One suspect allegedly embezzled thousands of dollars paid by 10 Vietnamese looking for illegal work

Asia Times
Date: May 22, 2019
By:  Asia Times Staff

Authorities in Vietnam have named two people as suspects in a case that involves trafficking people who want to work illegally in Taiwan.

Nguyen Van Hao, 27, and Dang Tuan Tu, 28, are being investigated for alleged human trafficking, VN Express reported. Another five other unnamed individuals are also being probed for extortion and illegal detention.

Police in Quang Ninh Province said Dang initially introduced 10 unidentified people to Nguyen, who had said that he could get people to Taiwan for illegal work. In April, the group went to China through a border checkpoint in Lang Son province.

Upon arriving in China, the 10 people gave Nguyen 40 to 100 million dong (US$1,700 to $4,270) for passage on a ship to Taiwan. But the moment they boarded the vessel, Nguyen fled with the money, which forced the group to return home.

Dang later found out that Nguyen was living in Quang Ninh and hired men to retrieve the stolen money. Nguyen returned 200 million dong (US$8,540) and turned himself in to the police on May 3.    [FULL  STORY]

The individual managed to avoid buying train tickets as a student but wanted a clean conscience by clearing the debt

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/22
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – An anonymous passenger sent NT$1,000 enclosed in a letter to the head of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) at Yilan Station to pay back money owed by skipping fares 24 years ago, Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Wednesday (May 22).

In the letter, the passenger said: “Dear Station Chief Huang, I studied at what is now National Ilan University in 1995, and at one time I took a Tze-Chiang Limited Express train from Taipei to Yilan, but didn’t (pay) for the ticket. This also happened several times when I didn’t pay enough for the local train I took. I’ve had an unsettled mind, so I enclose NT$1,000 to make up for it.”

TRA Yilan Station Chief Huang Dong-yong (黃東墉) said the station received the letter on Monday (May 20) and confirmed the letter was addressed to him. In the sender’s column, only “Changhua” and no name was given, Huang added.

After opening the letter, the station chief said he found the letter and the money from the anonymous passenger who wanted to make up for the train rides he didn’t pay for 24 years ago.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/22
By: Chang Chien-chung and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 22 (CNA) Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), who

is seeking to run for president next year, proposed a series of measures Wednesday to address the problem of salary stagnation in Taiwan.

In a Facebook post, Gou said that if elected president, he will use big data technology to set up a site that will show the salary levels in listed companies and their profitability.

That will give jobseekers a better idea of which companies are willing to share their profits with their employees by offering good pay, said Gou, one of the wealthiest men in Taiwan.

Such transparency will also prompt low-paying employers to raise salaries, he added.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: May 23, 2019 
By Chiu Chun-fu and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Two female Japanese adult film stars yesterday thanked Criminal Investigation Bureau

(CIB) investigators for arresting two men who were allegedly streaming and selling copyrighted Japanese adult content.

The men — surnamed Liu (劉) and Yang (楊) — were allegedly streaming the content through their Web site “AVQ Online Adult Theater” and charging users a monthly fee of NT$599 (US$19) for access.

The Web site had more than 10,000 users before it was shut down, investigators said, adding that users could pay the fees at convenience stores.

About 30,000 pirated DVDs, a PC, Web servers, hard drives and other equipment were confiscated in a raid of the men’s store, investigators said, adding that the Japanese copyright holder, S1 No. 1 Style, was notified of the arrests.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 21 May, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

President Tsai Ing-wen has released a video expressing Taiwan’s desire to take part in

this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), which kicked off in Geneva on Monday. The clip was released to the President’s social media page and coincided with the opening of the international forum.

Speaking in English, Tsai said that despite its exclusion from this year’s WHA, Taiwan is willing and capable of helping tackle the health challenges that face the world.
[FULL  STORY]

DPP legislators have prioritized a flurry of new measures aimed to clamp down on cross-strait engagement between Taiwan and China.

The Diplomat
Date: May 20, 2019
By: Nick Aspinwall

Taiwan’s looming 2020 presidential election looks set to hinge on the country’s eternal

“China question” as its ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) continues to move forward with new measures aimed to regulate cross-strait affairs and combat what it calls a campaign of Chinese influence.

Last week, Taiwan’s legislature passed amendments extending the period during which former officials with access to state secrets are banned from traveling to China. On Friday, the presidential office formally notifiedMa Ying-jeou and Wu Den-yih, formerly Taiwan’s president and vice president, and members of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), of the revised travel restrictions.

This is one of many laws prioritized by the legislature’s DPP majority as it seeks to fend off a 2020 electoral challenge from the Kuomingtang, or KMT. While currently in opposition, the KMT won several key local races in November 2018 and its potential presidential nominees continue to outpace incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen in public opinion polls. The KMT favors friendlier ties with Beijing, which severed talks with Taiwanese officials after the DPP won the presidency in 2016.    [FULL  STORY]

People’s trivial concerns should be treated as the government’s major priorities

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/21
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) delivered a speech on the “corporate culture” of his administration and explored issues concerning digital governance at the I-Mei Foods building on May 20 at the invitation of the Digital Taiwan Roundtable (台灣數位科技與政策協進會).

Attendees of the seminar included Taipei’s Department of Information Technology Commissioner Lu Hsin-ke (呂新科), Department of Economic Development Commissioner Lin Chung-chieh (林崇傑), President of Digital Taiwan Roundtable Luis Ko (高志明), and city advisor Ben Jai (翟本喬).

Ko reiterated his political philosophy of “do the right thing,” while providing an environment that allows employees to “make mistakes,” so as to spur innovation without the fear of incurring penalties for failure.

The leader of Taiwan’s capital city laid out the key elements shaping the core values of the city government, which are integrity, openness, innovation, and teamwork. However, he joked, “teamwork lacking integrity amounts to complicity structure,” urging public servants not to fail people.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/21
By: Wen Kuei-hsiang, Chen Ja-fo and Chung Yu-chen

Taipei, May 21 (CNA) Former Premier Lai Ching-te (賴清德) on Tuesday accused

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) re-election team of spreading lies by saying that he previously told Tsai he would not run for the presidency.

Lai and Tsai are both from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The former premier is challenging the incumbent ROC president through the party’s primary election mechanism for the right to be the DPP’s candidate in the 2020 presidential election.

During an interview on a radio show Tuesday, Lai said when he met with Tsai on March 8, she did not ask him if he planned to seek the party’s nomination for the upcoming presidential race, refuting suggestions to the contrary.

The suggestion that Tsai asked him whether he intended to run and that he replied in the negative is a lie, Lai said, “whether it is the president or her aides that lied, I do not know, but someone did.”    [FULL  STORY]

MEDICAL ISSUES: Liu Xinglian, who arrived with Yan Kefen in September last year, and has diabetes and hypertension, must remain in Taiwan for medical treatment

Taipei Times
Date: May 22, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Chinese asylum seeker Yan Kefen (顏克芬), who had been stuck in limbo at Taiwan

Taoyuan International Airport for more than seven months, on Sunday arrived in Canada, Radio Free Asia said on Facebook yesterday.

Using his People’s Republic of China passport, Yan on Saturday night departed from the airport and reached Ottawa after transiting through Toronto the next day, the broadcaster said.

Yan and another Chinese national, Liu Xinglian (劉興聯), on Sept. 27 last year arrived at the airport on a flight from Thailand on their way to Beijing, but did not board their scheduled flight to China later that day.

Instead, they filed for asylum with local authorities using refugee certificates issued by the UN.

However, Taiwan does not yet have an adequate mechanism to deal with refugee claims, the Mainland Affairs Council said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 20 May, 2019
By: Paula Chao

President Tsai Ing-wen held a press conference Monday morning on the third anniversary

of her election. She highlighted many of her accomplishments over the past three years, saying that she has acted in the interest of Taiwan’s long-term future. Tsai says that Taiwan will reap the benefits of her efforts in the coming years.

Tsai sums up her achievements in ten points, including: wage hikes, increased investment, pension reform, and stronger domestic defense, among other things.

President Tsai also says that products made in Taiwan are becoming more appealing due to the trade war between the United States and China. In the future, Tsai wants to make domestically made products a focal point.

Tsai says she’s hoping to shift the focus away from Taiwan’s parts and components industry. Instead, she wants the words ‘made in Taiwan’ to inspire people to think of advanced technologies like green energy and artificial intelligence.    [FULL  STORY]