Chen Shih-hsien jumped to his death Saturday morning from a residential building in Kaohsiung

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/06/22
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The owner of a Taiwanese ship implicated in illegally providing oil to North Koreanin 2017, committed suicide on Saturday (June 22), it was confirmed by authorities in Kaohsiung.

Chen Shih-hsien (陳世憲) jumped from the sixth floor of a residential building in Kaohsiung’s Yancheng Dsitrict (鹽埕區) around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. He died instantly upon impact.

Chen was the owner of the Billions Bunker Group which was the company responsible for a tanker vessel, the Lighthouse Winmore, involved in sanctions violations for providing fuel to North Korea. The Lighthouse Winmore was registered in Hong Kong, and is suspected of providing fuel to North Korea on multiple occasions in 2017 before being discovered by South Korean and U.S. authorities.

In addition to the sanctions violations, Chen was also found guilty for lying about the activities of his company to investigators. UDN reports that Chen had also previously made death threats against a Deputy Minister of Justice, Chen Ming-Tang (陳明堂), as well as his family.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/06/22
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, June 22 (CNA) A strike by EVA Airways flight attendants continued on Saturday, with the airline announcing that it will cancel 113 flights on Sunday, affecting roughly 24,000 passengers.

EVA Air said 54 out of 93 flights departing from Taiwan will be canceled, including 45 from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, two from Taipei Songshan Airport, five from Taichung Shui-nan Airport and two from Kaohsiung International Airport — affecting about 11,600 passengers.

At the same time, 59 out of 95 flights returning to Taiwan will be canceled — 50 to Taoyuan, two to Taipei, five to Taichung, and two to Kaohsiung — impacting 13,000 passengers, the carrier said.

The airline has been able to maintain 40 percent of its flight capacity over the weekend, with 112 out of 177 flights canceled on Saturday.    [FULL  STORY]

DISPUTE: A travel agents’ association called on EVA and its flight attendants to resume talks, saying that consumers and agents were the victims in the squabble

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 23, 2019
By: Yang Mien-chieh  /  Staff reporter

The Travel Agent Association of Taiwan is considering whether to hold a protest tomorrow against EVA

Airways (長榮航空) and its flight attendants who are on strike.

EVA flight attendants launched industrial action at 4pm on Thursday after negotiations with airline management broke down earlier in the day.

Association members plan to call a meeting tomorrow to discuss what the next step should be in response to the strike, association chairman Hsiao Po-jen (蕭博仁) said yesterday, adding that they do not rule out mobilizing more than 500 people for a demonstration in front of the airline’s headquarters in Taoyuan’s Nankan District (南崁) to protest the company and the striking flight attendants.

“We hope the airline and the flight attendants can resume talks soon,” Hsiao said.    FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 21 June, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

The Taipei Computer Association announced a series of guidelines on Friday that seeks to limit the spread of disinformation online. Behind the conception of the rulebook are social media industry heavyweights like Google, Facebook, LINE, and Yahoo.

The guidelines outline four major directions and 13 codes of practice to help the public identify online disinformation. Legal advisor for the Taipei Computer Association, Huang Yi-feng, says that combatting disinformation with current legal mechanisms is difficult. Huang says that is why the need for public awareness is so urgent.

Huang says that social media outlets’ hands are tied when it comes to dealing with disinformation, as free speech laws limit how these platforms can restrict problematic posts. Huang says the best way to handle disinformation is to educate the public on how to recognize it and stop its spread.
[FULL  STORY]

CNBC
Date: Jun 21 2019
By: Huileng Tan

KEY POINTS

• Recent massive Hong Kong protests against the territory’s China extradition bill has bolstered Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s political position.
• Tsai won her party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential election, overturning previously unfavorable polls.
• China prefers the opposition Kuomintang party, which avoids talk of going it alone and instead, stresses economic ties with the mainland

The sentiment that has overwhelmed Hong Kong over the China extradition bill in the past weeks has spilled over to neighboring Taiwan, pushing relations with China to the forefront of upcoming general elections.

“Beijing holds out Hong Kong’s One Country, Two Systems arrangement as the model for eventual unification with Taiwan, which it claims as its own,” Ben Bland, a researcher at Australian think tank Lowy Institute, wrote in a recent note published online.  “But (Taiwanese) President Tsai Ing-wen was using the extradition bill, and the massive protests in Hong Kong, to highlight once again why her country must keep its distance from China if it is to remain a vibrant democracy.”

Beijing views self-governed Taiwan as a province that has gone astray, and has been using increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward the island to push for a reunification after a civil war 70 years ago split the two territories.

Now, issues of independence has been thrust under the spotlight in Taiwan after massive protests took place in the streets of Hong Kong over a contentious bill that would allow accused criminals to be extradited to China. Citizens fear that the plan would threaten Hong Kong’s autonomy.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/06/21
By:  Central News Agency

Taipei, (CNA) The 22nd indigenous case of dengue fever in Kaohsiung this year has been confirmed, with the female patient being hospitalized after seeking medical treatment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Friday.

The woman in her 40s who lives in the city's Sanmin District was found to have been infected with dengue virus type 4, following an NS1 antigen test (nonstructural protein 1) for the disease at a hospital, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said.

She was then required to be hospitalized.

According to Chuang, the woman first sought medical treatment on Wednesday after developing a fever, muscle pain, headaches and joint pain, but the treatment prescribed was ineffective.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/06/21
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, June 21 (CNA) More than 1,400 out of some 4,200 EVA Airways flight attendants participated in a strike that began Thursday following the collapse of management-labor talks and leading to the cancellation of 16 EVA Air flights, the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union (TFAU) said Friday.

Some 1,400 union members turned in their passports, their Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents and their EVA Air employee identification cards to the union to commit that they will not work for the company during the strike, the union said.

"The level of participation was higher than we had expected," said TFAU Secretary-General Cheng Ya-ling (鄭雅菱).

While the carrier managed to keep half of its 32 flights operating through midnight Thursday after the surprise strike, around 40 percent of its 191 flights were expected to be canceled throughout Friday, affecting 15,000 passengers.    [FULL  STORY]

MORE DISRUPTION:The airline said that today it would have to cancel a further 59 outbound flights and 53 inbound flights, which would affect 23,200 passengers

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 22, 2019
By: Kao Shih-ching and Jason Pan  /  Staff reporters

EVA Airways (長榮航空) yesterday filed a lawsuit at the Taipei District Court against the Taoyuan

Flight Attendants’ Union, saying that the union had contravened the Act for Settlement of Labor-Management Disputes (勞資爭議處理法).

The union secured the right to hold a strike after 4,038 members, of whom 2,949 were EVA attendants, on June 7 voted in favor of industrial action, meeting the two thresholds of more than 50 percent of union members and 80 percent of EVA members.

However, EVA said that the union might have breached the act, as it said one of the reasons it launched the strike was the airline’s rejection of its request to employ a labor director, EVA head of legal affairs Morris Hsu (許惠森) told the Taipei Times by telephone.

According to articles 5 and 53 of the act, a strike is only permitted for disputes regarding maintaining or changing the terms and conditions of employment, Hsu said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 20 June, 2019
By: Jake Chen

Seven-year old Hsieh Pei-po has recovered from injuries sustained in last year’s Puyuma railway disaster and will return to school in September.

On October 21, last year, a Puyuam Express train headed for Taitung derailed while rounding a bend at high speeds. Four of its eight train cars tipped over in the crash. 18 were killed and another187 injured.

Hsieh suffered multiple injuries in the crash and fell into a four-month coma. During his latest visit to the hospital, Hsieh appeared to be in good spirit. Doctor say his recovery is on track.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan English News
Date: June 20, 2019 
By: Phillip Charlier

Police in Changhua County are attempting to identify a body found head-first in a hole at a cemetery in Hemei Township on June 15.

Police received a report at around 8:00am on Saturday morning that a passerby had spotted a man’s legs sticking out of a hole above a grave in the Jiaboa public cemetery.

Investigators found a decomposing body in the 90-centimeter-deep, 50×70-centimeter-wide hole. The deceased was shirtless, and wearing jeans. Beside the body was a shovel, and a case containing various tools. The hole was situated directly above a coffin.

Police said that the body was of a middle-aged male, about 170 centimeters tall, slightly balding, with missing teeth.    [FULL  STORY]