The News Lens
Date: 2017-01-04

Two endangered reef manta rays on Tuesday were seen for sale at a fish market in Kaohsiung, southern

Taiwan, reports Taiwan News. Pictures of the slaughtered rays have been circulating social media platforms in Taiwan.

The reef manta ray is one of the largest rays in the world and is considered to be vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources in its Red List of Endangered Species. However, manta ray is not on the list of protected species in Taiwan, and local fishermen have been catching and selling their meat when they pass by Taiwan during migration.   [SOURCE]

The ‘Evil Landlady’ strikes again, this time she is under investigation for defrauding two female foreign tourists

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/04
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — Chang Shu-ching (張淑晶), 48, dubbed the “evil landlady” by local media outlets

for swindling numerous tenants over the years, is being investigated by prosecutors for attempting to defraud two female Malaysian tourists.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Chang posted images of high-end hotel rooms on Airbnb, which she claimed to represent, and two Malaysian women paid NT$4,837 (US$150) by credit card to book one of the rooms in Taipei for New Year’s Eve.

When the two arrived in Taipei, Chang told them the rooms were all full and said they would have to stay in a hostel in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District instead. The hostel’s manager, Chen Po-jen (陳柏仁), said the rooms only cost NT$1,200 per night, and alleges that Chang kept the difference.

While the women were out enjoying the New Year’s Eve festivities, Chang allegedly took the opportunity to request a refund from Chen claiming that she had reserved the room, but was canceling her stay. Chen recognized her face and realized that he was dealing with the infamous “evil landlady” and refused to hand over the cash. He then took photos of her with his cell phone and called the police.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/04
By: Chen Cheng-wei and Romulo Huang

Taipei, Jan. 4 (CNA) Thousands of chickens have been culled on a farm in Yunlin County, central Taiwan, which was infected with the H5N8 avian influenza virus, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ) said Wednesday.

In a statement, the bureau said personnel from the Animal and Plant Disease Control Center in Yunlin inspected the chicken farm in Dounan Township on Jan. 1 after receiving information about an abnormal number of chicken deaths there.

Tests on specimens sent to the Animal Health Research Institute (AHRI) confirmed Wednesday that the farm was infected with the H5N8 subtype, a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, the bureau said.

It said the Animal and Plant Disease Control Center culled 23,000 chickens on the farm and disinfected the area, in accordance with standard operating procedure.    [FULL  STORY]

LOSE-LOSE SITUATIONMild inflation is expected this year, but regulatory measures would not be activated until inflation reaches 2 percent, the central bank said

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

The labor law amendments could improve working conditions, with only limited impact on consumer

prices, the Cabinet said yesterday, rebutting what business leaders said were the side effects of the “lose-lose legislation.”

Defending amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), which stipulates a five-day workweek and higher overtime pay, the Executive Yuan said the legislation is a major improvement in general working conditions, while the impact on businesses is acceptable to labor-intensive industries.

Chinese National Federation of Industries secretary-general Tsai Lien-sheng (蔡練生) on Tuesday said the amendments were a “lose-lose” legislation that hurt employers, workers and consumers with increased personnel costs, lower salaries due to fewer working hours and rising consumer prices.

“That employers quibble with employees [over overtime pay] is what makes it a lose-lose situation,” Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) said, calling on businesses to take care of their employees.   [FULL  STORY]

Burma-Taiwan ties enter a new phase.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/01/03
By: James Baron

The distinctive red and yellow paving of Huaxin Street has been uprooted since my last visit. It’s one of

those head-scratchers that define local government decision-making in Taiwan. “Why would they do that?” asks my younger son. Why, indeed? The design gave the road a pedestrian-friendly feel, a refreshing contrast with the rest of New Taipei City’s Zhonghe District – one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

It gets worse: My favorite buffet joint is out of my favorite spicy, dried deer meat. A triple whammy: “No pink drink!” declares the elder lad in disgust. He’s referring to this restaurant’s version of Falooda – or Indian ice, as it’s known in Chinese – gelatinous odds-and-ends swimming in a bright-pink, condensed-milk gloop. The grub is still decent, mind, if you can handle the oiliness of the curries; and the conversation alone is worth the trip from town.

Like most of the 40,000-plus residents of Little Burma, as the area is known, Audrey Chen ended up in Taiwan as part of the Nationalist government’s drive to “repatriate” Chinese-Burmese, most of whom had

never set foot in Taiwan before. “I came here as a student in the 1970s,” she says. “The ROC government paid for everything. I was actually born in Guangdong, but my family went to Burma during the Chinese Civil War. When I arrived in Taipei, I already spoke Cantonese, Burmese and some English, but not a word of Mandarin.”

It doesn’t take a lot of cynicism to view the program of incentives that encouraged Chinese-Burmese to relocate to Taiwan as an attempt to bolster KMT support – kind of like a large-scale version of the voter bus-ins that political parties accuse each other of during elections. That this practice petered out at the tail-end of President Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) presidency is unsurprising. The staunchly Nationalist bent of the Chinese-Burmese meant that the Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) Democratic Progressive Party administration, which came to power in 2000, was unlikely to continue bolstering a community that was ipso facto anathema to its very existence.   [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/03
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

EMTs responding to a medical emergency involving a pregnant woman who was bleeding heavily were greatly moved by a thank-you note written by the woman’s seven-year-old boy.

Nantou County Fire Department’s Jhushan branch responded to a medical emergency that called for EMTs to escort a pregnant woman who was bleeding heavily to hospital. According to the technicians who took on the mission, the woman was with a seven-year-old boy at home when they arrived. The boy helped put his mother’s baggage and slippers onto the ambulance and then sat docilely beside his mother, the EMTs said.

As the EMTs were concerned that medical situations calling for first aid might arise during the transport, they brought the boy to sit in the front seat, and the boy told his mother he was going to sit in the front and not to worry about him, according to the team.

The boy silently took out a pen and paper, which the technicians said they didn’t pay attention to as they thought he was engaged in some senseless doodling.    [FULL  STORY]

MISSED COMMITMENTS:An official cited a 1987 legal interpretation that requires employees to take leave if they promise to work on their day off, but do not

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 04, 2017
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

The “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” regulation is full of loopholes that employers have used

to exploit workers since the policy took effect less than two weeks ago, unions said yesterday.

A coalition of workers’ unions staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Labor in Taipei, demanding that the ministry address loopholes in the scheme that have caused workers’ leave time and overtime pay to be cut.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has said that if people are willing to work on their “rest days,” they would receive more overtime pay under the new rules, which employers have exploited to deny workers overtime pay, instead giving them compensatory leave, Workers’ Struggle Alliance member Kuo Kuan-chun (郭冠均) said.

Overtime pay on rest days should be 1.33 times hourly wages for the first two hours of work and 1.67 times from the third to eighth hour of work, an average of 1.57 times daily wages, Kuo said, adding that if employers want to trade overtime for compensatory leave, they should grant workers 1.57 days.   FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/03
By: Tang Pei-chun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 3 (CNA) The renaming of Japan’s representative office in Taiwan to the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association is aimed at advancing already close Japan-Taiwan relations, said Mikio Numata, Japan’s representative to Taiwan, at Tuesday’s unveiling ceremony of the new name plaque.

The hope for closer relations was symbolized by adding “Taiwan” to the name of the office, which used to be known as the Taipei Office of the Interchange Association, Japan, Numata said.

The office is responsible for de facto diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Japan in the absence of bilateral diplomatic ties. Its counterpart in Japan is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.

Numata said that while Japan and Taiwan have made remarkable progress in developing their relations over the past 45 years, a survey conducted last year found that only a few people in Taiwan were aware of the association’s existence.   [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 4, 2017
By: Kuan-lin Liu, The China Post and CNA

The government is under increasing pressure as laborers and employers unpack the details of a new workweek law and the general public begins to feel its impact.

Just days into the new year, the government’s workweek policy, which came into effect on Dec. 23, has already made headlines.

Following reports of businesses raising prices to make up for rising personnel costs, Premier Lin Chuan (林全) told the local daily China Times that “cost increases were inevitable” for labor-intensive industries.

Although Lin expressed hope that new rules governing overtime pay would prompt companies to increase employment or to give their workforce more rest time, businesses, workers and think tanks were not as optimistic.    [FULL  STORY]