Want China Times
Date: 2015-09-06
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission said Saturday that it is collaborating with

consumer protection personnel to look into a controversial exhibition in Taipei that has gained attention at home and abroad when a local boy stumbled and poked a hole in one of the paintings on display.

Chiu Yung-ho, vice chairperson of the Fair Trade Commission, told CNA Saturday that his commission is working with the Consumer Protection Department of the Executive Yuan to learn details about the The Face of Leonardo, Images of a Genius exhibition and contents of its advertising.

When asked if the commission has requested that organizers of the exhibition provide certificates of authenticity for their paintings, Chiu said such actions would signify the start of a formal investigation but his commission is still trying to collect more information about the exhibition at present.     [FULL  STORY]

BUDDHIST BULLY:Wirathu is the most well-known member of a group of Burmese monks who have been marginalizing Rohingya through their brand of nationalism

Taipei Times
Date: , Sep 07, 2015
By: AFP, MANDALAY, Myanmar

With a smile, Myanmar’s most notorious Buddhist monk boasts of the sleepless

nights he endures on his self-appointed quest against the country’s Muslims — one that he claims has helped strip voting rights from hundreds of thousands of the religious minority.

Wirathu, whose anti-Muslim campaign has stoked religious tensions in the Buddhist-majority nation, said he spends most nights at his tranquil Mandalay monastery glued to his computer screen, streaming images from some of the world’s most violent Muslim militant organizations.

He then posts messages to his 91,000 Facebook followers, helping foment the idea that Buddhism is under threat.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-09-05
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Prominent Kuomintang leaders stayed away from the

golden wedding anniversary celebrations for former Vice President Lien Chan and Lien Fang Yu Saturday after his controversial visit to China.

The KMT honorary chairman’s presence at Thursday’s Beijing military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan has been widely condemned in Taiwan, not just by opposition figures but also by government leaders up to President Ma Ying-jeou.

The news that Lien and his wife were to mark their 50 years of marriage with a party Saturday evening almost immediately became a symbol of his political isolation or lack thereof, reports said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/09/05
By: Liu Chien-pang and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Sept. 5 (CNA) Thirty-one Thai laborers working at a printing factory in New Taipei have been detained for smoking amphetamine, police said on Saturday.

Police raided the factory in Xindian District (新店) and seized 2.05 grams of amphetamine as well as 75 narcotic residue packets on Friday night after receiving a tip that foreign laborers often smoke amphetamine in their dormitory over the weekend.

The detainees have been turned over to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office for violations of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act.

From the fields of Kyoto to the mountains of Yunnan, Kathy Chan travels the world in search of the best teas

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 05, 2015
By: Ligaya Mishan  /  NY Times News Service, New York

A year ago, a member of a private tea society in Shanghai presented Kathy YL

Chan with a small box as slender as a cigarette case. Inside were four tiles of highly prized pu-erh tea, conjoined like a chocolate bar and almost black, twined with green and ocher.

Chan, 29, who writes about tea and advises restaurants, hotels and companies on tea offerings, had mostly encountered pu-erh in the form of dense, mulchy rounds (bing cha in Mandarin), each with a crater at the center, like flattened volcanoes. The delicate box seemed a secret missive from “a darker, cooler world,” she said — what she calls, only half jokingly, the “underbelly” of tea.

The pu-erh within, from Menghai in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, near the Burmese border, was too precious to drink, Chan decided. And so she safeguards it in the kitchen of her East Village apartment, amid her considerable arsenal of teaware, including fine-spined whisks; long, skinny bamboo scoops and short, hand-hammered brass ones curved like thumbnails; a Korean teapot with a straight side handle; a ceramic bowl, or chawan, for frothing matcha, a Japanese green tea; and a paring-size knife for breaking off pieces of pu-erh, should she one day feel that she can wait no longer.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/09/05
By: Chang Jung-kung and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Sept. 5 (CNA) The face of a statue of Lien Ya-tang (連雅堂) in Tainan, grandfather of former Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰), has been painted red, police in Tainan said on Saturday.

The incident came in the wake of Lien Chan’s attendance of a Sept. 3 military parade in Beijing to celebrate victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945).

Lien’s visit was criticized as being tantamount to endorsing the Chinese Communist Party’s claim that it played a “pivotal” role in the war, which deviates from the government’s position that the Nationalist forces led the campaign against Japan throughout the eight-year war.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-09-03
By: Jocylin FC, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

Emma Snowsill, an Australian professional triathlete and Olympics gold

medalist, will participate in Tian Li Triathlon Competition in Yilan this weekend. This is the first time an Olympic medalist attends a triathlon competition in Taiwan.

Tian Li Triathlon Competition, sponsored by Columbia Threadneedle Investments and PineBridge Investments, has invited Emma Snowsill to attend the opening ceremony and run the race with Taiwanese triathletes. Snowsill is a world renowned triathlete. She will team up with two other employees of Columbia Threadneedle Investments.

In the press conference, Snowsill generously shared her wisdom and experience with the young aspiring triathletes. She said the difficulties in triathlon are time management and funding. In Australia, fortunately, triathlon is supported by the platforms. Moreover, athletes should time themselves accordingly to avoid the possibility of over training.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/09/04
By: Liu Shih-yi and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) Taiwan said Friday that it has received around NT$208.9 million (US$6.74 million) from Swiss authorities that were illicit gains of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

The Supreme Prosecutors Office said the Swiss authorities had remitted the sum to its designated bank account in Taiwan.

The money was laundered to Switzerland by Chen’s family members and deposited in Wegelin and Co. Private Bankers in accounts held under the names of the former President’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and his daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚).

The office said that it solicited judicial assistance from Switzerland to freeze the bank accounts when it began a probe into alleged corruption by the former president in connection with his taking bribes during a period of the nation’s financial restructuring in the early 2000s.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-09-05
By: CNA

Taiwan education minister Wu Se-hwa and Heidi Weidenbach-Mattar, on behalf

of the Republic of China’s Ministry of Education and the Cultural Ministers Conference (KMK) of Germany, respectively, have signed a memorandum of understanding to promote more exchanges in elementary and secondary education, a spokesman from the Education Ministry said Thursday.

Over the past few years, some high schools in Taiwan have started student exchange programs and begun to offer German as a second foreign language.

By signing the memorandum, elementary and secondary schools will extend language teacher exchanges, improve language learning facilities, and further cooperation in vocational education.     [FULL  STORY]