Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-18
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Pingtung County fishermen said on Monday that they plan to summon more than 10 fishing boats at the Yen-Pu fishing port and set sail for Taiping Island on July 20 to protect their fishing rights and prove to the world that Taiping is an island, not an atoll.

Fishing boat owner Cheng Chun-chung said the fishing boats will come back after 12 days.

The movement spokesperson Lo Chiang-fe said Taiping Island is 240 nautical miles from the Philippines and 325 nautical miles from Vietnam. As Taiping Island was regarded as an island in the past, the Philippines and Vietnam acquiesced in the overlapping 200 nautical miles of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that belongs to Taiwan, but the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague turns the island into a rock and makes everything different, Lo said.

Forty nautical miles off Taiping Island is the Philippines’ EEZ and 125 nautical miles off is Vietnam’s EEZ, which makes it very easy for Taiwanese fishing vessels to enter others’ EEZ, seriously affecting Taiwanese fishermen’s fishing rights, livelihood and safety.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/18
By: Chu Txe-wei and Lilian Wu

Taipei, July 18 (CNA) Taiwan’s police credited two civic-minded citizens and a dense network of

surveillance cameras as playing important roles in helping them crack an international ring involved in the first ATM heist in Taiwan.

On Sunday, police arrested three East Europeans — Latvian Andrejs Peregudovs in Yilan County and Romanian Mihail Colibaba, and Moldovan Niklae Penkov in Taipei — believed to be part of the criminal gang that stole NT$83.27 million from 51 hacked ATMs at First Bank branches in Taipei, New Taipei and Taichung on July 9 and 10.

Taiwan authorities have retrieved about NT$60 million of the stolen money, much of it found Sunday night in the hotel room where Colibaba and Penkov were staying.

Peregudovs had put the money in a locker at the Taipei railway station on July 13, and Colibaba and Penkov picked it up on July 17 after arriving in Taiwan a day earlier, according to police.     [FULL  STORY]

DECADES-LONG BATTLE:DPP Legislator Kolas Yotaka called for the passage of an amendment to remove the distinction between ‘plains’ and ‘mountain’ Aborigines

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 19, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Aboriginal divisions over giving recognition to members of Pingpu Aboriginal communities were

yesterday on full display at a Legislative Yuan forum, with Aboriginal legislators sparring over how such recognition should be accomplished, while many legislators declined to attend.
“The Status Act for Indigenous Peoples (原住民身分法) has us by the throat, making it impossible for us to do anything,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kolas Yotaka, who is Amis, said at a Legislative Yuan forum on restoring Pingpu status and rights hosted by the Pingpu Aboriginal Status and Rights Restoration Working Group and the Tainan Siraya Village Development Promotion Association.

“Pingpu” is a general term used for Aboriginal communities that inhabited lowland regions of western Taiwan, with strong assimilation pressure from Chinese immigrants over centuries causing them to largely lose their ancestral languages and lifestyles.

While members of Pingpu communities have fought for official recognition for decades, only members of the Kavalan people have succeeded, winning recognition from the Executive Yuan in 2002.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: July 19, 2016
By: Stephanie Chao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Police said Monday that NT$20 million was still missing from last week’s ATM

heist and that the cash may be stashed in the mountains of Taipei’s Neihu.

Police took three suspects into custody on Sunday.

Interrogation of alleged criminal-mastermind Peregudovs Andrejs, from Latvia, revealed key evidence on the whereabouts of the stolen money.

Police also revealed that computers at the First Commercial Bank’s (第一銀行) branch in London could have been hacked, leading to the subsequent breach in Taiwan.

The director of the London branch has been summoned for questioning as of press time, local media said, among other related persons.

Two other suspects were also caught at a hotel in Taipei City’s Dazhi Sunday night. The two, along with Andrejs, were brought into custody after questioning.

They were detained after police filed their cases at the Taipei Prosecutors Office.     [FULL  STORY]

Asia One
Date: July 18, 2016
By: Reuters

TAIPEI – Police in Taiwan said on Sunday they had arrested three out of 16 foreign suspects they believe hacked into the cash machines of a major local bank, withdrawing more than US$2 million.

They are accused of targeting First Bank’s ATMs last week, using malware to withdraw more than T$80 million (S$3.4 million) from dozens of machines.

A policeman recognised one of the suspects, a Latvian, while he was eating in a restaurant in the northeastern city of Yilan.

Police arrested him later, an official of the Taipei City Police Department told a news briefing.

Two other suspects, who are from Romania, were arrested in Taipei, police said, adding they had found more than T$50 million of the stolen money in a hotel room.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-18
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The ATM cash theft prime suspect, Peregudovs Andrejs, asked police on Sunday whether he would be sentenced to death after he was nabbed by police in Yilan County on the same day.

Latvian national Andrejs was suspected of putting away NT$60 million he and other suspects stole from 41 First Bank ATMs in Taipei and Taichung on July 9 and 10 in a locker at the Taipei Main Station on July 13. Andrejs left Taipei for Yilan after storing the money.

Two Romanian males suspected of moving the cash from the locker to the hotel room they stayed were also captured by police on Sunday.

Andrejs was having a meal at a local restaurant when Taipei City police officer Soong Chun-liang, spotted him and suspected that he was the ATM cash theft prime suspect because he looked like Andrejs in the photos police released through media. Soong compared the foreigner with the photos in his cell phone, and immediately decided to tip off local police about the man, leading to his capture.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/18
By: Yu Kai-hsiang and Kay Liu

Taipei, July 18 (CNA) A police officer was honored Monday for spotting a key suspect later

arrested for a recent bank theft of over NT$83 million (US$2.60 million), when he was off duty on a family trip a day earlier.

Sung Chun-liang (宋俊良), an officer at the Taipei City Police Department’s Public Relations Office, received the honor along with his colleagues from Yilan County, who made the arrest, at the National Police Agency from Premier Lin Chuan (林全).

Sung alerted the Dong’ao police station in Yilan after he noticed a foreign national that fit the description of Andrejs Peregudovs in a restaurant across the road, where the officer was having a meal with his family Sunday.

Peregudovs, a Latvian national, was suspected of being one of the 10 plus members of a criminal ring that allegedly took NT$83.27 million in cash from hacked automatic teller machines (ATMs) at First Banks’ branches in Greater Taipei and Taichung July 9 and 10.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: July 18, 2016
By: John Liu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is Taiwan’s second

largest trade partner. Trade between Taiwan and Southeast Asia has been steadily increasing. Between 2001 and 2015, the amount grew from about US$30 billion to nearly US$80 billion.

Southeast Asia is also a global investment hotspot. Between 2008 and 2014 foreign investment in the region grew from US$50 billion to US$133 billion. China saw a smaller fluctuation in foreign investment during the same period, from US$108 billion to US$129 billion.

Investment by other countries in Southeast Asia is expected to grow. Just as Taiwan’s investment in the region has been trending upward, so has Japan’s.

China, by comparison, has received less investment from both Japan and Taiwan, after investment numbers peaked between 2011 and 2012, and is now trending downward.     [FULL  STORY]