Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/29
By: Fan Chin-yi and Ko Lin

Hanoi, Nov. 29 (CNA) More than 200 people, including 17 Taiwanese, have been arrested in Cambodia on suspicion of telecom fraud, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Ho Chi Minh City confirmed on Thursday.

A raid was carried out by local police in Takeo Province, southern Cambodia, in which 17 Taiwanese nationals were arrested, Chung Wen-cheng (鍾文正), head of Taiwan’s de facto consulate in the southern Vietnamese city, said.

The case is still under investigation, Chung said, adding that the office will work with the local authorities to identify the Taiwanese citizens arrested in Cambodia.

More than 200 Taiwanese telecom fraud suspects arrested in other countries have been deported to mainland China, despite objections from the Taiwanese government. It’s unclear whether these 17 suspects will be deported to Taiwan or China.     [SOURCE]

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 30, 2018 
By Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

The Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co’s (TAPM) board yesterday

afternoon passed a motion to dismiss TAPM general manager Wu Yin-ning (吳音寧), effective immediately.

The move had been previously proposed by the Council of Agriculture, but the decision came just days after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered major losses in local elections, including in some predominately agricultural counties that had long been DPP strongholds.

Wu has been blamed by some as a major reason for the DPP’s losses, as it had backed her during several controversies this year.

Council Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) on Wednesday said that Wu’s task for this stage has been finished and the council could discuss a suitable replacement with the Taipei City Government, indicating there had been a decision to dismiss Wu.    [FULL  STORY]

‘If all the fishermen were Taiwanese, would the conditions be any different? This a question I have thought about for a very long time.’

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/28
By: Li A-ming

Showering

Taking a shower is not easy for a migrant fisherman.

Fishing ports usually only have around two showers. At dusk, after a spending a day working up a sweat on board, you will always see a long snaking line of fishermen waiting to rid themselves of the smell of fish. Unfortunately, all showers are located at opposite ends of the fishing port. No matter where your ship docks, you still must walk a bit of a distance in order to get to the showers.

Credit: Li A-ming / Times Publishing
When fishing boats are docked at replenishment terminals, migrant fishermen will illegally steal fresh water and get on deck to wash off. Water hydrants on land are all equipped with an iron frame lock, which can be unlocked during the day so that fishing boats can replenish their fresh water, but they must be locked again afterwards. However, migrant fishermen know the tricks to secretly pick the locks and access the endless water supply. The water is cheap anyway, and the ports don’t care too much.

During the summer, when the rain begins to pour, migrant fishermen solve their shower problems by lathering up under streams of rain water from the cabin roof. This saves them trekking through the rain, waiting for the showers, and then trudging back through the rain again afterwards. These ingenious fishermen even use bottled water to rinse their teeth out when brushing, causing their companies to curse them.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/28
By: Tzeng Yi-shiuan and Evelyn Kao 

Paris, Nov. 27 (CNA) The major defeat suffered by Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in last Saturday’s local government elections should not be interpreted as a vote for rapprochement with China, a French specialist in Beijing-Taipei relations said Tuesday.

The elections were primarily local and involved mainly local issues, said Stephane Corcuff, a French scholar of Taiwan studies at Sciences Po Lyon, in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde.

“The Taiwanese did not vote for rapprochement with China,” he said. “They were not asked to comment on (President) Tsai Ing-wen’s Chinese policy.”

Corcuff made the comment when asked whether he thought the DPP’s defeat in the local elections meant that Taiwanese wanted closer links with China.
[FULL  STORY]

PRECISION MEDICINE: Testing on mice on high-fat diets showed that consuming the probiotic could curb weight gain by 20 to 30 percent and help prevent inflammation

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 28, 2018
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Researchers yesterday said that they have identified a bacterium extracted from

medicinal mushrooms that might help prevent diet-induced obesity and inflammation-related diseases.

The team led by Chang Gung University professor Lai Hsin-chih (賴信志) found that Parabacteroides goldsteinii, which exists in limited quantities in the human digestive track, proliferates in lingzhi mushrooms and Ophiocordyceps sinensis due to their polysaccharides, Lai told a news conference at the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taipei.

“I began to study Chinese herbal medicines about 10 years ago after I attended many seminars in Western countries and realized that it was an almost uncharted research territory,” Lai said.

The conditions of the gastrointestinal microbiome — the ensemble of microorganisms in the intestines — are related to metabolic disorders such as obesity, respiratory tract diseases and inflammation-related diseases such as dementia and depression, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

In 2016, the DPP swept into power promising social progressivism and economic rejuvenation. So why does it now look like the KMT’s B team?

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/27
By: Roy Ngerng

One of the reasons why the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost so heavily in Taiwan’s local elections over the weekend was because it is no longer clear to voters what the DPP stood for, and could therefore have been a mismatch of expectations.

The DPP won in the 2016 presidential election on the basis that Taiwanese voters wanted to punish the Kuomintang (KMT) for being too closely aligned to China and threatening Taiwan’s sovereignty. That much is clear. On that assumption, the DPP has stuck to the belief that it should never waver in its stance towards China, and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has never accepted the so-called “One China, One Taiwan 1992 Consensus.” This in itself should not be too much of an issue, since most polls have shown support for Tsai on this issue.

However, while the assumption was that voters had voted for DPP because they wanted a more progressive approach to governance – what with Tsai advocating for same-sex marriage and the constant promise to increase the wages of Taiwan’s youths – the problem is that it seemed that there was no follow through on the DPP’s part.    [FULL  STORY]

3D wall murals introduce an artistic air to the old street

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/27
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Toucheng Old Street (頭城老街) in Yilan County has regained its glamour with a number of Instagrammable spots thanks to a renaissance project by the local government.

Boasting a thriving past as an economic hub back in the Qing Dynasty, Toucheng Township in the northeastern municipality of Taiwan is undergoing a transformation involving the implementation of 3D wall murals on old buildings, installation of calligraphy inscription tablets featuring writings by renowned local calligraphers, and more.

The project, sponsored by the central government with a budget of NT$9 million, has been 70 percent implemented and is slated for completion in early December, according to Toucheng Township Office.

Some of the 3D wall murals have been created with motifs spanning grocery shopfronts, huge ice desserts, and people from the past era, evoking memories of a nostalgic past.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/27
By: Chen Chi-fong and Ko Lin

Taipei, Nov. 27 (CNA) All matters pertaining to Taiwan’s cross-strait policy remain

under the authority of the central government, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Tuesday in response to Kaohsiung’s plan to set up a new working platform to deal with China.

“It is still unclear how they plan to do it,” Tsai told reporters after a meeting with Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), who lost the mayoral race in the city, run by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for nearly 20 years, to the Kuomintang’s Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) by more than 150,000 votes last Saturday.

During the election campaign, the mayor-elect said he agreed with the “1992 consensus” and that he would set up a cross-strait working group to promote bilateral trade once he takes office.    [FULL  STORY]