Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/09
By: Chen Wei-ting and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Jan. 8 (CNA) Taiwan will make it harder in the future for Taiwanese with degrees from medical

schools in other countries to get a license in Taiwan to practice medicine, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Monday.

Shih Chung-liang (石崇良), head of the ministry’s Department of Medical Affairs, said it will soon adopt a new accreditation system that will apply to students who enroll in medical schools in other countries after January 2017.

The new rules will not be retroactively applied, Shih said.

Under the new rules, Taiwanese who study medicine overseas must graduate from schools on the reference list of the Ministry of Education and they must study medicine for a certain period of time.   [FULL  STORY]

OBI PHARMA:The former president of Academia Sinica angrily denied the charges, saying it had ‘grievously’ harmed his reputation and vowing to defend his innocence

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 10, 2017
By: Huang Chieh and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Shilin District Court yesterday indicted former Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠) on

corruption charges relating to biotech company OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎).

Wong denied the charges, accusing the court of abusing its authority.

Wong was appointed president of Academia Sinica in October 2007 and began work on developing cancer vaccine technologies in 2008, the indictment read.

He also started collaborating with OBI Pharma chairman Michael Chang (張念慈) — a friend from the time he was studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — on public research, it said.

In October 2011, Chang offered Wong 1,500 new shares of OBI Pharma in a quid pro quo exchange for technologies developed by Wong, which Wong accepted, prosecutors said.

However, the two later abandoned the scheme in favor of an agreement to exchange the technology for a future payment, after the Ministry of Economic Affairs expressed misgivings about the new shares, prosecutors said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 10, 2017
By: Stephanie Chao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Several U.S. politicians met President Tsai Ing-wen during a Houston stopover on her

way to Central America on Sunday despite a Beijing request not to do so.

She later flew for Honduras, where she pledged to help Taiwanese enterprises embark on more yearly delegation trips to Central America allies.

Meeting with Cruz

Buzz over her trip began well before she landed in Honduras, with media speculation rife over who she would see during her transit in Houston.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas released a statement that he had met with Tsai on Sunday.

“We discussed our mutual opportunity to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges, and economic relations,” the statement read.    [FULL  STORY]

Texas Senator Ted Cruz and governor Greg Abbot met with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen in Houston

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/09
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — Texas Senator Ted Cruz and governor Greg Abbot say they met with Taiwan

president Tsai Ing-wen on Sunday as she was passing through Houston on her way to meet with diplomatic allies in Central America.

The Republican senator said in a news release that he was an “honored” to meet with Tsai during Sunday’s meeting in which they “discussed our mutual opportunity to upgrade the stature of our bilateral relations in a wide-ranging discussion that addressed arms sales, diplomatic exchanges, and economic relations.”

Cruz indicated that Beijing had attempted to prevent the meeting by sending what he described as a “curious letter” via the Chinese consulate asking the Houston congressional delegation not to meet with Tsai and to “uphold the ‘One-China policy'”    [FULL STORY]

Gift gaffe did not mar Tsai’s meeting with Texas governor to discuss trade ties

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/09
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — Texas governor Greg Abbot met with Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen on Sunday

in Houston, where they discussed trade ties and exchanged gifts, though the governor’s choice of a clock was untimely.

Abbott says in a statement that they discussed energy, trade relations and commercial ties between Taiwan and Texas. In terms of trade relations, the governor said that the two focused on the exchange of natural gas and agricultural products, of which Taiwan is major consumer.

Tsai presented Abbot with a vase, while the governor inadvertently committed a cultural faux pas by gifting Taiwan’s president a clock bearing the Texas State Seal. In Chinese culture the phrase “giving a clock” ( 送鐘) is a homophone with “attending a funeral,” and therefore symbolizes an untimely demise for the recipient.

Fortunately, Tsai did not seem to be phased by the culturally inappropriate gift as it was surely well intentioned. The governor described the meeting in a cordial manner saying, “It was an honor to meet with President Tsai and discuss how our two economies can expand upon our already prosperous trade partnership.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/09
By: Sophia Yeh and Y.F. Low

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jan. 8 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) arrived in Honduras Sunday on the first leg of her Central America trip, which will also take her to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Tsai received a red-carpet welcome at the airport, where she was greeted by Honduran Vice President Ricardo Alvarez Arias.

Tsai said she was very honored to visit Honduras at the invitation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez and extend her most cordial regards to the government and people of Honduras.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) and Honduras, which marked 75 years of diplomatic relations last year, have had a close and mutually beneficial partnership, Tsai said, expressing the hope that both countries will continue to deepen that cooperation in the future.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-08

The southern city of Kaohsiung mobilized some 1,000 police on Sunday to surround the venue for a

public forum on pension reform. That’s after protesters disrupted a similar forum in Taipei on December 31 and a second forum in Taichung, central Taiwan, on Saturday.

The public forums are part of the government’s efforts to make changes to pension payments. The move is likely to primarily affect civil servants, teachers and military staff, who have long had sizeable pensions.

The protestors in Kaohsiung on Sunday said that if the government pushes forward with plans to cut their pensions, it would render the government completely untrustworthy. But other groups of public servants, teachers and military said that there were other points of view than those held by the protestors, and that the recent forums had given too much time to people with the same point of view.

Meanwhile, teachers unions are planning to hold nationwide protests this coming week. Organizers say that’s because the Cabinet’s pension reform plans would increase the seniority required for teachers to retire by five years. They say that would prevent most teachers from retiring until they are 60.  [FULL  STORY]

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

A middle-aged man having car sex with his mistress in Chiayi County on Sunday morning was nabbed by

police and referred to prosecutors not for having car sex but for not being able to account for the stolen license plate on the vehicle.
Two Puzi Precinct police officers were patrolling an area in Puzi City around midnight on Sunday when the shaking of a 7-seater van parked on the roadside near an intersection caught their eyes, police said. They suspected that someone might be stealing iron bars from a construction site next to where the car was parked, police added.

The police officers checked the van’s license plate with a portable computer and found it was a stolen plate, according to police. An officer shined a flashlight into the car and yelled not to move, but the van shook even more violently. Police opened the door of the vehicle and found a couple was having sex in the car, police said. The male is a 51-year-old man surnamed Huang and the female is Huang’s mistress surnamed Lin, police added.
Huang asked police why picked on him as he didn’t commit a crime and has no criminal record, according to police. But he suddenly realized what had happened after police told him the vehicle has a stolen license plate, police said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/08
By: Tyson Lu and Ko Lin

Taipei, Jan. 8 (CNA) The first group of indigenous recruits received their long-term care permits Sunday

after receiving 133 hours of intensive training in Taitung County, where they will eventually help to promote quality care in institutions across the southeastern Taiwan county.

A total of 27 caregivers received their permits from the Taitung Hospital, which was tasked by the Taitung County government to train its first batch of indigenous recruits.

The initiative is part of the central government’s “long-term care program 2.0,” which focuses on building localized care institutions to establish a high-quality, affordable and extensive system.

The long-term care services will come in three models: community-based integrated service centers, combined daycare service centers and long-term neighborhood care stations.    [FULL  STORY]

VIP TREATMENT:When the president visited Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, she was escorted by police officers and the museum was cleared for three hours

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 09, 2017
By: Staff writer, with CNA

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday arrived in Houston for a brief transit stop on her way to

Central America, a routine stopover that has been closely watched by Beijing after US president-elect Donald Trump spoke with her by telephone early last month.

Tsai touched down in Houston after setting out from Taiwan earlier in the day on her way to Honduras, the first leg of a nine-day trip. She is also to visit to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, in that order.

Tsai was met at the airport by US Representative for Texas Blake Farenthold, American Institute in Taiwan Chairman James Moriarty and Taiwan’s Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰).

The US Bureau of Diplomatic Security adopted high-level security measures for Tsai’s stopover.

When Tsai visited Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, traffic controls were imposed, and police officers escorted her, while the museum was cleared for three hours.    [FULL  STORY]