China claims a Taiwanese man worked with Chinese nationals to develop plans of action and establish an illegal ring that aimed to subvert Beijing.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/27
By: Central News Agency

Nearly 70 days after Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) was first detained in

China, the Chinese government announced Friday that he has been arrested on charges of “subversion of state power.”

An Fengshan (安峰山), spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), said Lee has been detained in Hunan Province since March 19 and that he and “his partners in crime have confessed directly that they carried out activities that threaten our country’s national security.”

The spokesman claimed that an investigation into the case found that Lee had frequently traveled to and from China since 2012 and worked with Chinese nationals to develop plans of action and establish an illegal ring that aimed to subvert Beijing.

No other details of what Lee specifically did were provided.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/27
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

EZ10, the very first Level 4 autonomous shuttle finally arrived in Taiwan on Friday. National Taiwan University (NTU) takes the lead to announce an Industry-University Cooperation with 7Starlake, a global consulting firm specialized in smart transportation and self-driving technology.

Through the establishment of “A.I. driverless vehicle R&D team”, NTU & 7Starlake are going to build up testing area and combine the R&D and system integration of optical-mechanical-electrical core technology, in which professors of NTU College of Engineering and EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) devote themselves in; plus driverless A.I. Key Function Module; looking forward to take the preemptive opportunities of driverless technology for wide application in future global trend.

NTU President Pan-Chyr Yang mentioned in the press conference “ ‘A.I. driverless vehicle R&D team’ is cored on the cross-domain research team led by professors of NTU College of Engineering and EECS, working on the research and development of A.I. self-driving vehicle technology. Combining with local industries of automobile electronics, information communication technology, and research unit, we expect to create an A.I. self-driving technology which is suitable for different routes and traffic type in metropolitan and suburban in Taiwan.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/27
By: Lu Hsin-hui and Romulo Huang

Taipei, May 27 (CNA) China’s efforts to block Taiwan’s participation in this year’s World

Health Assembly (WHA) have damaged cross-Taiwan Strait relations to some extent, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Saturday.

Tsai made the comment in a meeting with Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who returned to the Taipei earlier in the day from Geneva, where the WHA meeting is being held. Chen and a delegation went to Geneva to hold talks with representatives of participating countries on the sidelines of the WHA, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization.

“Taiwanese people have a universal human right to participate in the WHA,” Tsai said, adding that Taiwan’s participation should not be affected by any political factors.
[FULL  STORY]

‘NOT THE LAST’:As Lee is the first Taiwanese to be charged with ‘subversion of state power’ in China, the government has the responsibility to take action, groups said

Taipei Times
Date: May 28, 2017
By: Aaron Tu and Huang Hsin-po / Staff reporters, with CNA

Beijing late on Friday announced that Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che

(李明哲) is being held for suspected subversion of state power.

The Ministry of Justice yesterday demanded that Beijing inform Taipei of Lee’s condition based on a cross-strait agreement to combat crime and cooperate on legal matters.

After the Chinese Ministry of State Security announced that Lee had been arrested, the justice ministry said it sent an e-mail to the Chinese Supreme People’s Procuratorate demanding that Lee’s physical health, security and litigation rights be protected during the investigation.

It said it also called on the Chinese authorities to allow Lee’s relatives to visit him and to release him immediately after the investigation’s completion.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 27, 2017
By: The China Post

A special unit consisting of members of the Criminal Investigation Bureau’s 2nd

Investigation Corp and the New Taipei City Government’s Police Group ambushed five suspected United Bamboo Union members at their homes on Tuesday morning.

The United Bamboo Union is the largest of Taiwan’s three main Triad groups, which are transnational organized crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and other organized crime. The men belong to a division of the union known as the tienlongpang (天龍幫).

The special unit has been investigating these five men, one of whom is prime suspect Chiu Hung-ju, since March of last year under suspicions that they were involved in violent debt collection in New Taipei City and Taoyuan.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 26, 2017
By: CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Law enforcement authorities seized nearly 700 kilograms of heroin with

a street value of around NT$10 billion (US$332.17 million) on a fishing boat off the outlying county of Kinmen on Friday, the largest maritime seizure of heroin in recent years.

Acting on a tip-off, prosecutors led investigators, police and Coast Guard officers to intercept the Pingtung-registered fishing boat 12.5 nautical miles southeast of Wuqiu Island at around 5 a.m. as it was trying to smuggle the drug into Taiwan, according to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office.

A total of 1,800 bricks of heroin with a combined weight of 693 kg were found on the boat, the office said.    [FULL  STORY]

China’s refusal to allow Taiwan into the world’s biggest annual health meeting has ironically resulted in Taiwan becoming the center of attention, says a Taiwan researcher who was at the forum in Geneva.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Kai-Yuan (Kyle) Cheng

As the World Health Assembly (WHA) convened in Geneva on May 22, Taiwan was not

given observer status for the first time since 2009.

As happens at each assembly, researchers, students, civil society members and individuals from around the world who are not part of a national delegation also gathered in Geneva to attend the meeting as public attendees to engage in discussions and collect up-to-date information on various global health topics.

This year, given the unique circumstances facing Taiwan – it did not receive an invitation because of pressure from China – the country’s government officials joined the queue of people lining up to request badges to enter the venue.    [FULL  STORY]

First female squadron leader in Taiwan allegedly harassed by President bodyguard

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Judy Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Chen Yueh-fang (陳月芳) , Taiwan’s first female squadron leader,

filed a sexual harassment complaint against one of President Tsai Ing-wen’s bodyguards.

In late April, the air force colonel Chen filed a sexual harassment complaint to Liu Chih-pin (劉志斌), Tsai’s aide-de-camp, but he only reassigned the bodyguard in question Colonel Yang Wen-chih (楊文志) to Special Service Command Center, and did not handle the sexual harassment allegations.

Chen and her husband questioned Liu had intentionally downplayed the incident to protect Yang.

Yang, a personal bodyguard of Tsai was allegedly sending Chen inappropriate images and text messages via messenger App Line, and attempted to block her way at parking lots and toilets.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Chiu Chun-chin and Y.F. Low

Taipei, May 26 (CNA) The first two phases of work on building a third terminal at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport got off the ground Friday, with the entire project scheduled to be completed in 2020, the airport company said.

The work that began Friday involved the foundation as well as aprons, taxiways and facilities of the new terminal, Taoyuan Airport Corp. (TAC) said.

According to TAC Chairman Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁), the project is divided into 13 parts, and the other 11 parts will be contracted out soon.

All construction work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020, paving the way for operations to begin in mid-2021, Tseng said.    [FULL  STORY]

‘THEY WANT TO STAY’:Two suspects said the children were sent by their parents to live in Taiwan, as the conditions in the nation are better than those in Vietnam

The China Post
Datge: May 27, 2017
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials yesterday said they have broken up a child-

smuggling ring where forged documents were allegedly used to bring Vietnamese children into Taiwan to work on farms in the nation’s central and southern regions.

Investigators found that at least 17 Vietnamese children were involved in the case.

Eleven of them, three boys and eight girls between the ages of five and 13, had been brought into the nation to live with people posing as their parents, they said.

“We arrested 17 couples, comprised of Taiwanese men and Vietnamese women, during the raids over the past few days,” NIA Taichung City Specialized Operation Brigade Captain Lin Jui-lin (林瑞麟) said.    [FULL  STORY]