Nigeria Trade Office lacks funds to relocate out of Taipei and may be forced to close instead

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/08/03
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Nigeria’s de facto embassy in Taipei, the Nigeria Trade Office, has hit a stumbling block in relocating outside of Taiwan’s capital city, it lacks the funding to make the move.

Nigeria’s government says due to financial difficulties it has faced recently, it lacks the necessary funds to move the office out of Taipei, and may be forced to close it down entirely instead.

In January, Nigeria ordered Taiwan to move its office out of the capital to its most populous city, Lagos, as well as change the name of the office, apparently under pressure from China. On June 30, Nigeria sent 25 armed police to shut down Taiwan’s representative office in Abuja by force.

The next day, in retaliation, Taiwan demanded that Nigeria relocate its office outside of Taipei.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/08/03
By: Elaine Hou

Taipei, Aug. 3 (CNA) The number of Taiwanese fraud suspects deported to China from Indonesia has been confirmed as 18 not 22 as initially reported, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday night.

In an update on the incident, the ministry cited information provided by Taiwan’s representative office in Indonesia, saying that 18 Taiwanese were part of a total of 143 telecom fraud suspects deported to China from the Southeast Asian country, where they were recently arrested in an extensive crackdown.

Taiwan’s representative office in Indonesia protested the decision by the Indonesian authorities to deport Taiwanese to China, according to a statement issued by the office.    [FULL  STORY]

BOSS ON STAND:Jaw Shaw-kong said he was a witness and Ma Ying-jeou was the defendant after the ill-gotten assets committee’s bid to reopen the case succeeded

Taipei Times
Date; Aug 04, 2017
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has reopened a probe into allegations of

financial fraud stemming from the sale of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets in 2005 and yesterday summoned Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC, 中廣) chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) for questioning.

Former KMT administration and management committee director Chang Che-chen (張哲琛) and Wang Hai-ching (汪海清), a former general manager of KMT-controlled Central Investment Co (中央投資公司), were also summoned.
Before entering the prosecutors’ office, Jaw told reporters that he was listed as a witness in the case.

“The defendant is [former president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),” Jaw said.

Prosecutors have been looking into the sale of three major KMT-owned media companies — BCC, the nation’s largest radio broadcasting network at the time, China Television Co (CTV, 中視) and Central Motion Picture Corp (CMPC, 中影), which came during Ma’s first term as party chairman from 2005 to 2007.

The sales prompted accusations of questionable practices and deceptive reporting on the actual value of the assets.   [FULL  STORY]

 

The China Post
Date: August 3, 2017
By: The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Taiwan Futures Exchange (台灣期貨) had a rough Thursday

morning after a trading error wiped out nearly NT$21 million (US$700,000).

It started at 8:45 a.m., when a fat-fingered trader from President Securities Corp. (統一證券) accidentally placed two large sell orders, sending the index from 10,328 points to 10,274.

Those initial two selloffs automatically triggered stop-loss orders, which sell off a stock if it dips below a certain price.

This sent the index plummeting further to 9,408 — a loss of NT$20.82 million.

The index stabilized as what had happened became clear and recovered to 10,415 points, down 38 points or 0.39 percent.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/08/02
By: Chen Wei-ting, Liao Yu-yang and CNA intern William Yen

Taipei, Aug. 2 (CNA) Extremely heavy rain of 85 millimeters per hour was recorded at Zhongzheng Bridge in Taipei Wednesday afternoon, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

New Taipei’s Xindian District and Taoyuan’s Guishan District also recorded precipitation of 70 mm per hour.

In four hours, afternoon thunderstorms brought 52-124mm of rainfall to Zhongzheng Bridge, Gongguan and the CWB headquarters in Taipei; 50-96.5mm to Xindian and Yonghe districts in New Taipei; and 43.5-86mm to Guishan and Taoyuan districts in Taoyuan, the CWB said.

The bureau had issued an extremely heavy rain advisory for Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan at around 2 p.m.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-08-01

The Ministry of National Defense has said Taiwan will not get into an arms war with

China. That’s after China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) showed off some of its most advanced hardware at the weekend.

Communist Party chief Xi Jinping carried out a troop review at a massive parade in Inner Mongolia. The parade was intended to mark the 90th anniversary of the PLA’s founding. Among the hardware on display were the J-16 fighter jet, the J-20 stealth fighter and the country’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile.

Video footage revealed that the Zhurihe military base in Inner Mongolia also features a mockup of Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building. The building was seen as a backdrop to the parade and is presumably used for invasion drills.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/08/01
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—The youngest massive prize winner in Taiwan Lottery’s history

was a 19-year-old female student, winning NT$350 million (about US$11.5 million), Taiwan Lottery chairman Haung Chih-yi (黃志宜) said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Taiwan Lottery announced a breakdown of massive prize winners in the first half of 2017. After the announcement, Huang told reporters that the youngest massive prize winner Taiwan Lottery ever received was the 19-year-old. He said that the student won the prize in the early days of Taiwan Lottery, and she immediately used the prize money to go to Australia to study. On the other hand, the oldest winner of a massive Taiwan Lottery prize was an 80-year-old man, he said.

There’s no surefire secret to winning the lottery except for buying, Huang said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/08/01
By: Justin Su and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Aug. 1 (CNA) A delegation from Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan met with U.S. Representative Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in California on Monday to exchange views on a wide range of issues.

The delegation, consisting of members of the Legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, discussed arms sales to Taiwan and Taiwan’s participation in international organizations during the one-hour meeting with Royce in Los Angeles.

They also touched on measures to rescue Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who has been detained by China since March 19, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Taiwan policy, the situation in Asia, and cyberattacks, according to a post on Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ding-yu’s (王定宇) Facebook page.
[FULL  STORY]

TSAI CRITICIZED:Filmmaker Mayaw Biho said the Cabinet should set up a committee like the one probing the KMT’s assets to look into the deprivation of Aboriginal rights

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 02, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

Aboriginal rights campaigners yesterday condemned the government for having not

carried out a promise to reinstate traditional Aboriginal territories, and they demanded that an independent agency be established to restore Aboriginal rights to land and transitional justice.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 1 last year delivered a landmark apology to Taiwan’s Aborigines for their deprivation of rights in the hundreds of years since the mass migration of Han people began.

She promised to reinstate land rights, self-determination, economic development, cultural and language preservation and other rights protection.

Tsai yesterday said the government has worked to preserve Aboriginal languages and culture by immersing Aboriginal preschoolers and students in a learning environment where their native languages are spoken.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: August 1, 2017
By: The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has said the city government’s HQ

won’t follow the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office in shutting down its air-conditioning around midday.

The two government bodies said Monday that they would switch off air conditioning in their offices from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. for two weeks to conserve electricity.

Ko said he didn’t think the repercussions of the idea were reasonable.

If the AC were to be turned off, where could city employees go to get away from the heat in the meantime, the mayor asked.

Although the AC will remain on in City Hall, Ko said, thermostats will be turned to 28 degrees Celsius.    [FULL  STORY]