Taipei Times
Date: Nov 13, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

The participation of local governments is required to implement public childcare that covers children from birth to age 12, and 16 candidates running for mayor or county commissioner have signed letters committing themselves to pushing through needed policies once elected, the Childcare Policy Alliance said yesterday.

Among the 16 candidates who signed the commitment letters were Taipei mayoral candidates Pasuya Yao (姚文智) of the Democratic Progressive Party , Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and incumbent Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).

The alliance presented two line graphs — the rate at which women participate in the workforce and the rate at which children from three months to five years old are cared for outside of the home — with rates listed for Taiwan, Denmark, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

The first graph showed that Taiwanese women aged 25 to 29 had the highest rate of workforce participation among the compared nations, but that from age 30 to 65, the rate steadily dropped off, reflecting the number of women leaving jobs to care for children due to insufficient public childcare, Alliance convener Liu Yu-hsiu (劉毓秀) said.    [FULL  STORY]

Man arrested for stealing 868 pairs of women’s shoes that fit his foot fetish in Keelung, Taiwan

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/11/12
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A man has been arrested for stealing 868 pairs of women’s shoes from over 33 victims over the course of five years in the northern Taiwan city of Keelung, reported China Times.

A 42-year-old man surnamed Chen (陳) living in Keelung City has developed a strange predilection for women’s shoes. When Chen would see women’s shoes in the shoe rack outside of his neighbors’ apartments that captured his fancy, he would steal them and add them to his bizarre menagerie of feminine footwear.

After receiving repeated reports of shoe thefts from female households in a residential community on Maijing Road in Keelung City’s Anle District, police began an investigation and zeroed in on Chen as the main suspect. On the evening of April 24 this year, police obtained a search warrant and entered Chen’s apartment, where they found the floor, wardrobe cabinet, desk, and even his bed covered with a total of 1,736 women’s shoes.

Chen initially claimed that he had collected all of the shoes after they had been tossed out for recycling, but police did not buy his explanation. Later, Chen admitted that starting in 2013, he began stealing women’s shoes that fit his foot fetish and took them home “purely for viewing purposes.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/11
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, Nov. 11 (CNA) Members of the German orchestra Berliner

Philharmoniker said Sunday in Taipei that they were very much looking forward to playing at the new Weiwuying Concert Hall in Kaohsiung.

“We are particularly excited to be going down to Weiwuying to perform as the first international orchestra,” Stanley Dodds, media chairman and second violin of the Berliner Philharmoniker, said at a press conference.

Dodds congratulated Taiwan on the new concern hall in Kaohsiung’s National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, known as Weiwuying.

He said Taiwan must be commended for having “the foresight to build such an extensive cultural center” and realizing that culture is the heart and spirit of every society.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 12, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA, WASHINGTON

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday called on Taiwanese living

abroad to return home and cast their ballots in the nine-in-one elections on Nov. 24, saying it would be in the interest of safeguarding democracy.

“As the Nov. 24 local government elections approach, the whole world is watching whether Taiwanese will vote for a China- leaning party or choose one that is committed to democracy and human rights,” Tsai said in a recorded video that was played at an event in Washington to mark the 50th anniversary of the Taiwanese Association of America.

Expressing gratitude to expatriates for their long-time support, Tsai urged them to return to vote in the elections and show the rest of the world their commitment to safeguarding the nation’s democracy.

“Once our country is strong enough, we will never fear this changing world,” she said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 09 November, 2018
By: Jake Chen

Taiwanese gangster movie Gatao 2: Rise of the King has been selected for the 2018 Hawaii International Film Festival.

The film tells the story of conflict between two rival gangs in Taipei, and the intertwining relationships between key gang members. It opened to domestic box office success, drawing crowds with its local flavor and beautiful cinematography. It also attracted some criticism for scenes of violence.

Gatao 2 is one of two Taiwanese films selected for the festival. The other one is Long Time No Sea, a drama about an indigenous boy from Orchid Island seeking his cultural roots.    [FULL  STORY]

The Keelung Youth Front was founded to foster awareness of Keelung’s history of development and pride in the city

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/11/10
By: Taiwan Today,Agencies

KEELUNG (Taiwan Today) — In August 2014, a group of young cultural preservation enthusiasts launched a campaign to spruce up a long-abandoned mansion overlooking Keelung City on Taiwan’s northern coast.

The building dating to 1931 was formerly the home of Ko Zu-song, a political leader and opinion-maker during Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). Ko helped shape the development of the prosperous port town, though in recent decades his life and impact had largely been forgotten.

By halting the decline of the structure, the Keelung Youth Front hoped to right this wrong, said Chang Ji-ho, who founded the group the same year. “We wanted to do something concrete to pass down this history to our generation.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/09
By: Elaine Hou and Ko Lin

Taipei, Nov. 9 (CNA) Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) announced on Friday that it

will soon restore a correspondence bureau in Turkey, with the aim of expanding its media coverage of the country and region to serve readers in Taiwan.

Speaking to visiting representative of the Turkish Trade Office in Taipei, Murat Baklaci, CNA president Chang Jui-chang (張瑞昌) expressed hope that the bureau will also help contribute to the development of relations between the two countries.

Chang told Baklaci that the agency had already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with its Turkish counterpart, Anadolu Agency (AA), in Taipei in 2016.

Under the MOU, the two news agencies will share text news, photos and videos with each other.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 10, 2018
By Chang Tsung-chiu, Chiu Chun-fu and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporters, with staff writers

Police in Changhua and Yunlin counties on Thursday arrested 11 Bamboo Union gang

members over alleged assault, extortion, infringement of personal liberties and organized crime activities, while they are also suspected to have funded political campaigns.

A National Police Agency operation targeting organized crime ahead of the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections has made three sets of arrests this year, with Thursday’s being the last before the elections, the Changhua County Police Department said.

The Bamboo Union members arrested included three who are also members of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), the department said.

Two men in custody, Tsai Ping-jui (蔡秉叡), 32, and Lu Chin-lin (呂金霖), 24, were suspected leaders of a violent criminal group allegedly engaged in illegal debt collection and political campaigning, it said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 08 November, 2018
By: Jake Chen

Lee Shih-han, a teacher from Peinan Middle School in Taichung, was posthumously awarded by the Ministry of Education on Thursday.

Lee was one of the 18 people who died in the Puyuma Express train derailment on October 21. The teacher was returning home along with her students after they participated in an exchange activity in South Korea.

The education ministry presented Lee’s parents with the award at their home and expressed their recognition of her contributions as a teacher. Lee’s parents said they simply hope the cause of the accident, as well as those responsible, can be identified soon.

So far, the investigation has not yielded any verdict.    [SOURCE]

Your daily bulletin of Taiwan news, courtesy of ICRT.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/08
By: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT)

Three Taiwanese-Americans won electoral races in New York, including former New York

City comptroller John Liu (劉醇逸), who will become New York’s first Taiwan-born state senator.

U.S. Representative Grace Meng (孟昭文) easily won her fourth term serving New York’s 6th congressional district, winning 91 percent of the vote to secure re-election to the House of Representatives.

Taipei-born Niou Yuh-line (牛毓琳) also won re-election to her seat in the New York State Assembly.

American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman James Moriarty said the results of the United States midterm elections would not affect the country’s policy towards Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]