investment if they were to follow the regulations, they said, adding that the government should prevent public bus operators from branching out into the tourism industry.
Transportation Management Center chief secretary Lin Fu-shan (林福山) said the ministry has explained that a tour bus does not equate to an assembled bus.
The union said its members have received 46 tickets since July 23 for failing to follow the new safety requirements.
Lin said 14 of the penalties — fines for not being able to easily open emergency exits — would not be rescinded.
The remaining 34 cases involved locks or other devices on emergency exits, Lin said, adding that drivers need not pay a fine if it could be shown that the devices were factory-installed.
In that case, the manufacturers of the bus’ body would pay the fine instead, he said.
The Directorate-General of Highways said that protesters listed 13 demands.
It promised to hold a meeting within one week to discuss some of them. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/26/2003653880 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/6b7b34abbcbb9654fd1da2c8754845a0ab78d8c38ea870127ad11ea9868516c4.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:58 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Turkey on Saturday said the military suffered its first fatality in an unprecedented four-day campaign inside Syria, blaming Kurdish militia in an increasingly combustible contest for control in the border region. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654103.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Turkish soldier killed in Syria attack | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, KARKAMIS, Turkey
Turkey on Saturday said the military suffered its first fatality in an unprecedented four-day campaign inside Syria, blaming Kurdish militia in an increasingly combustible contest for control in the border region.
The Turkish army on Wednesday launched a two-pronged cross border offensive against Islamic State militants but also Syrian Kurdish militia detested by Ankara, sending in dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops.
Tensions between Ankara and the Kurdish militia flared on Saturday, with clashes taking place 8km south of the town of Jarabulus, the border town recaptured from Islamic State militants last week by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, a monitoring group and Kurdish sources said.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency later said one Turkish soldier was killed and three more wounded in a rocket attack by Kurdish militia on two tanks taking part in the offensive.
The dead soldier — who has not been identified — was the first confirmed Turkish fatality of Turkey’s unprecedented operation in northern Syria which has so far proceeded with lightning pace.
The toll was confirmed by a Turkish official, without giving further details.
The rocket fire came from members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Anadolu said.
Turkey considers the PYD and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia terrorist organizations.
Anadolu said that the Turkish army responded to the rocket attack by shelling PYD targets in Syria, without giving further details.
The self-proclaimed Kurdish authorities in northern Syria said in a statement that the local fighters backed by Kurdish forces “destroyed two tanks and killed its crews” near the village of Al-Amarneh.
In a separate incident on Saturday, Kurdish militants fired four rockets at the airport in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, without causing casualties, the Dogan news agency said.
The pro-Kurdish fighters said earlier Turkey had for the first time carried out airstrikes on its positions.
“With this aggression, a new conflict period will begin in the region,” said the Jarabulus Military Council, which is linked to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces.
Anadolu agency reported that the army had carried out strikes against a weapons arsenal and command post belonging to “terror groups.”
The fighting indicates Turkey is entering into a new and more dangerous phase in Syria four days into operation “Euphrates Shield.”
On Saturday, an AFP correspondent at the Turkish border village of Karkamis saw six more tanks crossing into Syria, adding to the dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops already in the country.
Anadolu said pro-Ankara fighters — backed by Turkish troops and firepower — had now taken five more villages from Islamic State militants after the capture of Jarabulus.
Turkey fiercely opposes moves by the YPG — which it regards as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — to expand into territory lost by the Islamic State.
Ankara fears the emergence of a contiguous autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would bolster the PKK rebels across the border in southeast Turkey.
Its campaign against the Kurdish fighters puts it at odds with NATO ally the US, which supports the YPG as an effective fighting force against the Islamic State.
On Saturday, the last rebel fighters were evacuated from Daraya just outside the Syrian capital Damascus, under a plan to end a brutal four-year siege of the town that brought the population to the brink of starvation. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/29/2003654103 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8d57748da75af5e8a043744456ae30ff9c9b7d2709f9dfee066c29648d34ef5f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:51 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday confirmed that 35-year-old Audrey Tang (唐鳳), a tech prodigy and former adviser to BenQ and Apple, is to join the Cabinet in October as a minister without portfolio. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653890.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Programming expert to join Executive Yuan | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday confirmed that 35-year-old Audrey Tang (唐鳳), a tech prodigy and former adviser to BenQ and Apple, is to join the Cabinet in October as a minister without portfolio.
Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) first broke the news yesterday morning, which Lin confirmed in the afternoon, when he was asked about the appointment by reporters on the sidelines of the 2016 Taiwan Sustainability Summit in Taipei.
Lin said Tang’s achievements in the digital industry and open government projects have been recognized worldwide.
“Our hope is that by inviting her to join the Executive Yuan team, she could contribute in the said fields. Her role as a minister without portfolio will be different from the others: Instead of participating in drawing up bills, she is expected to assist government agencies in building communication platforms for all kinds of public policies and putting government information to good use,” Lin said.
Tang has been called an Internet prodigy who taught herself computer programming when she was eight.
At 16, she launched a start-up computer company and “retired” at 34. Since then she has been an active member of the open source community and a major contributor to g0v.tw (零時政府), which seeks to improve transparency in government and dissemination of public information, and vTaiwan, a platform for the government to solicit and integrate public opinion and promote communication.
Tang, who is currently abroad, confirmed the appointment on her Facebook page.
She said that from 2014 to last year, she served as an adviser to the Executive Yuan’s plans in making virtual-world regulations, and is a committee member of the National Development Council’s open data advisory committee and of the 12-year education course development committee.
“I have also been collaborating with the French ministries of foreign affairs and economy, Paris’ city government and Madrid’s city government on digital governance,” Tang said on Facebook.
She said that after becoming a member of the Cabinet, she expects to be “a civil servant of civil servants, that is, through the use of digital technologies and systems, to assist the government in solving problems and to enhance communication and cooperation between government agencies and civil technology and community,” she said.
“My presence [in the government] will not be for certain communities to have easy access to the administration, nor will it be for ‘policy announcements’ on the Internet. Rather, it will be a ‘channel’ for the better combination of wisdom and power,” she added.
Tang’s appointment will not only significantly lower the average age of the Cabinet, which has been criticized for being too old, but also mark a milestone for gender equality. Tang was born male and did not change her gender and name until 2005. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653890 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/359caebaf3a0c5e2bc9ff55d7c2bfe0577aa019fd156245d256cc0d135c50ea6.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:25 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | The US Department of State in October last year released the International Religious Freedom Report for 2014, which strongly criticized Beijing for persecuting Christians, Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners. According to last year’s report, which was released this month, the Chinese government’s crackdown on religious freedom and human rights activists continues even more intensely. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654137.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Vatican’s decision on China will be critical | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Parris Chang 張旭成
The US Department of State in October last year released the International Religious Freedom Report for 2014, which strongly criticized Beijing for persecuting Christians, Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners. According to last year’s report, which was released this month, the Chinese government’s crackdown on religious freedom and human rights activists continues even more intensely.
Xinhua news agency on Aug. 2 reported that human rights activist Hu Shigen (胡石根) was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for subversion. In addition, the Chinese government is in the process of pressing the same charges against several other human rights advocates.
Hu, 61, is a leading figure in many underground Christian groups. He has been advocating free speech and the right to protest for years. Prior to his sentence, he had served 16 years in prison for his campaign to raise awareness about the 1989 student protests at Tiananmen Square.
According to Xinhua, Hu was found guilty of disseminating subversive ideas that threaten national security through an “illegal” church organization.
On Aug. 2, another activist, Zhai Yanmin (翟巖民), was given a three-year suspended sentence for organizing protests to criticize the government.
According to Radio Free Asia, Chinese authorities late last month began demolishing the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province.
The US State Department on Aug. 8 expressed concern over the demolition, urging Beijing to communicate with the academy’s leaders to protect the religious freedom of Tibetans.
Although China touts itself as a nation of religious freedom, it says one thing and does another. Considering this, will the Vatican establish diplomatic ties with China despite the relentless crackdowns on Christians and other religious groups?
The Vatican is the only country in Europe with which Taiwan has formal diplomatic relations. It does not have diplomatic relations with China because of Beijing’s tight restrictions on religious activities, including Catholicism, and its interference with the Vatican’s clerical appointments.
According to the Hong Kong weekly Kung Kao Pao, Hong Kong Cardinal John Tong (湯漢) earlier this month said that Beijing and the Vatican are about to reach a preliminary agreement on several issues, including the appointment of bishops, with Beijing offering a list with the names of potential bishops from which the pope can select the next bishop. A similar proposal had been rejected by previous popes, including Pope Benedict XVI, who said that it contradicts Catholic doctrine that state entities extraneous to the church should “place themselves above the bishops and guide the life of the ecclesiastical community.”
Pope Francis has made friendly gestures and expressed a will to engage in dialogue with Beijing. If he is willing to concede to Beijing’s requests, it is only a matter of time before the Vatican establishes diplomatic relations with China and severs ties with Taiwan.
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) is to visit the Vatican on Sunday. Whether his visit can fix the situation is yet to be determined.
Should the Vatican decide to compromise with China on its infringement of human rights and religious freedoms, it would be sending the worst possible message to the world — and that would be a serious mistake. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/30/2003654137 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/441bd0b524b238e3aaf314e780525b5a42dbfa3eeb2e17e1045fcf73eb786424.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:52:53 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “honeymoon” period is ending, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation said yesterday, citing its latest poll, which found a drop of nearly 20 percentage points in Tsai’s approval rating since her inauguration on May 20. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654144.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | President’s ‘honeymoon’ nearing end: foundation | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “honeymoon” period is ending, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation said yesterday, citing its latest poll, which found a drop of nearly 20 percentage points in Tsai’s approval rating since her inauguration on May 20.
The telephone-based survey showed that 52.3 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with Tsai’s handling of national matters, a 17.6 percentage point decline from three months ago.
The percentage of respondents dissatisfied with her performance climbed 24.4 percentage points from 8.8 percent in May to 33.2 percent.
“It appears that a downward trend in Tsai’s approval rating shows no sign of stopping. As such, we can say the president’s honeymoon period is about to end,” foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) told a news conference in Taipei.
Respondents gave Tsai a score of 61.28 out of 100 for her performance as president over the past three months, which the foundation said indicates that the public believes there is much room for improvement and could “flunk” Tsai if she does not try harder.
Regarding cross-strait issues, 51.4 percent said they were content with Tsai’s handling of the nation’s relations with Beijing, despite the indefinite stagnation of cross-strait ties, compared with 39.6 percent who felt otherwise.
Comparing the survey with the May poll, which found that nearly 70 percent of respondents approved of Tsai’s refusal to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus,” the foundation said the public’s views on cross-strait ties have apparently changed, adding that Tsai’s administration should not take the matter lightly.
The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with both sides having their own interpretation of what “China” means.
Topping the list of areas in which respondents expressed satisfaction with Tsai’s performance were international affairs with a 56.5 percent approval rate, followed by pension reform (55.9 percent), national defense (48.8 percent), judicial reform (48.2 percent), the economy (45.9 percent) and labor policy (40.7 percent).
However, respondents were divided on whether the president has lived up to her pledge to have “the most communication-friendly government,” with 47 percent support against 47.2 percent opposition.
The survey also showed a lack of public consensus on the abolition of the controversial Special Investigation Division (SID), with 43 percent of those polled in favor of keeping the agency, while 37.4 percent called for it to be immediately disbanded.
While Tsai’s honeymoon period is coming to an end, the results indicated that respondents were willing to give the president “the benefit of the doubt,” National Sun Yat-sen University political science professor Liao Da-chi (廖達琪) said.
Chinese Culture University politics professor Yang Tai-shun (楊泰順) attributed Tsai’s declining support rating to swing voters’ generally negative perception of issues to which she has attached great importance, such as abolishing the SID and improving labor conditions.
The poll collected 1,076 valid samples from people aged 20 and older from Monday to Wednesday last week, and has a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/30/2003654144 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f2282cd287b4b85f71ebe4cec2f4fad499983e2cf76559a6c6ae41514847c12e.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:02 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (中國石油化工), the world’s biggest oil refiner, posted a 22 percent decline in profit for the first half of the year as oil’s collapse overpowered the boost from cheaper crude used to make fuels and chemicals. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654061.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Sinopec profit slips as refining fails to counter oil crash | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (中國石油化工), the world’s biggest oil refiner, posted a 22 percent decline in profit for the first half of the year as oil’s collapse overpowered the boost from cheaper crude used to make fuels and chemicals.
Net income dropped to 19.9 billion yuan (US$3 billion), the Beijing-based company known as Sinopec said yesterday in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Revenue slumped nearly 16 percent to 879.2 billion yuan.
One of China’s so-called Big Three oil companies, Sinopec’s earnings compare with a 98 percent profit drop by rival PetroChina Co (中石油), the country’s biggest producer, and the first-ever half-year loss by CNOOC Ltd (中國海洋石油), its largest offshore explorer.
PRODUCTION
Crude production in the first half of the year dropped 11.4 percent to 154.2 million barrels, Sinopec said in the statement, while natural gas output rose 10 percent to 388.7 billion cubic feet.
Realized price for crude oil fell almost 26 percent to 1,596 yuan a tonne in the period, while that for natural gas slid 19 percent to 1,267 yuan per thousand cubic meters.
In the second half, Sinopec expects crude production at 147 million barrels and natural gas output at 421.2 billion cubic feet.
Sinopec will raise refining throughput to 120 million tonnes in the second half of the year, from 115.9 million in the first six months, the company said.
China’s oil refiners earlier this year got a boost from a government policy that halts retail fuel price adjustments when oil falls below US$40 a barrel, putting a floor under gasoline and diesel prices while crude continued to drop. The rule boosted margins during Sinopec’s first quarter, when net income tripled from a year ago to 6.66 billion yuan.
INDUSTRY HURTING
Profits from fuel making have started falling at integrated refiners from Exxon Mobil Corp to Royal Dutch Shell PLC as demand growth slows.
Global refining margins averaged US$13.80 a barrel in the second quarter, down from more than US$19 in the same period last year, according to BP PLC.
Asian oil refiners from Singapore to South Korea are cutting operating rates as they grapple with a slump in margins.
High costs and low prices have resulted in a decline in China’s domestic crude output, where aging fields are becoming too expensive to maintain. The country’s total crude output has slipped 5.1 percent in the first seven months of the year, while gas output has increased 3.1 percent.
Capital expenditure in the first half was 13.5 billion yuan, Sinopec said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654061 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/560a452d8d84e69042cdd4d9e7c7bc998092d9bbd96e01c405408a25c38c75e7.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:53:01 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | All day the elevator operators in Brazil’s Senate take politicians on rides, but the senators, they said, are moving the country only in one direction — down. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654113.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | FEATURE: Senate elevator operators see lows of Brazilian politics | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, BRASILIA
All day the elevator operators in Brazil’s Senate take politicians on rides, but the senators, they said, are moving the country only in one direction — down.
Humble men literally rubbing shoulders with some of Brazil’s most powerful, the elevator operators have a unique window on the upper chamber, where suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment trial is under way.
What they describe seeing in the corruption-riddled institution is not pretty.
“Our politicians are very dirty,” said one operator, who asked not to be identified because he feared losing his job. “I’ve never seen the Senate or the [Brazilian] House of Deputies ever vote something that was for the people. All I see is them fighting and shouting and thinking about themselves.”
The operator, who talked with reporters when the elevator was empty then fell silent as senators and other passengers got on, said he was no fan of Rousseff.
However, Brazilian interim president Michel Temer — who would take Rousseff’s place on a more permanent basis if she is ejected from office next week — is no better, he said.
“What I see is a lot of dirty people judging a woman who is also dirty,” he said. “Today there is no decent option for president.”
A colleague manning another of the aging ThyssenKrupp elevators in the elegant senate building was equally scathing.
“Substituting Dilma for Temer won’t be the solution. If there was a real election, he’d never win,” he said, also requesting anonymity.
The elevator men said some of the senators — about two-thirds of whom have current or past brushes with the law, according to corruption watchdog Transparencia Brasil — treat them kindly.
“Others, not so much. With them, it’s not even a ‘good afternoon,’” the second operator said.
Waiters in the senate restaurant also get to see — and hear — the country’s rulers from close up. The experience leaves a bitter taste.
“They pass laws to suit themselves, but not for the people,” one waiter said, looking over his shoulder to check no one had noticed him speaking to a reporter. “There are a few good ones who come in here, but mostly they are very arrogant and don’t treat us with respect.”
Cleaners are another group of ordinary Brazilians serving almost unnoticed in this most extraordinary of institutions.
What do they propose for Brazil’s politicians? Clean them out.
“I don’t think we can have any change without new elections,” a cleaner said, who also asked not to be identified. “Impeachment means changing the faces, but things will stay the same. We need to start again, a completely new start.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/29/2003654113 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/03116d484a13e3a14d5485f699006ab316a8a68bff5b8badb72bd7f6978459a9.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:00 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Dispatch to London | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654203.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | [ LETTER ] | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Dispatch to London
In contrast to David Pendery’s complaint (“Taiwan, I love you,” Aug. 26, page 8) about the thinness of Chris Wood’s farewell trade-show brochure (“On leaving Taiwan: Britain’s role,” Aug. 23, page 8), I prefer to imagine what the outgoing representative’s valedictory dispatch back to London would look like.
Would Wood review the history of Britain’s interaction with Taiwan, recalling imperial subjects such as James Laidlaw Maxwell and George Leslie Mackay? They established one of the most influential civil society institutions, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.
How about their successor Thomas Barclay, who introduced printing and journalism to Formosa? Remarkably, they achieved these not by being a colonizing power, but through compassion and service.
Would the representative call to mind the Commonwealth prisoners of war in the camps of Kim-koe-chioh — then Kinkaseki — and contemplate how wars over natural resources, egged on by nationalism, can sweep ordinary people — fishing folk, young soldiers — into much suffering, and how similar conflicts are again threatening the nearby seas?
Would he celebrate the contribution of Taiwanese-British citizens? The most prominent among them was the late theologian Ng Chiong-hui (Shoki Coe, 黃彰輝), erstwhile director of the World Council of Churches’ Theological Education Fund. He negotiated the cultural distances as well as the tumultuous circumstances during his life, all the while working for the ecumenical movement and maintaining a personal connection between the two nations.
As for current political realities, would Wood reflect on constitutional reforms, drawing comparisons between the two democracies? Can a moat be kept between free trade and deeper integration? Can first-past-the-post disproportionality be ameliorated with top-up seats? Are referendums competing with parliamentary decisionmaking for legitimacy?
Wood said that his office would continue to promote exchanges about “green” issues and sustainability.
So looking to the future, do the security and ecological implications of nuclear power get a mention in the dispatch, with both Hinkley and Gongliao projects stalled?
Sadly, such dispatches can only be released to the public after many decades, if ever.
For the moment, I can only amuse myself with the 1980s correspondence on the disposal of Fort Santo Domingo, in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), after it was decommissioned as a British consulate. This has been released and is available on the Web.
Te Khai-su
Helsingfors, Finland | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/31/2003654203 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/b2f2460a71948f3531c75f3b437f349733b6a6fe766274c489c52f4068b2cbcd.json |
[] | 2016-08-27T16:50:14 | null | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | The government of South Sudan, whose economy has been ravaged by years of war, has adopted an ambitious budget for the 2016 to 2017 fiscal year of about US$1 billion, three times as big as the previous year’s. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F28%2F2003653989.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | S Sudan wants big budget despite economy | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, JUBA
The government of South Sudan, whose economy has been ravaged by years of war, has adopted an ambitious budget for the 2016 to 2017 fiscal year of about US$1 billion, three times as big as the previous year’s.
“The purpose of this budget is to implement the peace agreement,” South Sudanese Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters on Friday, referring to a deal signed in August last year.
The budget proposal has yet to be approved by parliament, but it is likely to be accepted, as most of the nation’s lawmakers are loyal to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s government.
Adopted on Thursday by the government, the 30 billion South Sudanese pound (US$494 million) draft was delayed earlier this summer by a spike in violence, the latest upsurge in two-and-a-half years of war.
However, it is not yet clear where South Sudan will find the funds it would need to finance the budget, as fighting continues in parts of the country, leaving key trading routes to the capital blocked.
Asked about the possible sources of funding, Lueth told reporters: “We know where we will get the money. You need not to know where we can get the money.”
Lueth added: “The budget is higher than that of last year simply because last year there was no agreement on implementation” of a peace deal.
South Sudan’s economy, ravaged by a civil war that erupted in 2013, was further damaged by a wave of clashes in July that pitted President Kiir’s troops against former South Sudanese vice president Riek Machar’s forces in the capital Juba.
On the street, the South Sudanese pound’s value has plummeted dramatically, with the exchange rate at 70 South Sudanese pounds to the US dollar — nearly two and a half times the official rate.
Oil production too, which at the time of independence five years ago contributed 98 percent of the national budget, has sunk to just under 150,000 barrels per day.
Inflation is soaring at 600 percent per year, leading to a massive hike in the prices of basic goods. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/28/2003653989 | en | 2016-08-28T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/20cabdcee8da7e1c6cd08e07be9c3b0b348efa9ef63b18f68ce5da8668902acd.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:13:39 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | A judge on Wednesday refused to set bond for a Mississippi man accused of killing five people and a fetus, who were slain one by one with an axe and shot inside a home in rural Alabama. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653918.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Judge denies bond for suspect in five Alabama killings | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, MOBILE, Alabama
A judge on Wednesday refused to set bond for a Mississippi man accused of killing five people and a fetus, who were slain one by one with an axe and shot inside a home in rural Alabama.
The decision by Mobile County Judge Rick Stout came as Derrick Dearman, 27, made his first court appearance on multiple charges of capital murder and kidnapping.
“He doesn’t need to be out. He is a danger to the community,” District Attorney Ashley Rich said afterward of the Leakesville, Mississippi, man.
DEATH PENALTY?
Rich has said her office may seek the death penalty against Dearman, who allegedly attacked the five as they slept and then kidnapped his estranged girlfriend, who had sought shelter from him at the house.
Killed were three men and two women, one of whom was pregnant.
Relatives of the victims were present at the hearing. Dearman turned to look at them, but said nothing.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office said several firearms and an axe were used on the five adults, but authorities did not specify the total number of weapons involved.
Sheriff Sam Cochran said Dearman did not have the guns when he arrived at the home, but found them in the house. Cochran said he attacked first with the axe, then with the guns.
Dearman has told reporters he was high on methamphetamine at the time of the slayings early on Saturday.
DEFENSE LAWYER
The judge appointed a defense attorney, Jim Vollmer, to represent Dearman and scheduled an arraignment hearing for Wednesday next week.
“That’s when some things might happen,” Vollmer said.
Dearman is charged with six counts of capital murder and kidnapping, and courts typically refuse bond in such cases.
The slain have been identified as Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Joseph Adam Turner, 26; Justin Kaleb Reed, 23; Chelsea Marie Reed, 22; and Robert Lee Brown, 26. All were related by blood or marriage, relatives have said, and survivors are trying to raise money to pay for their funerals.
Dearman’s estranged girlfriend, Laneta Lester, was abducted, along with the child of Randall and Turner, authorities and relatives said. Lester is the sister of Turner, who was married to Randall.
Both Lester and the child were released, and Dearman surrendered at the sheriff’s office in Greene County, Mississippi. Citronelle police said they found the bodies on Saturday afternoon after being notified by Greene County officers that Dearman claimed to have killed people.
Dearman had been charged with burglary in Mississippi months before the slayings, and Rich said he was free on bond at the time of the killings. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/26/2003653918 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/7dc3a9afd404d7e8455729f9730df6ce8244d044a63c7d27da2f6ed6b3410520.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:11:30 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | The Ministry of Education has fined the National Taiwan University (NTU) NT$30,000 for an exam question from the mechanical engineering department that contravened the Gender Equality Education Act (性別平等教育法). It is the first such fine for a university in the nation’s history. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653898.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | NTU fined for bias in an engineering exam question | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA
The Ministry of Education has fined the National Taiwan University (NTU) NT$30,000 for an exam question from the mechanical engineering department that contravened the Gender Equality Education Act (性別平等教育法). It is the first such fine for a university in the nation’s history.
In the department’s entrance exam in March, students were asked to write about the “social responsibilities” of an engineer based on a family created by a man and a woman.
The foreword to the question said: “The formation of family by man and woman is the law for society and family, and engineers should not violate natural law through their engineering innovations.”
Student Affairs and Special Education Administration Deputy Director Yen Pao-yueh (顏寶月) said a ministry investigation concluded that the question could have affected the outcome of students’ exams.
The act stipulates that schools should not give unequal treatment to students during recruitment based on gender, sexual preference or gender identity, Yen said.
The ministry’s Gender Equality Committee said the international trend on defining marriage is moving past the “husband and wife” model and there is need to reassess what constitutes a family from other perspectives.
The university could have faced a fine of up to NT$100,000. Some committee members suggested NT$10,000, as the incident was the school’s first offense, but others said that the nation’s top university should lead by example, so the committe compromised on NT$30,000.
NTU Secretary-General Lin Ta-te (林達德) said the school is considering whether to appeal. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653898 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8aaa375950b5afb2a5af4d0daf56f9de3cdf6d382e2d5ef7042fc5c902613eb3.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:23 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Two senior North Korean officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun early this month on the orders of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654235.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P05-160831-301.jpg | en | null | N Korean officials executed: report | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Bloomberg
Two senior North Korean officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun early this month on the orders of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify.
Ri Yong-jin, a senior official in the North Korean Ministry of Education — possibly its minister — was arrested for dozing off during a meeting with Kim and charged with corruption before being killed, the newspaper said.
Former Nother Korean Minister of Agriculture Hwang Min was purged over a proposed project seen as a direct challenge to Kim’s leadership, it said.
If true, it would mark the first executions ordered by Kim from outside his party or the military, the newspaper said.
A spokesman at South Korea’s Unification Ministry said he could not immediately confirm the JoongAng report.
Kim has carried out a series of executions since taking power in 2011 after his father’s death as he puts his mark on the leadership of the isolated nuclear-armed nation. The most high-profile was the killing three years ago of his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song-thaek. Kim had about 50 officials executed in 2014 on charges ranging from graft to watching South Korean soap operas.
“Kim is continuing to replace the old guard of his father’s regime with loyalists,” said Robert Kelly, a political science professor at South Korea’s Pusan National University. “The charges are obviously trumped up, and this is how promotion or demotion often works in totalitarian states without legitimate venues for opposition.”
Kim had Ri Yong-gil — head of the North Korean military — executed in February on charges including corruption, the Yonhap news agency reported at the time.
In January last year, he executed General Pyon In-son, head of operations in the army, for disagreeing with him; and in May of that year he purged then-North Korean minister of defense Hyon Yong-chol for dozing off at a rally.
Reports of purges of senior North Korean officials are not uncommon and at times been unreliable.
Earlier this month, Seoul announced that a senior North Korean diplomat based in the UK had defected to South Korea.
The man was among seven diplomats who have defected this year, according to JoongAng Ilbo.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Monday said the defections signal a “serious fracture” within the North Korean regime and raise the prospects of fresh provocations as Kim seeks to maintain control.
Her comments came as South Korea and the US hold annual military drills that North Korea calls a prelude to an invasion.
Kelly said that the isolated state is probably more stable than many people think or want it to be.
“I don’t think there has been a fracture,” he said. “So long as China keeps the goodies flowing into Pyongyang, which is like a city-state in an ocean of deprivation, the elites won’t turn on each other.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/31/2003654235 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/f21ea8c22dfeb42c71270a1ed2969d2f9eda61feaa7327f1f8a9d8027fbfe95f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:49:55 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | Saudi Arabian Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid al-Falih tempered expectations that the world’s major oil producers would look to freeze production next month, telling reporters on Thursday that the “market is moving in the right direction” already. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653935.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Saudi oil minister douses hopes of an output freeze | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Reuters, LOS ANGELES
Saudi Arabian Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Khalid al-Falih tempered expectations that the world’s major oil producers would look to freeze production next month, telling reporters on Thursday that the “market is moving in the right direction” already.
“We don’t believe any significant intervention in the market is necessary other than to allow the forces of supply and demand to do the work for us,” he said in an interview following a speech at the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council in Los Angeles.
OPEC members are to meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum, which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28.
Oil rallied last week in part on anticipation of a freeze, but those hopes have waned in the past couple of days.
Speaking publicly for the first time since talk about freezing output surfaced in the past few weeks, al-Falih said there have not yet been any specific discussions of a production freeze by OPEC, even though world supply remains high.
His comments suggest the chances of a pact are minimal, as he pointed to a market rebalancing and steady demand.
The kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter, started to raise production in June to meet rising seasonal domestic demand, as well as higher export requirements.
Al-Falih did not say whether there was a specific level of output that would be necessary to stabilize the market.
Saudi Arabia last month produced 10.67 million barrels per day of crude oil, the most in its history, and al-Falih on Thursday said that production has remained at about that level, although he could not cite a specific number for this month.
Global marker Brent futures gave back some gains following al-Falih’s comments, slipping as much as US$0.35, or 0.7 percent, over 20 minutes, before recovering somewhat.
Brent was trading up US$0.61 at US$49.66 per barrel by 3:35pm.
Al-Falih said no specific production level for a freeze has been broached yet. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/27/2003653935 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8ed945e1d8c4118e9db6b62ea37437f1f526aa9fb482090fea9981dd0e8a84f6.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:44 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | The government has yet to find common ground with the Japanese government on the issue of reparations for Taiwanese “comfort women,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654220.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Taipei still at odds with Japan on ‘comfort women’ | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
The government has yet to find common ground with the Japanese government on the issue of reparations for Taiwanese “comfort women,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
Speaking at a routine news conference, Association for East Asian Relations Secretary-General Peter Tsai (蔡明耀) said that he met with officials at the Interchange Association, Japan, the day after the Japanese Cabinet approved a payment of ￥1 billion (US$9.77 million) to the South Korean Reconciliation and Healing Foundation to be used as reparations for South Korean comfort women.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan also met with Japanese government officials in Tokyo the same day to reiterate the government’s hope that Japan would properly address the issue of Taiwanese comfort women, Tsai said.
“Japan gave us the same response, which was that it has ‘faced the matter honestly’ by setting up the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995. This is not the answer we are looking for,” Tsai said.
Taipei wants Tokyo to respond to its four demands: an official apology by the Japanese government; restoration of the honor and dignity of the women; allocating appropriate compensation; and an effort to help take care of the surviving comfort women, Tsai said.
Regarding the talks between Taipei and Tokyo on maritime cooperation, which were postponed indefinitely last month to allow more time for preparation, Tsai said the two nations restarted the negotiations last week.
“Both sides hope to set a date for the delayed talks over maritime cooperation,” Tsai said, adding that the exact time for the bilateral talks has yet to be determined.
The dialogue mechanism was established in May after relations between the two nations were strained following the seizure of a Taiwanese fishing boat by the Japan Coast Guard on April 25 about 150 nautical miles (277.8km) east-southeast of the Okinotori atoll.
The mechanism was created under the framework of the Taipei-based Association of East Asian Relations and its Japanese counterpart, the Interchange Association, Japan. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/31/2003654220 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/796a04d49a1beb4271f6a27cd069e1dcfa0bbab4079a8672e9e34909becb4eb6.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:52:02 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) yesterday said e-commerce is to play a greater role in the company’s sales plans, with the aim of accounting for 10 percent of overall sales in five years. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654188.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P12-160831-1.jpg | en | null | FamilyMart joins forces with Eastern Home Shopping | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter
Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) yesterday said e-commerce is to play a greater role in the company’s sales plans, with the aim of accounting for 10 percent of overall sales in five years.
The nation’s second-largest convenience store chain said it has joined with TV shopping operator Eastern Home Shopping Network (東森購物) to provide “TV outlets” at its stores so customers can learn about products offered on Eastern Home shopping channels and place their orders right at the store.
FamilyMart will also help deliver the goods to the buyers.
The first stage of the plan will see FamilyMart installing television sets in seven outlets in Taipei and New Taipei City.
It said it aims to expand the number of outlets equipped with TV sets to 150 in the first quarter of next year.
FamilyMart president Hsueh Dong-du (薛東都) said the new service could help boost store visitor numbers by 30 percent and help increase e-commerce revenue to more than NT$100 million (US$3.15 million) this year.
Over the next five years, revenue from e-commerce is expected grow to account for about 10 percent of FamilyMart’s total revenue, Hsueh said.
The idea of omni-channel retailing — meaning the disappearance of boundaries between physical and online stores — has had a core role in the company’s operational strategy for years, FamilyMart said.
Taiwan’s e-commerce market is expected to reach NT$1,127 billion in sales this year, data from the Institute for Information Industry (資策會) show.
FamilyMart said that its stores could be the best support for developing an online business because of its effective logistics system.
In the first half of this year, there were 3,014 FamilyMart outlets in Taiwan.
FamilyMart also plans to enter further into the e-commerce sector by using the latest big data analysis.
It said it would collaborate with Eastern Home Shopping Network to analyze its customer database to develop a more precise marketing strategy through data mining.
Sales in the second quarter of this year reached NT$15.3 billion, up 8.2 percent from the first quarter and 4 percent more than the same period last year. Its earnings per share were NT$2.05. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/31/2003654188 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/67db37f60d4755822a3059a4a13e417ebf45ab97cdb4d957b8d355388583cbd7.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:51:10 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | Eleven Turkish police officers were killed and 78 people injured yesterday in a suicide truck bombing by suspected Kurdish rebels, three days into a two-pronged Turkish offensive in Syria. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653950.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/27/thumbs/P01-160827-318.jpg | en | null | Eleven police killed in suicide bombing in Turkey’s Cizre | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, ISTANBUL, Turkey
Eleven Turkish police officers were killed and 78 people injured yesterday in a suicide truck bombing by suspected Kurdish rebels, three days into a two-pronged Turkish offensive in Syria.
The early morning blast almost completely destroyed the police headquarters in the southeastern town of Cizre, just north of the Syrian border.
“At 6:45am, a suicide attack with a vehicle laden with explosives was carried out by the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] terror group on the building of anti-riot police,” the provincial governor’s office said in a statement.
Turkish Minister of Health Recep Akdag said four people were in critical condition.
The explosion occurred hours after the Turkish military shelled positions held by Kurdish militia inside Syria.
Turkey says its three-day-old operation in Syria — its biggest to date in its war-torn neighbor — is targeting both the Islamic State group and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia leading the fight against the Islamic State in the area.
Ankara has labeled the YPG, which has links to Turkey’s outlawed PKK, as a terror group bent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria near the Turkish border.
The blast in Cizre tore the facade off the four-story police headquarters, sending up clouds of thick black smoke. Adjacent buildings were also badly damaged.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said the bomb went off 50m away from the building at a control post.
Cizre, a majority Kurdish town, has borne the brunt of renewed violence between the outlawed PKK and government forces since the collapse of a ceasefire last year.
Turkish security forces have been hit by near daily attacks by the PKK since the two-and-a-half year truce collapsed, leaving hundreds of police officers and soldiers dead. The latest bombing came at a critical moment, with hundreds of Turkish forces and dozens of tanks deployed inside Syria.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yidirim denounced as a “bare-faced lie” suggestions in Western media that the Syria operation was singling out Kurds.
“They either know nothing about the world, or else their job is to report a bare-faced lie,” Yildirim said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/27/2003653950 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/b8281d4e590d9efeed3d46fe4c32a9fa0dcfc3ac264d90ce20ed56a7a8eb238f.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:51:28 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | A: Why are you looking at me like that? | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Flang%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653921.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | EVERYDAY ENGLISH | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | A: Why are you looking at me like that?
B: It’s not you. I’ve got a crick in my neck.
A: Did you sleep in an awkward position last night?
B: Perhaps. But I also think it’s having the air conditioning on all night.
A：你幹嘛那樣看我？
B：跟你無關，我脖子痛。
A：是不是你昨晚睡姿不良造成的？
B：或許喔。不過我也懷疑是不是整晚吹冷氣才這樣的。
English 英文:
Chinese 中文: | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2016/08/27/2003653921 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/2e7115f72b422e9f815847d04989b490e8698b38e0952fb831eb52b81cd4fad4.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:51:28 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | China will not invade Taiwan | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654065.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | [ LETTER ] | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | China will not invade Taiwan
In response to [US] Secretary [of the Army Eric] Fanning’s recent article (“US Army is laying the foundations of stability in Asia-Pacific,” Aug. 27, page 9), there is no need for a US military presence in the Pacific. There is the idea that if the US leaves the Pacific, China would invade Taiwan. There is no evidence to support this idea.
After World War II, the US fought the Korean War and then the Vietnam War. After losing the Vietnam War, the US was war weary. China could have invaded Taiwan. It did not. Nor did all of Asia become communist as the hawks feared. Today, the US is war weary from the war in Iraq under former US president George H.W. Bush, continued by former US president Bill Clinton and the no-fly zones, then former US president George W. Bush’s invasion, and now US President Barack Obama’s war in Iraq against the Islamic State group. That is 26 years, or more than a quarter of a century, of war in Iraq.
The US has also been at war in Afghanistan since 2002. That is 10 years of two wars in the Middle East. The US military is stretched and not meeting its recruitment goals. Now would be a good time for China to invade Taiwan. However, China has not.
Furthermore, China’s economy is not as strong as it was in recent years. And internally, we simply do not know how stable China is. The rumors coming from China’s leadership elite are that powerful people in China want their children to live in the US. This indicates an internal perception of domestic instability. Yes, China is building island military bases. This does not mean they will invade as they have been building up their military since the end of World War II, but they have not invaded yet.
Taiwan and China have strong business ties. Business leaders carry influence in both Taiwan and China as evidenced by the crackdown on corruption in China and the numerous business corruption stories here in Taiwan. These business leaders care about money more than anything else, not the patriotic rhetoric of uniting all Chinese as though we are still living under some dynasty that rules by the mandate of heaven.
Look at Hong Kong. After the handover, Beijing did not roll in the tanks. Yes, Beijing is practicing censorship in Hong Kong. However, to do that here they would have to invade first and then establish control.
Beijing knows that conquering Taiwan would come at a cost. Specifically, Taiwan’s military will retaliate and cause significant damage to China before the shooting stops.
There is also the idea that if the US leaves the Pacific, war will break out on the Korean Peninsula. The two Koreas are perfectly capable of fighting a war by themselves. They both know that. And there is no indication that either side will attack soon. The South has no interest in attacking first and the North’s leadership is unstable, as evidenced by the recent purges and defections. The North might be too unstable to attack.
Finally, there is absolutely no need for a US military base in Australia or Japan. The US has no potential enemies near Australia. And a significant number of Okinawans want the US military base there to leave.
It does not help that more than one member of US military personnel there has been convicted of raping local women.
Andres Chang
Taipei | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/29/2003654065 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/8e3087897f74fe76874251abdc97f2424c2fbd959b0b12dd0ae7aa06b6735380.json |
[] | 2016-08-28T16:50:56 | null | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to take a 58 percent share of the global pure-play wafer foundry operating market this year, and retain the world’s No. 1 title, according to market information advisory firm IC Insights. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F29%2F2003654052.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | TSMC seen as dominating pure-play foundry market | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to take a 58 percent share of the global pure-play wafer foundry operating market this year, and retain the world’s No. 1 title, according to market information advisory firm IC Insights.
In a research note, IC Insights said that TSMC — the world’s largest contract chipmaker — is expected to post US$28.57 billion in sales this year, up 8 percent from a year earlier.
Despite the sales growth, TSMC’s market share is likely to fall by 1 percentage point from last year, IC Insights added.
GlobalFoundries Inc of the US is expected to come second by generating US$5.65 billion in sales, up 12 percent annually, to take an 11 percent share in the world market, the note said.
United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), another Taiwanese contract chipmaker, is expected to take a 9 percent market share for the third spot in the rankings by posting US$4.49 billion in revenue, up 1 percent from last year, the note added.
China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯) is expected to rank fourth with a 6 percent market share, as it is likely to generate US$2.85 billion in sales, a 27 percent annual increase, the note said.
Israeli chipmaker TowerJazz Semiconductor might see a 3 percent market share by generating US$1.25 billion in sales this year, up 30 percent from a year earlier, to replace Taiwan’s Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶) as the fifth-largest contract chipmaker in the world, IC Insights said.
Powerchip came in sixth with US$1.24 billion in sales, followed by Taiwan’s Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進), China’s Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹), Dongbu HiTek Co of South Korea and Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Co of Singapore to round out the top 10, IC Insights said.
Sales in the global pure-play wafer foundry industry are expected to rise 9 percent overall this year from last year to US$49.12 billion, it said.
Revenue to be posted by the semiconductor industry worldwide is expected to fall about 2 percent year-on-year, it said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/29/2003654052 | en | 2016-08-29T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/ec9d10a61474bcb573df9df2a5f0e88c74683114444a6456a6b8c740615e7685.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:51:54 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | He may be 88 and facing setbacks from failed deals in the UK and Australia, but investors bet against Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) at their peril. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654133.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Li’s Italian job shows he still has his touch: Gadfly | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Nisha Gopalan / Bloomberg
He may be 88 and facing setbacks from failed deals in the UK and Australia, but investors bet against Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠) at their peril.
Hong Kong’s richest man is set to win approval as early as this week for 3 Italia’s buyout of a competitor that would create the country’s biggest telecom operator.
The deal is more important for Li than an aborted one in Britain that would have made his company that nation’s top mobile-phone provider.
There is no doubt that the past couple of years have not been kind to Li’s global ambitions.
Having invested billions of dollars in European utilities and telecom businesses, the billionaire was thwarted in his attempt to buy a stake in electricity network Ausgrid two weeks ago, just three months after his acquisition of Telefonica’s O2 unit in Britain was blocked by regulators.
Then the Brexit vote happened, and the UK, which made up 39 percent of first-half earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) at Li’s flagship CK Hutchison (長江和記實業), became less of a dependable investment destination.
The falling pound has dragged down profit at the conglomerate, which owns a slew of water, electricity and telecom assets in Britain.
Li said earlier this month that the fallout from Britain’s decision to leave the EU would last for years.
Back home in Hong Kong, minority shareholders rejected a US$12.4 billion all-stock bid by Cheung Kong Infrastructure (長江基建) for his Power Assets division, a takeover that would have tightened Li’s control of a cash pile totaling more than US$8 billion.
On top of it all, Li was accused of deserting Hong Kong, which now makes up just 4 percent of CK Hutchison’s EBIT, and China, which accounts for 12 percent.
Six years ago, the former British colony contributed about 27 percent of EBIT to Hutchison Whampoa (和記黃埔), the former incarnation of his biggest publicly traded company.
However, Li, who has a US$31 billion fortune, was not dubbed Superman by Hong Kong media for nothing.
This month he posted better-than-forecast earnings at CK Hutchison and real estate unit Cheung Kong Property (長江實業地產). The flagship can now look forward to a further boost to profitability from its Italian mobile operations.
Following some concessions, CK Hutchison has been given approval to merge its 3 Italia unit with Wind Telecomunicazioni, Russian firm VimpelCom’s telecom business, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News last week.
The bigger chunk of the market that the two companies will control will enable the Italian business to lift its EBITDA margin from a paltry 18 percent, the lowest among CK Hutchison’s telecom operations in Europe.
By contrast, margins at the UK business are 41 percent.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank reckon that approval for the Italian deal could raise CK Hutchison’s EBITDA by as much as 8 percent.
EBITDA margins at CK Hutchison’s 3 Italia operations are the company’s lowest among its European telecom operations
CK Hutchison shares have picked up after being hammered following the Brexit vote in June, rising 21 percent as of Friday’s close from this year’s low on July 8.
CK Property has also gained, climbing 12 percent over the same period.
Of the 15 analysts that cover CK Hutchison, 13 rate the stock a buy while only one has a sell rating. Fourteen analysts have buy ratings on CK Property, versus two sells. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/30/2003654133 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/3065a8597df5798886e9ae8fe9b093aca31d55ac2a902de6188692d5c55874d5.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:51:49 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Taiwanese food and beverage chain La Kaffa International Co (六角國際) has opened a flagship outlet in New York, making it the first listed Taiwanese business to expand in the US city. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654126.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/30/thumbs/P11-160830-001.jpg | en | null | La Kaffa enters US market with outlet in New York City | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Staff writer, with CNA
Taiwanese food and beverage chain La Kaffa International Co (六角國際) has opened a flagship outlet in New York, making it the first listed Taiwanese business to expand in the US city.
The New York outlet, which was launched at the weekend, offers beverages under La Kaffa’s Chatime brand, fried pork dishes under its Wagokoro Tonkatsu Anzu Ginza brand and bread under its Bake Code brand.
In addition to those three brands, La Kaffa owns four others in Taiwan — Chatime Coffee, ZenQ deserts, the Chatime Lounge restaurant chain and Tuan Chun-zhen Beef Noodles.
La Kaffa said its New York store, located in Flushing Chinatown in Queens, offers ethnic Asian consumers a taste of popular Asian cuisine.
The company said it has set an initial revenue goal for the New York store that would triple the amount made at any of its outlets in Taiwan.
La Kaffa said it expects to gain greater visibility in the US market with the opening of its New York outlet and will continue to expand its operations in the US.
The company first entered the US market in 2011, setting up a Chatime beverage store on the west coast, and now also has two Bake Code stores in California.
La Kaffa chairman Henry Wang (王耀輝) said he hoped the US market would eventually account for about 30 percent of the company’s total revenue.
Headquartered in Hsinchu, La Kaffa started out as a coffee shop that later began selling bubble milk tea and established the popular Chatime brand.
The company said it now has outlets in more than 80 cities in 29 countries and regions, including Australia and Southeast Asia, where Chatime has become a popular beverage brand.
In ASEAN markets, where the company has more than 150 outlets, it rakes in about 30 percent of its total sales, La Kaffa said.
In the first seven months of the year, La Kaffa posted NT$1.15 billion (US$36.16 million) in consolidated sales, representing a 28.4 percent increase from a year earlier. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/30/2003654126 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/0e9f96b58d04cd9b7ba6b6fe343fd00ea35fa6c522716c2cf1d364f8988f90ed.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:01:56 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Monsanto Co has withdrawn an application seeking approval for its next generation of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds in India, a major escalation in a long-running dispute between New Delhi and the world’s biggest seeds maker. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fbiz%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653863.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/P10-160826-312.jpg | en | null | Monsanto pulls GM cotton seed from India over technology-sharing dispute | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | Reuters, NEW DELHI
Monsanto Co has withdrawn an application seeking approval for its next generation of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds in India, a major escalation in a long-running dispute between New Delhi and the world’s biggest seeds maker.
A letter sent by Monsanto’s local partner in India, the conglomerate’s biggest market outside the Americas, strongly objects to a government proposal that would force Monsanto to share its technology with local seeds companies.
The company is also at loggerheads with India over how much it can charge for its genetically modified cotton seeds, costing it tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue every year.
The unprecedented decision to pull the application, which has not previously been reported, could set back Monsanto’s efforts to introduce its new seed, called Bollgard II Roundup Ready Flex technology, for years and lead to further losses.
It will also ratchet up pressure on the Indian government, as it undermines Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to make the country look more attractive to foreign investors.
It could also hurt Indian cotton farmers. The new seed variety helps fight against weeds that sap the cotton crop of vital nutrients and depress yields.
A Monsanto spokesman said the withdrawal of the application was “an outcome of the uncertainty in the business and regulatory environment,” but that the move had “no impact on our current cotton portfolio being sold in India.”
In a letter dated July 5, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co Ltd (Mahyco), Monsanto’s technology partner in India, singled out a government proposal, mooted in May, that would require Monsanto to share its proprietary technology.
After protests by Monsanto and other global seed companies, the government temporarily withdrew the order and decided to seek feedback from stakeholders. It is now evaluating the feedback.
Mahyco said in the letter, a copy of which was seen by reporters, that the proposal “alarmed us and raised serious concerns about the protection of intellectual property rights.”
Mahyco also asked the regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), to return data and other material submitted by it as part of the application.
The regulator has done that, a government official said.
India first allowed GM cotton cultivation in 2002 by approving Monsanto’s single gene Bollgard I technology.
New Delhi approved the double gene Bollgard II in 2006, helping transform India into the world’s top producer and second-largest exporter of the fiber as output jumped fourfold.
Bollgard II Roundup Ready Flex would have been the first technological breakthrough since the launch of Bollgard II, potentially pushing up crop yields at a time when some farmers have said the existing variety was losing its effectiveness.
Bollgard II, introduced in 2006, is slowly becoming vulnerable to bollworms, experts said, adding that as with any technology, it has a limited shelf life.
Still, more than 41 million GM cotton seed packets were sold last year, earning royalties of 6.5 billion Indian rupees (US$96.9 million) for Monsanto.
Mahyco applied to the GEAC for approval of the new GM seed some time in 2007. The application was in the final stages of a tedious and time-consuming process, which included years of field trials.
In its letter to the GEAC, Mahyco said it would seek to revive the application for Bollgard II Roundup Ready Flex “at a suitable time.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/08/26/2003653863 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/41083ef599e3997d1b188821f04da46e47f26332425ae64641140ce57a480eb8.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:52:51 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | During the one-party state era, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) created a lot of myths to maintain its hold on power. One of the myths — and one that has been planted deeply in the minds of Taiwanese — is the idea that the KMT is better than other parties at dealing with the economy. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Feditorials%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654201.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | The Liberty Times Editorial: Economy a test of government will | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | During the one-party state era, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) created a lot of myths to maintain its hold on power. One of the myths — and one that has been planted deeply in the minds of Taiwanese — is the idea that the KMT is better than other parties at dealing with the economy.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, then KMT-presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) painted a rosy picture of the nation’s future with his “6-3-3” election pledge — 6 percent annual economic growth, an annual per capita income of US$30,000 and an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent. This helped him attract a lot of votes from people who were hoping that the party would restore the nation’s economy, wealth and livelihood.
However, eight years later, it seems that the only thing the party succeeded in improving is its own lot, while a majority of workers’ income dropped to 16-year lows. Most companies have difficulty staying profitable and, because they have a dim view of the future, are unwilling to invest.
This is why reviving the economy became an important issue in the run-up to the presidential election in January. After the vote, then-president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her team laid out a blueprint for government, with its focus on five innovative industries, to demonstrate their ability to lead the nation out of its problems.
After the Lunar New Year holiday, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) campaign officials prepared a series of visits to different industries for Tsai to listen, gain an understanding of and encourage businesses. This filled society with hope and expectations for the new government and a new Taiwan — and Tsai’s approval rating kept rising, as everyone was brimming with confidence.
Clearly, working on improving the economy is one of the new administration’s most important tasks. Everyone knows that there is no magic potion that will resolve all economic problems, and that a systematic step-by-step implementation of short, medium and long-term plans is needed and that there is little room for cheap tricks.
However, economic issues are also a matter of public confidence: The attention the government gives to these issues, the signals it sends to the public and the direction it lays down are a crucial sign of leadership, and how it deals with these issues determines the public’s perception of it.
Economic and financial officials recently engaged in dialog with industrial groups and Premier Lin Chuan (林全) expressed his hope that businesses would return to talks about basic pay. Chinese National Federation of Industries chairman Hsu Sheng-hsiung (許勝雄) presented the group’s white paper on the state of industry, urging the government to focus on improving a host of problems, especially the investment climate.
One side is focused on income distribution, the other on development, but competitiveness requires the joint efforts of labor and industry — what should be Taiwan’s strategy for creating a “win-win” situation?
Only if the government can seriously address and resolve these issues can it show that it is more capable of running the country than its predecessor.
The public should refrain from evaluating the government based on its performance over the past 100 days and instead look at what these officials have been busy doing to see if they have a handle on how to run the country. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2016/08/31/2003654201 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/4896b22e0334379959507be44f9a4556417965dbcc5e8d637c955a6cf47a31ec.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T16:51:04 | null | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | Taiwan Democracy Watch yesterday called for amending the Constitution to allow President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to directly shape and answer for her policies, amid declining approval ratings for Tsai. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F27%2F2003653957.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/27/thumbs/P03-160827-2.jpg | en | null | Tsai needs power to push policies: democracy group | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
Taiwan Democracy Watch yesterday called for amending the Constitution to allow President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to directly shape and answer for her policies, amid declining approval ratings for Tsai.
“Tsai wants to get to work, but cannot find a way to do so,” the organization’s president Chen Chao-ju (陳昭如) told a news conference in Taipei that was held to review Tsai’s performance in her first 100 days in office since assuming the presidency on May 20.
As the nation’s administrative system grants Tsai power, but not the authority to implement policies, she had been stuck in a “constitutional daze,” in which she often has to resort to unconventional means to push policies, Chen said.
For example, Tsai gave the Executive Yuan instructions to establish a committee to promote transitional justice for Aborigines under the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Chen said, adding that Tsai has also reportedly berated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, mayors and commissioners at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting; invited Cabinet members to her residency for meetings; and held private “lunchbox meetings” with DPP lawmakers at the Presidential Office.
Citing Tsai’s apparent affinity to assemble a Cabinet featuring “old ‘blue’ men” and her controversial nomination of Hsieh Wen-ting (謝文定) as Judicial Yuan president last month, Chen criticized Tsai for “thinking that it would be okay if she botched something up.”
Hsieh, a former prosecutor, withdrew his nomination amid criticism about his controversial role in investigating several major cases during the nation’s authoritarian era.
Tsai’s performance in office has also suffered from her penchant for creating “plug-in” units, such as the pension reform committee, the Aboriginal historic and transitional justice committee and the planned truth and reconciliation committee, which suggests that Tsai has an over-reliance on meetings when governing the nation, Chen said.
Tsai has yet to show the public what her core values are, said Liu Ching-yi (劉靜怡), National Taiwan University professor and a director at the organization.
Citing as an example Tsai’s remark that she supports same-sex marriage, Liu said that Tsai has not made any efforts on that front since she assumed office.
The nation’s administrative system leaves the public wondering if Tsai still believes in the DPP’s core values, Liu said, citing as an example the government’s attempt to cancel seven national holidays, which contradicts the DPP’s value to protect workers’ interests.
“Tsai is trying to please everyone by seeking the greatest common interest for all parties, which is impossible if she wants to be true to her own values,” she said, adding that this mindset has prompted the public to criticize Tsai for taking “hairpin turns” in her policy directions.
Former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) echoed the organization’s call for constitutional reform, saying that the administrative system prevents the president from intervening in policy implementation.
As a result, Tsai can only meet with one or two ministers at a time at “lunchbox meetings,” which are only held once or twice a month, he said.
As many policies require intergovernmental efforts, this has led to poor cohesion among agencies, he said. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/27/2003653957 | en | 2016-08-27T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/db1ab9f46a725ff92579e1bcbed94067e4467faa1edbeb1c1620695770abe152.json |
[] | 2016-08-29T16:53:31 | null | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has landed on a very personal counterpunch to what she says is her Republican rival Donald Trump’s checkered business past: her dad. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F30%2F2003654175.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | Clinton changes tack, invokes father | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, WARREN, Michigan
Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has landed on a very personal counterpunch to what she says is her Republican rival Donald Trump’s checkered business past: her dad.
As Clinton works to undercut Trump’s economic record and promote her plans for small businesses, she is invoking memories of her late father’s Chicago drapery business.
Recalling Hugh Rodham hard at work making and printing curtains for hotels and office buildings, Clinton said that he would have been “stiffed” in a deal with the celebrity businessman.
“He expected to be paid when he showed up,” Clinton said recently during an event in Warren, Michigan. “He did the work. He paid for the supplies and the labor he often hired to help him on big jobs. I can’t imagine what would have happened to my father and his business if he had gotten a contract from Trump.”
Clinton hopes to remind voters that despite her years in public life that have left her a multimillionaire, she comes from a middle-class background and understands the life of a small-business owner.
She also wants to contrast her biography with that of Trump, who was raised by a successful real-estate developer and has drawn criticism for his treatment of small businesses during his career.
Trump has promoted his business record as a key qualification for the White House. However, Trump casinos failed on several occasions. When the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey went bankrupt in the early 1990s, some contractors who worked on the property went under because Trump’s company did not pay what they were owed, according to interviews with reporters.
In a statement, Clinton said her father’s business gave her “a sense of responsibility,” adding that she was “living proof that a successful small business is at the core of the basic bargain in America, that if you work hard and do your part, you can make your own dreams and those of your children a reality.”
Clinton has been pitching her plans to support small businesses and to make it easier to start a company.
On a conference call with small-business owners last week, she proposed a new tax deduction for small businesses and offered federal incentives to encourage state and local governments to streamline regulations.
A Scranton native, Clinton’s father moved to Chicago after graduating from college.
There he worked as a traveling salesman before enlisting in the Navy during World War II, Clinton writes in Living History.
When he returned from the war, he set up a drapery fabric business in Chicago, called Rodrik Fabrics, and later started a print plant on the city’s north side.
Rodham largely worked alone, but Clinton writes that she and her brothers helped when they were old enough.
The business did well enough for Rodham to buy a house in the leafy suburb of Park Ridge.
By all accounts, Rodham was a stern man, but he is also credited with instilling his daughter’s powerful work ethic and encouraging her ambition.
Clinton’s childhood friend Betsy Ebeling said Rodham “could be gruff but he could be very loving.”
“Her dad was one that, as Hillary likes to say, he was a chief petty officer, both in the Navy and at home,” Ebeling said. “He’d sit at the dinner table and he’d throw out these conversation things and wait for us to go: ‘No way.’ We really did learn to debate at his feet.” | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/30/2003654175 | en | 2016-08-30T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/d29b67e7ce49227045fb2950f5390c0abb1a14417452386f5073fcac8533bec6.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:54:01 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | Surrounded by smoke and flames, the sound of gunshots echoing around him, a young man crouched in the creek for hours, listening to the men in his family die. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Fworld%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654237.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/P06-160831-311.jpg | en | null | Report details 72 IS mass graves | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AP, HARDAN, Iraq
Surrounded by smoke and flames, the sound of gunshots echoing around him, a young man crouched in the creek for hours, listening to the men in his family die.
On the other side of the mountain, another survivor peered through binoculars as the handcuffed men of neighboring villages were shot and then buried by a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as the extremists filled one grave after another with his friends and relatives.
Between them, the two scenes of horror on Sinjar Mountain contain six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people, just a small fraction of the mass graves Islamic State (IS) extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria.
In exclusive interviews, photographs and research, The Associated Press (AP) has documented and mapped 72 of the mass graves, the most comprehensive survey so far, with many more expected to be uncovered as the Islamic State group’s territory shrinks.
In Syria, AP has obtained locations for 17 mass graves, including one with the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe all but exterminated when IS extremists took over their region. For at least 16 of the Iraqi graves, most in territory too dangerous to excavate, officials do not even guess the number of dead. In others, the estimates are based on memories of traumatized survivors, IS propaganda and what can be gleaned from a cursory look at the earth. Still, even the known victims buried are staggering — from 5,200 to more than 15,000.
Sinjar Mountain is dotted with mass graves, some in territory clawed back from IS after the group’s onslaught against the Yazidi minority in August 2014; others in the deadly no man’s land that has yet to be secured.
The bodies of Talal Murat’s father, uncles and cousins lie beneath the rubble of the family farm, awaiting a time when it is safe for surviving relatives to return to the place where the men were gunned down.
On Sinjar’s other flank, Rasho Qassim drives daily past the graves holding the bodies of his two sons. The road is in territory long since seized back, but the five sites are untouched, roped off and awaiting the money or the political will for excavation, as the evidence they contain is scoured away by the wind and baked by the sun.
“We want to take them out of here. There are only bones left. But they said ‘No, they have to stay there, a committee will come and exhume them later,’” said Qassim, standing at the edge of the flimsy fence surrounding one site, where his two sons are buried. “It has been two years but nobody has come.”
IS made no attempt to hide its atrocities. In fact it boasted of them. However, proving what UN officials and others have described as an ongoing genocide — and prosecuting those behind it — will be complicated as the graves deteriorate.
Then there are the graves still out of reach. IS atrocities extend well outside the Yazidi region in northern Iraq. Satellites offer the clearest look at massacres such as the one at Badoush Prison in June 2014 that left 600 male inmates dead. A patch of scraped earth and tire tracks show the likely killing site, according to exclusive photos obtained by the imagery intelligence firm AllSource Analysis.
Of the 72 mass graves documented by AP, the smallest contains three bodies; the largest is believed to hold thousands, but no one knows for sure. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/08/31/2003654237 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/be5da52daf3dbbdb76149e08985c4ebda10d3d9bdd2865c3680e03c7e85b8e63.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:10:16 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) yesterday urged the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to take better care of the horses it has used to produce antivenom for snakebites. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ftaiwan%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653900.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/logo.gif | en | null | KMT’s Apollo Chen voices concern for antivenom horses | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) yesterday urged the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to take better care of the horses it has used to produce antivenom for snakebites.
Earlier this month, the agency said that three horses that had been used to produce antivenom for more than a decade were being retired and sent to Cingjing Farm (清境農場) in Nantou County to live out the rest of their years.
The three government-owned horses had helped the agency produce nearly 4,500 doses of antivenom annually.
However, Chen said he had heard the horses were sold as work horses and sent to a horse farm in Tainan.
Seven other horses given to the Civil Affairs Office of what was then Sintu (新屋) in Taoyuan County in 2008 are missing, although one reportedly died in a fire at Sintu Horse Farm in 2010, he said.
The horses contributed so many years to helping save human lives, they should be given a better retirement, the way police dogs are, the lawmaker said.
“If using horses to produce antivenom is a necessary evil, then at least treat the horses kindly after they are retired,” Chen said.
The horses could be used in educational programs by allowing the public to see the damage done to their bodies from injections and blood drawing, which would help teach a respect for life, he said.
CDC Vaccine Center Director Chiang Cheng-jung (江正榮) said the horses usually live for 10 to 15 years after retirement, so the agency has sold or donated several since 2007 for tourism, educational or recreational purposes, but they must be treated according to the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法).
The three horses retired this month were sent to a horse farm in Tainan, which has said it would put them on display or use them for recreational activities after they training, Chiang said.
Chiang admitted that the CDC might have neglected to keep track of its retired horses, which might have been resold or relocated. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/08/26/2003653900 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/5982d6eebc965a97fd19cd432aadde28421b5bb3a757169a4f9d91da4e505011.json |
[] | 2016-08-26T13:04:23 | null | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | Robert Montano may be known as the tattooed chef at Twinkeyz Tacos who sous-vides a killer carne asada, but he’ll be serving a five-course vegan meal at NakedFood on the evening of Sept. 3. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffeat%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F26%2F2003653874.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/26/thumbs/p13-160826-sec1.jpg | en | null | Five courses of vegan | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | By Dana Ter / Staff reporter
Robert Montano may be known as the tattooed chef at Twinkeyz Tacos who sous-vides a killer carne asada, but he’ll be serving a five-course vegan meal at NakedFood on the evening of Sept. 3.
Montano, who is always greeting diners at Twinkeyz and asking them if the flavors are to their liking, won’t be hiding in the kitchen the entire night at NakedFood, either. He’ll be making the rounds, sharing with participants his story.
“As a child I was always fascinated with my mom’s cooking,” the Californian-bred Montano tells the Taipei Times.
“Growing up in a house with three brothers I was the only one ever willing to help out in the kitchen.”
It wasn’t until he was injured from a motorcycle accident that he seriously considered cooking as a career.
“My parents asked me if I’ve ever thought about going to culinary school,” says Montano. “That’s how it all started.”
Since then, he’s been traveling the world, working under chefs such as Joan Roca in Spain, and the Los Angeles-based Michael Voltaggio, who won the sixth season of the reality TV show, Top Chef.
Four years ago, Montano found himself in Taipei for what was supposed to be a six-month stint. It was during this time that he ended up eating guabao (割包), or pork belly buns, a Taiwanese delicacy, nearly five times a week. It’s also what inspired the guabao remix taco at Twinkeyz.
“I’m so lucky to have been able to travel and work abroad,” says Montano. “It adds authenticity, I feel, to what I do.”
That being said, he despises the word “fusion.”
“It sounds cheap,” he says.
Growing in multicultural Los Angeles, he prefers the term, “Californian cuisine.”
“We take elements of what we know and what we’ve tasted and often design menus around this.”
Event Notes What: One Night with Chef Robert Montano When: Sept. 3, from 7:30pm to 9pm Where: NakedFood, 22-1, Ln 160, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市新生南路一段160巷22-1號) Admission: Tickets are NT$1,500, purchase online before Wednesday at nkdfood.delicioustaipei.com under “event” On the net: nkdfood.delicioustaipei.com
Full descriptions of each course are available on the NakedFood Web site and includes curried cauliflower couscous pumpkin falafel and Thai coconut crumble with coconut mousse.
Tickets are NT$1,500 per person, but be sure to secure your place fast, as there are only three spaces left as of Thursday evening.
To secure your place at the dinner, RSVP online at nkdfood.delicioustaipei.com. Tickets are NT$1,500. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2016/08/26/2003653874 | en | 2016-08-26T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/a20d59002d77e7b584d61108a8671bf7edb1b99309f5c5d3f03f095122a388b6.json |
[] | 2016-08-30T16:53:28 | null | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | At least five people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a popular hotel close to the presidential palace in Mogadishu yesterday. | http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taipeitimes.com%2FNews%2Ffront%2Farchives%2F2016%2F08%2F31%2F2003654211.json | http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/08/31/thumbs/p01-160831-321.jpg | en | null | Car bomb attack kills at least five in Mogadishu | null | null | www.taipeitimes.com | AFP, MOGADISHU
At least five people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a popular hotel close to the presidential palace in Mogadishu yesterday.
“We have confirmed five people killed including security guards”, police officer Mohamed Abdulkadir said, adding that 10 others were wounded.
He said the vehicle rammed through a checkpoint and was fired on by security forces before it exploded.
“The blast was very huge, but thanks to God the number of casualties is less than the devastation suggests,” Abdulkadir said.
A witness described seeing a large blast and a thick plume of smoke that rose high into the air.
“I saw a car speeding towards the area and huge smoke and fire went up in the sky,” Elmi Ahmed said.
A reporter at the scene described widespread damage to buildings in the area.
The al-Qaeda aligned al-Shabaab group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that militants targeted the SYL hotel because it “is close to the presidential palace, and also home to apostates and unbelievers.”
The fortified hotel, popular with government officials, businesspeople and visiting diplomats and delegations, was previously attacked in both February this year and January last year.
The January last year attack killed at least five people when a suicide car bomber rammed the hotel gates on the eve of a visit by Turlish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In February this year 14 people were killed when twin blasts were triggered close to the hotel and the neighboring Peace Garden on a busy Friday afternoon.
Both attacks were also claimed by al-Shabaab, which quit the capital five years ago, but continues to launch attacks against government, military, civilian and foreign targets in its fight to overthrow the internationally-backed government.
The group is expected to try and violently disrupt elections due to be held next month and October.
The extremists have also staged repeated attacks in Kenya and a recent security analysis warned the group was expanding its horizons with cells active in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia. | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/08/31/2003654211 | en | 2016-08-31T00:00:00 | www.taipeitimes.com/72d05f45d82894f3da24b200ebcfe4a206c206a539dcf79172dd875fea26354f.json |
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