The Star Online
Date: 19 May 2018
Compiled by YIMIE YONG, ROYCE TAN and R. ARAVINTHAN

CONTROVERSIAL businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, could be in Taiwan, Nanyang Siang Pau reported.

From the time the 1Malay-sia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal broke, Jho Low’s

whereabouts have been unknown but sources said he could be hiding in Taiwan, the Chinese daily reported.

The daily said it might be difficult for Jho Low, who has been linked to the 1MDB controversy, to be extradited to Malaysia.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad earlier told the media that the Govern­ment “roughly knows” where to find Jho Low.

He added that the Government had not sought help from Interpol to locate him.

He told reporters that he was looking for a producer in Hollywood to develop the project.
[FULL  STORY]

This is the second year in a row that Taiwanese journalists have been denied access to the world’s largest heath policy meeting.

The News Lens
Date; 2018/05/18
By: David Green 

A decision by the United Nations (UN) World Health Organization (WHO) to deny reporting

accreditation to Taiwanese journalists has triggered a furor over whether Chinese pressure is forcing the UN to contravene its human rights commitments.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Tuesday had accreditation applications for two of its journalists turned down by the WHO. No explanation was given to explain the process behind the decision, but the rejection matches a similar denial of applications from CNA that occurred last year.

Various press organizations, including the International Federation of Journalists (IJF) and its local affiliate the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ), as well as Reporters Without Borders (RSF), have lambasted the WHO for bowing to Chinese pressure, contravening the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and a lack of transparency in their process.

Taiwan has not been invited to the WHA for two years in a row, and its press have now been denied access on both occasions.    [FULL  STORY]

President Tsai crowns her retired guide dogs with balloon art 

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/19
By: Renée Salmonsen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her three retired

guide dogs received a warm welcome from members of the Taiwan Institute for the Blind this morning, May 19.

Tsai’s dogs Maru, Bunny, and Bella, nicknamed “the three treasures of the official residence” (官邸三寶), are alumnae of the Huikuang Guide Dog Training School located at the institute, and they were happily welcomed back by the balloon modeling class, reported CNA.

Tsai was accompanied by former Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and the institute’s balloon class in making balloon crowns to adorn the dogs. The celebration also featured live harmonica music and a dance performance from the institute members.

Tsai remarked that her three dogs are energetic yet still very disciplined. She trusts that her home is a good place for the former guide dogs to relax and run around as much as they want.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/19
By: Chang Jung-hsiang and Ko Lin

Taipei, May 19 (CNA) A total of 1,050 geese on a farm in Tainan were culled after it was

confirmed to be infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus, the city’s Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office said Saturday.

Samples taken on May 16 from a poultry farm in Madou District were confirmed to be infected with this subtype of the avian flu virus, said Chuang Wei-chao (莊惟超), the office’s deputy director.

Tainan has been hit by avian flu four times this year, the last time coming in April in Guiren District when 10,820 chickens were culled on an infected farm.

According to data released by the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA), 71 poultry farms in Taiwan have been affected by avian flu so far this year, resulting in 530,148 birds being culled.     [FULL  STORY]

The National Interest
Date: May 18, 2018
By: Robert Beckhusen

In military terms, a “decapitation” strike refers to the practice of targeting a country’s top leadership in the opening hours of a war — cutting off the head of an enemy army and its political system. Taiwan, situated close to China with its many ways of carrying out such an attack, is vulnerable.

Remote though it may seem, Taiwan takes the possibility seriously enough to treat defending against decapitation to be among its top military priorities under its “resolute defense” doctrine. China also seems to prepare to do it, at least as a way of rattling Taiwan and putting it under pressure. In 2015, Chinese troops drilled in Inner Mongolia at a base built to resemble the Taiwanese Presidential Palace.

That exercise could have been a form of psychological warfare. But Taiwan’s military can never be too sure and it has a contingency plan in place were China to aim right at Taiwan’s political leadership — the defense of which falls to the Republic of China Marine Corps’ 66th Brigade based in New Taipei City, a region surrounding Taipei proper. One of the 66th’s battalions is based within the capital city itself at a military college.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-18

President Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday evening addressed the European Chamber of

Commerce Taiwan at its 2018 Europe Day Dinner.

In a speech in English, Tsai thanked the audience for the EU’s recognition of Taiwan as a beacon for human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.

The president said Taiwan would step up its cooperation with European companies in the area of advanced technology. She also said the government is working to make it easier for overseas companies to do business in Taiwan and is working with the EU to move forward on a bilateral investment agreement.

Tsai said Taiwan and European member states are partners who share the same deep and abiding belief in democracy, human rights and the rule of law.    [FULL  STORY]

Engineer Wang Hsuan designed accessible barrier-free spaces for people with impairments

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/18
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A woman engineer who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

or ALS has won the president’s education award due to her efforts to design environments friendlier to people with impairments.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, causes the death of neurons controlling voluntary muscles. Patients gradually lose the possibility to walk around, and later also find they cannot move any other body parts, leading to a loss of speech and of the capability to eat independently. Speaking, swallowing and breathing become impossible, and no cure is known.

Wang Hsuan (王瑄), 42, studied in Great Britain and worked as a senior engineer at contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corporation for five years before being forced to resign due to disease, the United Daily News reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/18
By: Huang Kuo-fang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 18 (CNA) Two workers are in critical condition at a hospital in Chiayi County

after they were pulled out of an underground sewer where they fell unconscious while on the job Friday evening, a local firefighter said.

The local workers, males aged 32 and 55, were reported at 5:45 p.m. to have fainted in an underground section of the sewage system in the city of Puzi, said Hsieh Jung-chan (謝榮展), a division chief of the Chiayi County Fire Bureau.

Rescue personnel were immediately dispatched to the site, and they pulled the two men from a depth of two to three meters below ground out of the sewer, Hsieh said.

The workers did not have a pulse after being brought to the surface, and rescuers suspected they suffered from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, Hsieh said.
[FULL  STORY]