news.com.au
By: aap

A Taiwanese woman has been caught with a kilogram of methamphetamine in her luggage at Perth

International Airport, Australian border officials say.

Australian Border Force officers found five vacuum sealed bags of white crystals in the woman’s luggage after she arrived on a flight from Hong Kong on Monday.

Initial tests returned positive readings for meth, but the purity is yet to be determined.

The woman appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court on Tuesday on drug importation charges.

Originally published as Meth seized at Perth Airport     [SOURCE]

An ATM scam uncovered in Turkey is the latest is a spate of international fraud cases involving Taiwan.

The News Lens
Date: June 1, 2016
Translated and compiled by Yuan-ling Liang

A total of 52 Taiwanese were arrested by police in western Turkey earlier this week. According to

the authorities, the group had allegedly attached skimming devices to ATMs and recorded the credit card codes of more than 3,000 Chinese and Taiwanese. Investigations are ongoing, with reports saying that about 30 Chinese nartionals were also arrested.

Suspected Taiwanese fraudsters were detained in Kenya, Australia and Vietnam this year after targeting Chinese and Taiwanese in electronic scams.

According to the Ministry of Justice in Taioei, the government will continue to jointly investigate the cases with other countries, especially China.

KMT Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁) wrote in a Facebook post that he had confirmation from Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) that officials were tracking fraud cases in 173 overseas locations.

“If 30 people are committing crimes at each location, this adds up to more than 5,000 Taiwanese nationals involved in fraud cases around the world,” Hsu wrote. “The government should definitely take action now or else Taiwan will become the country that ‘exports telecom fraud crimes.’”

Another KMT politician told People.CN there are more than 100,000 scammers committing fraud globally.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-06-01
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Alanyi Historic Trail, located in Mudan Township, Pingtung County, has become a magnet that

attracts packs of tourists and drive up local tourism and ecological tours.
However, this trail along a stretch of Taiwan’s most pristine coast with pebble beaches cannot be accessed by just walking in. As tourists have to apply for group admissions in advance, there are always demands that cannot be fulfilled on weekends.

The trail has admitted a total of 176,746 in 8,790 groups since January 2012 when it was designated as a reservation area, the county agriculture department said.

The county government said the overwhelmingly high popularity of the Alanyi historic trail has also benefitted the local tourism in the neighboring areas, including Dongyuan Forest Recreation Area, Dongyuan Wet Grassland, Weeping Lake, Syuhai Hot Spring, Syuhai Grassland, Shihmen Ancient Battle Field, Mudan Incident Memorial Park, and Gaoshih Tribe and Historic Trail. They all have become tourism hot spots.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
2016/06/0

Taipei, June 1 (CNA) The temperature in Taipei hit 38.7 degrees Celsius at 2:46 p.m. Wednesday, the hottest June day in the city’s recorded history and its third hottest ever, according to the Central Weather Bureau.

It was also the highest temperature recorded in Taipei so far this year, the bureau said.

Since the Taipei Weather Station was set up in 1896, the highest temperature recorded in the city was 39.3 degrees on Aug 8, 2013, and the second-highest was 38.8 degrees on Aug. 9, 2003, the CWB said.

Wednesday’s temperature of 38.7 degrees equaled the record for the third highest in Taipei, which was set on Aug. 8, 2003, the bureau said, noting that the previous records were all in the month of August.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-05-31
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Tuesday was the day Premier Lin Chuan was to have presented his first-ever government policy report to the Legislative Yuan, but a boycott by the opposition Kuomintang prevented him from doing so.

Lin was sworn in as premier on May 20, while President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party, which supports him, holds a majority at the Legislature.

Nevertheless, the 35 KMT lawmakers out of a total of 113 managed to occupy the podium of the assembly hall all day long, preventing Lin or any of his Cabinet members from addressing the Legislative Yuan. He and his Cabinet team were forced to stay around though, sitting behind benches at the front.

The KMT action was a protest against expectations that the government would eventually allow the import of pork from the United States containing residues of the lean-meat drug ractopamine. The government has as yet made no statements it intends to do so, but Washington is reportedly looking for the opening if Taiwan is to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Before he took office, Council of Agriculture Minister Tsao Chi-hung made a widely criticized remark that he would find it impossible to stop the import of U.S. pork.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: May 31, 2016

A raft of 21 priority bills spanning cross-strait ties, economics, politics and society was released by

Taiwan’s Cabinet May 30, signaling President Tsai Ing-wen administration’s intention to waste no time in fast-tracking national development.

“All of the legislation is crucial to the development of national economy and livelihood,” Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan said. “We are looking forward to seeing substantive results in this area, underscoring the new government willingness to tackle problems head-on.”

The 21 bills are expected to be considered by the Legislative Yuan—Taiwan’s highest lawmaking body—before the next session wraps up at the end of the year. Consensus on the legislation was reached after a coordination meeting between the Cabinet and the caucus of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Highlights are the DPP’s version of a draft bill monitoring cross-strait agreements, which is expected to play a pivotal role in the negotiations of goods and services pacts going forward. “There will also be revisions to the Electricity Act governing the nation’s power generation,” he said.

On the economic front, agriculture, anti-media monopoly and nuclear-free homeland promotion draft acts are set to receive maximum attention. Amendments to the Act for the Development of Biotech and New Pharmaceuticals Industry, Building Act and Income Tax Act will also be a focus.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 01, 2016
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The New Power Party (NPP) yesterday proposed a draft “nonprofit corporation act” aimed at

tightening oversight of government-funded corporations.

While the development of nonprofit corporations that are partially funded by the government has been on the rise, there are few laws regulating such entities, leading to the privatization of many, which results in public assets becoming private property, NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.

“Corporations that derive more than 50 percent of their funding from the government have to be supervised by the Legislative Yuan, but many corporations have escaped government oversight by lowering the amount of government funding,” Hsu said.

“Some government-funded corporations were transformed into private companies, and government funds became company assets at taxpayers’ expense,” he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/31
By: Tai Ya-chen, Page Tsai and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 31 (CNA) The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said Tuesday that some 200 Taiwan citizens

have either been arrested or convicted in other countries on fraud charges.

The Taiwanese fraud suspects are scattered across 12 countries, including Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and Australia, the ministry said

In the latest case, Taiwan was informed by Turkish police on Monday that 52 Taiwanese suspects had been taken into custody in Izmir in western Turkey, the ministry noted.

Justice Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said Tuesday that his ministry will seek to have the 52 suspects repatriated to face justice in Taiwan, although Turkey has priority rights in the judicial process.     [FULL  STORY]

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Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/31
By: Wang Shu-fen, Huang Chiao-wen, Hsiao Po-yang and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 31 (CNA) A magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck off Taiwan’s northern coast early Tuesday afternoon was the strongest in the country in 17 years, but it is not expected to be followed by many aftershocks, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Tuesday’s earthquake, centered 73.1 kilometers northeast of Keelung, was the biggest since a magnitude 7.3 quake struck Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999 and left more that 2,400 people dead.

In that devastating quake, the epicenter was located under the town of Jiji in Nantou County, central Taiwan, at a shallow depth of five kilometers, while Tuesday’s began at a depth of 271 km.

Because the 1999 earthquake was so shallow, it released energy equal to 46 atomic bombs, compared with the energy of 32 atomic bombs released by Tuesday’s temblor     [FULL  STORY]

Tourists have been disrespecting the traditional culture of Orchid Island’s indigenous people.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/05/30
Translated and compiled by Bing-sheng Lee

In early May, the Tao people, a Taiwanese Aboriginal tribe on Orchid Island (also known as Lanyu),

discovered that traditional fishing boats had been damaged by tourists.

An elderly Tao villager says that during the annual Flying Fish Festival, Tao moor wooden boats around the island’s harbors. People, especially women, are not allowed to approach them without permission.

The villager says that while it is acceptable for visitors to take their pictures with the boats, some actions have crossed the line. Tourists have littered around the island, damaged boats, and illegally entered houses. According to the taboos of the festival, the period during which the Tao collect wood in the mountains has passed, so the villagers have no material to repair the damaged boats.

Hu Long-hsiung (胡龍雄, Syamenwomzas), director of the Tao Foundation, says the traditional wooden boats are not only a symbol of Tao culture, but also a significant tool the Tao people use to acquire food.     [FULL  STORY]