The China Post
Date: May 14, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan reportedly is among the worst-hit countries in a massive

cyberattack, but the extent of damage inflicted here by the ransomware, WannaCry, remained uncertain as of Saturday.

A researcher, Jakub Kroustek, with the cyber security firm Avast tweeted that Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan have seen the greatest numbers of attacks by WannaCry, whose variants include WannaCrypt.

“This is huge,” he wrote.

The local PTT electronic bulletin board system was infected by WannaCry, with some users posting screenshots of their infected computers with messages demanding ransoms in the virtual currency Bitcoins.    [FULL  STORY]

Lack of restoration and maintenance after working out can lead to serious injuries, and Taiwan startup U-GYM is aiming to help in maintaining daily health care.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/12
By: Olivia Yang

The tagline goes, “Use it anywhere, anytime, on the spot.”

This probably would seem cliche for any many products but what about for a portable electrotherapy machine? That is what Taiwan startup U-GYM is offering.

Mark Yu (余福浩), founder and CEO of U-GYM, says that rest and maintenance after working out is actually more important than doing the exercise.

U-GYM helps people massage and relax their muscles right after working out to prevent injuries, and is as effective as receiving electrotherapy at a chiropractor. It is also one of the startups showcasing in TechCrunch Disrupt NY this year.
[FULL  STORY]

Traffic fines can be paid at Seven Eleven and Family Mart over a course up to 18 months interest-free

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/12
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — ​Directorate General of Highways (DGH), Ministry of

Transportation and Communication announced Friday that traffic fines can be paid at Seven Eleven and Family Mart over a course up to 18 months — by interest-free installments starting June 15th.

Under the current rule, drivers can pay their traffic ticket at convenience store, post office, bank, traffic adjudication office, or by using Internet and voice mail.

The DGH said the new service aims to open a more convenient channel of payment for drivers.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/12
By: Chang Min-hsuen, Tang Pei-chun, Huang Hsu-shen and Ko Lin

Taipei, May 12 (CNA) Taiwan is part of a global health community and it will continue to contribute its expertise and experiences with the international community, despite being kept out of the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Friday.

In an event to celebrate this year’s International Nurses Day in Taipei, Tsai thanked the nation’s medical staff for their services in the field and for safeguarding Taiwan’s health and welfare.

At a time when Taiwan has been excluded from the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting scheduled to be held later this month in Geneva, Tsai said the island has a lot to contribute to the global health community and therefore health issues should not be politicized.    [FULL  STORY]

KMT ABSENCE:The DPP called for cross-caucus talks, hoping for a legislature-wide consensus condemning China’s action, but the main opposition party stayed away

Taipei Times
Date: May 13, 2017
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter, with CNA

The WHO yesterday left open the possibility that Taiwan could still attend its World

Health Assembly (WHA), saying talks are continuing, despite China’s insistence that a delegation from Taiwan be excluded for the first time since 2009.

The WHA, the decisionmaking body of the WHO, on Monday closed its online registration for the May 22 to 31 event.

Taiwan’s exclusion is widely seen as the latest move by China to clamp down on the nation’s international participation.

Tim Armstrong, who heads the WHO’s department of governing bodies, said that for now, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍), who is from Hong Kong, “is not in a position to issue an invitation for Taiwanese observers to attend to the World Health Assembly.”    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 13, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A man who beheaded a 4-year-old girl in a brutal cleaver attack

outside an MRT station last March was sentenced to life imprisonment Friday.

The Shihlin District Court delivered the verdict on Friday morning, saying that the panel of judges were “unauthorized” to hand down a death sentence because of the Act to Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enacted in 2009.

The two covenants stipulate that people with severe mental disorders are not to be given the death penalty.    [FULL  STORY]

SPECIFICITY:Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung urged KMT lawmakers to be specific and identify which of the Forward-looking projects they believe are unnecessary

Taipei Times
Date: May 12, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

Following another stalled legislative session amid continued opposition by the

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program bill, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday called for an end to political confrontation for the sake of the nation’s development.

“We have no reason to move in circles when many countries have already begun their infrastructure upgrades to lay the foundation for their development,” she said.

Tsai said her administration had begun planning the eight-year NT$882.4 billion (US$29.2 billion) initiative even before she was elected president, adding that it presents a vision for the nation’s development that is the result of the work of think tanks.

While the “five plus two” industries are key to transforming the nation’s economic structure, the Forward-looking program is to create infrastructure that has long been required, she said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 12, 2017
By: CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Legislators push one another as flour is tossed in the air at the Legislative Yuan on Thursday, May 11. Last week, lawmakers banged gongs and crashed cymbals; on Thursday, flour was tossed during a physical conflict at a joint committee meeting tasked with reviewing the controversial Forward Looking Infrastructure Development Plan. Only one paragraph of the bill was read before the session convener called a recess.    [FULL  STORY]

Check out the mouth-watering offerings and curious bicultural idiosyncrasies in Taipei’s little slice of Jakarta.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/11
By: James Baron

Aside from their banality, clichés such as “hidden gem” and “best-kept secret,” are

nonsensical descriptors. Unless you’re the sole customer on opening day, someone knows about that restaurant. In Taipei where almost every dank back-alley eatery has been blogged, there are no secrets.

But there still are places that get little, if any, press. The Indonesian food street that comes to life each weekend on Beiping West Road, close to Taipei Main Station, is one of these. Segregated from the clamor of the main drag by railings, steps and a line of trees, it’s literally in the shadows in the Taiming neighborhood (泰明) of Zhongzheng District (中正區).

Around the corner in an alley off Zhongxiao West Rd., there’s Sinar Terang, a small restaurant that is slightly better-known, though outside my single-digit coterie of familiars, I’ve yet to see any Westerners there in the four or five years I’ve being going. Remarkably, I’ve come across only one, rather bewildered-looking, Taiwanese couple in all that time, too.    [FULL STORY]

The Taiwanese boss of an Indonesian fishery worker donates NT$150,000 for life-saving heart surgery

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/11
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A young fishery worker from Indonesia received life-saving

surgery in late April thanks a donation from his employer and a number of organizations.

The 22-year-old man, who goes by the nickname “Hsiao Wa” (小瓦), had come from Sinjai on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia to Taiwan to earn money as a member of a fishing crew. However he developed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that can affect all ages and can suddenly surface.

When the man was diagnosed with the disease, he told his captain about his condition and applied for termination of his contract to immediately return home for treatment. He was given his salary in full, but a day before his return to Indonesia he had to be rushed to Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital because his condition had deteriorated.    [FULL  STORY]