Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/05
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and William Yen

Taipei, Dec. 5 (CNA) The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) said Tuesday that starting next

CNA file photo

year, it will adjust the standard used to calculate the maximum reimbursement paid to Taiwan nationals who receive urgent or emergency medical care overseas.

When the new standard is adopted with effect from Jan. 1, 2018, reimbursements will be calculated based on the average cost of similar medical care at Taiwan’s various levels of health facilities, the NHIA said.

Currently reimbursements to people with National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage who receive urgent or emergency health care overseas are calculated based on the cost of care at Taiwan’s medical centers, its top tier health institutions.

The maximum reimbursement in various categories of care is assessed every three months and this will continue when the new formula is adopted, NHIA official Lin Pao-feng (林寶鳳) said.    [FULL STORY]

KMT UNHAPPY:KMT lawmakers said the DPP has undermined the nation’s political system by creating an agency with administrative, judicial and investigative powers

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 06, 2017
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), which aims to remove authoritarian-era

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sra Kacaw lobs a water bottle in the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday to protest the absence of a proposal covering Aboriginal land now held by the government in the transitional justice bill.  Photo: CNA

symbols and retry cases of injustice from that era, was passed by the Legislative Yuan yesterday evening.

The act is aimed at addressing injustices perpetrated by then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government between Aug. 15, 1945, when the Japanese government announced it had surrendered, to 1991, when the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization Against Communist Rebellion (動員勘亂時期臨時條款) were abolished.

A nine-member Transitional Justice Promotion Committee is to be created, to be overseen by the Executive Yuan, with its chairman nominated by the premier and approved by at least half of the members of the Legislative Yuan.

The committee is also to address and utilize ill-gotten political party assets, but its purview will not include items already covered by the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理).    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-12-04

Taiwan’s air force says it is continuing to search for a Mirage 2000 that went missing on November 7th off

Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan asks for prayers for the lost pilot. (CNA)

Taiwan’s northeastern coast.

The aircraft, piloted by by Captain Ho Tzu-yu, was on a routine training mission out of Hsinchu Air Force Base when it vanished off radar screens in the dark of night. The pilot is also missing and presumed dead.

Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan told lawmakers on Monday that poor weather conditions have hampered the search.

Meanwhile, an air force official said search teams cannot locate a signal for the black box, or flight data recorder, in the area where they believed it was located. The official says the air force will continue and expand its search mission, using sonar.     [FULL  STORY]

The Golden Pin Design Award has some interesting stuff to show but stretches the point of design in asking for connections to Chinese culture.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/12/04
By: Morley James Weston

It’s easy to lament Taiwan’s woes in design and marketing; the country has a dearth of internationally

Credit: Golden Pin

recognized brands and uses the same skyscraper on every promotional brochure, but the government is working to pull the country out of this slump with a well-funded award promising access to the Sinosphere’s growing middle class.

The Golden Pin Design Award is hosting a ceremony on Dec. 7 in tandem with an exhibition at Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park’s Taiwan Design Museum that will run through Feb. 25.

The main selling point of this exhibition is variety; visitors can nod thoughtfully at designs for fonts and entire movie theaters in the same context. A cassette player offering a “fresh user experience” is displayed alongside a three-wheeled motorcycle, a menstrual cup and an external hard drive.

Variety aside, the competition’s defining feature is that it is intended for the Chinese-speaking, or huaren, world, and is sold as offering “entrants an unprecedented opportunity to prove their prowess in the world’s largest market.” One can’t help but think that the world’s largest market is in fact global, but there you are.    [FULL  STORY]

NO HARD FEELINGS:The premier said he ‘appreciated the creativity’ of protesters and would not pursue charges against those who placed stickers on public signs

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 05, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

It is necessary to revise the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), as last year’s amendment has had a

Premier William Lai speaks during an interview yesterday on Hit FM’s Voice of Taipei radio show.  Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times

negative effect on salaries, with about 11 percent of employees planning to seek part-time work to earn extra income, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.

The “one fixed day off and one rest day” workweek scheme, promulgated in December last year, has negatively affected 19 percent of the workforce, Lai said during an interview, adding that among them, 60 percent want to work part-time to earn extra income.

Businesses have either downsized or hired part-time employees due to overtime restrictions and there are even agencies helping businesses recruit employees from other firms to help with overtime demand, Lai said.

“We need to propose solutions to these problems,” he said.

While some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have opposed a draft amendment proposed by the Cabinet, Lai said that all lawmakers — including DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬), who has vehemently opposed the latest proposal — must have heard complaints about the lack of workweek flexibility from employers and employees alike.    [FULL  STORY]

Koichi Yoshida isn’t an actor — he’s a tourism promoter with a big personality

Nikkei Asian Review
Date: December 3, 2017
By: Kosuke Shimizu, Nikkei staff writer

TOKYO — He is known as the most famous Japanese in Taiwan.

Tourists from Taiwan and Hong Kong gather at a Tokyo sushi restaurant to dine with Koichi Yoshida, whose Japan tourism information site attracts over 1 million users a month.

Koichi Yoshida is the president of Tokyo-based Geelee Media Group, which operates a tourist information website for Taiwanese planning to visit his country. He has repeatedly appeared on TV in Taiwan, and followers of his Facebook account total more than 600,000.

To find out more about the man, I joined a visit to a Tokyo izakaya bar-restaurant he organized for tourists in late November. I arrived a little ahead of the 8 p.m. start, giving us time to chat.

The venue was Sushi Darihan, a minute’s walk from Yoyogi Station. Yoshida said that when he is staying in Tokyo, he comes to this sushi restaurant every three days.

Although he called it a tour, it was in fact more like a dinner during which fans could spend time with the star drinking, eating and talking. [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-12-03

Two students and a teacher from Taipei City University of Science and Technology won a gold medal and

A cell phone scale

a special prize at the 2017 Seoul International Invention Fair over the weekend. Their winning entry was a cell phone scale which can be used to weigh things. (CNA photo provided by TPCU)

Taiwan was the biggest winner at the 2017 Seoul International Invention Fair, which concluded on Sunday. Inventors from Taiwan walked away with 33 gold medals, 40 silvers, and 27 bronzes, along with seven special prizes.

The invention fair kicked off last Thursday in the South Korean capital, featuring 632 entries submitted by 30 countries.

The Taiwan Invention Association said that nearly a fifth of the entries – 124 in total – came from Taiwan. That was the highest of any participating country.    [FULL  STORY]

Case involves former NIA officials, bribery, and a potentially compromised automated border control information system used by the agency

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/12/03
By:  Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Some top former officials at the National Immigration Agency (NIA) are

Image: Pixabay.

under criminal investigation, it was announced by CNA on Sunday Dec. 3.

The investigation is looking into the possibility of corruption, and bribery related to the purchase of a potentially compromised automated border control (ABC) system, which may have put national security at risk.

Current regulations in Taiwan forbid government agencies from purchasing or using information services or products originating from China or involving Chinese intermediaries.

The ABC system is valued at NT$ 52 million, or about US$ 1.73 million dollars.    [FULL  STORY]