12 Taiwanese movies will be screened at the Three Continents Film Festivals

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/11/08
By: Ryan Drillsma, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The 40th edition of the Three Continents Film Festival (Festival

des 3 Continents) kicks off in Nantes, France on Nov. 20 and features a number of Taiwanese movies.

Taiwanese filmmaking has been given the spotlight at this year’s festival, which showcases a total of 12 Taiwanese movies in a special program entitled “Taipei Story.”

The eponymous movie by Edward Yang (楊德昌), Taipei Story, will feature alongside Hou Hsiao-hsien’s (侯孝賢) Daughter of the Nile and Cheerful Wind. Nine other films, including some rare and unique cuts, are to be screened at the festival too.

Furthermore, legendary filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) will be present to host a masterclass in directing. Tsai is known for his “slow”, observational movies, which often use dreary aesthetics to reinforce themes of isolation and alienation. His latest movie, Goodbye Dragon Inn, will make its French debut at Three Continents.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 09, 2018 
By Chen Yu-fu and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The freeze on the assets of the National Women’s League would not be affected after the

Taipei High Administrative Court on Monday reiterated that all legal proceedings are to be halted until the Council of Grand Justices announces its interpretation of the Act Governing the Settlement of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said yesterday.

Committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said that the ruling has no effect on administrative penalties already issued by the committee.

The league’s assets are still frozen, and the league still needs the committee’s permission to use its assets, she said.

The court did not give specific reasons for its ruling and stopped hearing the case involving the league simply because other judges have already applied for a constitutional interpretation for a separate case involving the act and because the court’s economic and judicial resources are shared, Shih said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/08
By: Chung Jung-feng and Ko Lin

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) A majority of netizens in Taiwan polled in a recent survey said they

are looking forward to the upcoming Double 11 “shopping festival,” the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC) said Thursday.

Nov. 11 is observed as Singles Day or Double 11 day, an annual online shopping bonanza that originated in China but has since spread worldwide, including Taiwan.

According to the MIC survey, 63.5 percent of the respondents said they plan to make purchases that day, a rise from 57.1 percent in 2017 and 44.9 percent in 2016.

Chang Hsiao-chi (張筱祺), a senior industrial analyst at MIC, said the rise in number can be attributed to the online marketing campaigns carried out by E-commerce operators, which are becoming more aggressive every year.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 07 November, 2018
By: Paula Chao

Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has introduced his new book Elements of Architecture to Taiwan. The book is not the easiest of reads, with 2,528 pages and a total of 1.5 million words.

Earlier, Koolhaas was invited to award the ADA awards for emerging architects.

Koolhass designed the Taipei Performing Arts Center for Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

Fishermen say recent fines levied by the government are excessive. NGOs say they are not harsh enough.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/07
By: Nick Aspinwall

Taiwanese fishermen protested outside the Fisheries Agency (FA) on Tuesday afternoon before marching to the Legislative Yuan building, armed with airhorns and matching caps, after what they say is an unnecessarily harsh crackdown on their heavily scrutinized industry.

Media reports and nongovernmental organizations have criticized Taiwan’s vessel owners and captains for repeated instances of illegal fishing and human rights abuses of crew members, most of whom are migrant workers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Over a thousand vessel owners, captains and fishermen and their families bused to Taipei for the event. (Taiwan’s foreign deep sea crew members usually do not set foot in Taiwan, instead disembarking from vessels in third countries and flying home.) Some came from the eastern port town of Su’ao and the northern Ryukyu Islands, but most traveled from Donggang, Taiwan’s largest deep-sea port in southern Pingtung County.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s ‘SadStory’ disqualified from IEM 2019 Katowice qualifiers for not competing in the ‘China division’

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/07
By: Scott Morgan, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwanese competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team “SadStory” was disqualified from the regional qualifier of the IEM 2019 Katowice world championship on a technicality, as the team did not compete in the “China division,” reported CNA.

SadStory beat Japan’s Friendly Welcome 16-1 during the preliminary round, but were consequently disqualified for supposedly competing in the incorrect region.

The blunder is the result of problematic rules which appear to have caused confusion, despite SadStory participating in the competition for the past two years without incident.

Taiwan, a regional hub of online gaming and home of numerous gaming brands, is not distinctly listed in regions China, East Asia, or Southeast Asia.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/07
By: Cheng Ching-wen and Flor Wang

Taipei, Nov. 7 (CNA) Taiwan’s Chung Chia-chun (鍾家駿) has won the Award for Best Young Actor at the Minsk International Film Festival in Belarus, the organizers announced Tuesday.

Chung, 14, the youngest actor to have won that award at the festival, stars in the movie “Long Time No Sea,” directed by Heather Tsui (崔永徽).

He plays an aboriginal boy living on Orchid Island who decides to join a traditional dance troupe that takes him to Taipei where he reunites with his father whom he rarely sees.

The movie was filmed on Orchid Island — a small island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan that is home to the Tao aboriginal tribe, of which Chung is a member.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 08, 2018
By: Lin Liang-sheng and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Ma Ying-jeou Foundation yesterday held a policy forum on the future of cross-strait

relations to mark the third anniversary of the historic meeting between then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore in 2015.

It was the first time in 66 years leaders of the two sides in the Chinese Civil War had met since the retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime to Taiwan in 1949.

At the forum, Ma said that the “1992 consensus” was an actual political accord between Taiwan and China.

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration’s refusal to recognize the consensus is tantamount to unilaterally abolishing the accord, Ma said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 06 November, 2018
By: jvantrieste

As Taiwan’s population ages, there is discussion over how to increase the birth rate and bring back some demographic balance.

In southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County, one approach being tried is to offer subsidies to new mothers. However, this strategy doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect.

This hospital nursery in Pingtung County has just welcomed a few new local citizens into the world. There’s a lot more room in this nursery than there used to be.

In years past, this hospital alone might handle up to 250 births a month. This year, though, the average monthly birth rate for all of Pingtung County is just over 380.
[FULL  STORY]

Your daily bulletin of Taiwan news, courtesy of ICRT.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/06
By: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT)

Defense officials said the military is hoping to purchase MQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned helicopters and MK-62 Quickstrike Mines from the United States.

According to the Department of Strategic Planning, the island’s armed forces are interested in the weapon systems because they fit into plans to strengthen Taiwan’s asymmetric warfare capabilities amid the growing military threat from China.

However, defense officials say the U.S. is currently refusing to sell the weapons systems to Taiwan and further evaluations are ongoing.    [FULL  STORY]