Taiwan News  
Date: 2017/12/08
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Best Design winners were announced at the Golden Pin Design Award 2017 Grand Ceremony on Thursday, in the spectacular Eslite Spectrum Performance Hall, inside Taipei’s historic Songshan Cultural & Creative Park.

An animation titled “The Mystery of Victim Blaming” emerged as one of the best design winners in the visual communication design category.

The idea for the animation came from two incidents that happened in 2015 in Taiwan, one was the color powder explosion at a summer music party that caused the death of 15 young people and left many others injured, while the other incident was a rape case at a university due to excessive alcohol consumption.

In both cases, a lot of social media opinions blaming the victims appeared. The film “The Mystery of Victim Blaming” deals with this very phenomenon of victim blaming, and calls for an end to comment in such a critical manner both on the Internet and in real life.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/08
By: Wang Yi-ju and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Dec. 8 (CNA) To mark the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s upcoming founding

anniversary, a Taiwanese business mogul and patron of the arts has decided to pay homage to the internationally acclaimed dance troupe by publishing a “collection-grade” book of photographs featuring the beauty and power of its dance works.

Quanta Computer Chairman Barry Lam (林百里), a philanthropist who donates money for culture and education in Taiwan, said he came up with the idea of publishing the book of photos featuring Cloud Gate dances in 2015, when the actual theater where the dance company is based, was inaugurated in Tamsui, New Taipei City.

That day, Lam said, he saw the exhibition of Cloud Gate dance photos by local photographer Liu Chen-hsiang (劉振祥).

“I was deeply touched by those pictures, which put together the most painstaking and beautiful images of Cloud Gate (dancers),” Lam recalled, speaking at the book release ceremony on Friday.    [FULL  STORY]

South China Morning Post
Date: Thursday, 07 December
By: Ng Kang-chung, Christy Leung 

A prominent Taiwanese political critic and a senior officer at a semi-official cultural group headed by Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen was refused entry to Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Chang Tieh-chih, also former chief editor of Hong Kong’s popular lifestyle and cultural monthly City Magazine, broke the news on Wednesday afternoon with a message on his Twitter account: “Finally, I was denied entry at the Hong Kong airport.”

But he wrote that his wife, Amy Cui, was allowed to enter. Cui is a Hong Kong resident. “I watched as my wife passed through,” he wrote on Twitter.

A source with knowledge of the matter said he was denied entry as his dependent visa had expired.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-12-07

President Tsai Ing-wen has thanked the US-based nonprofit policy organization the

National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) for its long-term support in Taiwan-US relations. Tsai was speaking on Thursday while receiving an NCAFP delegation in Taipei.

Tsai said Taiwan plays an active role in regional affairs and hopes that neighboring countries can work together to maintain regional peace and prosperity. She said her government’s New Southbound policy has brought growth in trade, tourism and exchanges with other countries in the region.

Tsai said Taiwan will continue to work with the US and thanked the Trump administration’s support for Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s tourism goodwill ambassador OhBear will turn himself into a tour guide and lead OhBear fans to different places in northern Taiwan to engage in different theme activities in four mini tours

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/12/07
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Taiwan’s tourism goodwill ambassador OhBear will turn himself

into a tour guide and lead OhBear fans to different places in northern Taiwan to engage in different theme activities in four mini tours, with one departing on each Wednesday of December.

The first of the four OhBear mini tours, all of which are available only to OhBear fans, took 40 tour members to the agricultural towns of Erlin (二林) and Tianwei (田尾) in Changhua country, where they saw seas of blooming buckwheat flowers, experienced making buckwheat noodles by hand, sampled Erlin red wine, rode a bike along the Tianwei Highway Garden, and visited a sock factory.

Buckwheat, which is one of three staple agricultural products in Erlin, flowers from mid November to December, and seas of buckwheat flowers can be seen on the fields in the town during this time of the year.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/07
By: Sophia Yeh and Christie Chen

Taipei, Dec. 7 (CNA) Huang Ping-fan (黃屏藩) was in elementary school when his parents

and five other people were convicted of murdering a man inside a Taipei hotel run by his parents in 1959.

The case, known as the Wuhan Hotel incident, is considered by some to be one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice during the White Terror era from 1949-1987.

Nearly six decades later, Huang, now 69, and his 90-year-old mother Yang Hsun-chun (楊薰春), who is the last surviving defendant, are asking the government to overturn the conviction and are placing their hopes in President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who backed the passing of a transitional justice law by Taiwan’s Legislature on Dec. 5.

On Wednesday, Huang handed a petition to the Presidential Office, calling on the president to help redress the alleged wrongdoings against all the defendants in the case.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 08, 2017
By: Jake Chung  /  Staff writer, with CNA

Multiple denials of entry into China or Hong Kong over the past three years, including

that of General Association of Chinese Culture deputy secretary-general Chang Tieh-chih (張鐵志) on Wednesday, indicate that China is reluctant to encourage Taiwanese hopes that unofficial channels are still “going strong,” academics said at a seminar at National Chengchi University (NCCU) yesterday.

Chang, who was on his way to attend the annual Four Cities Forum in Hong Kong, was denied entry to the territory after being told that his Hong Kong identity card had expired.

Chang obtained the card in 2013 when serving as editor-in-chief for City Magazine, a Hong Kong publication.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2017-12-06
By: Jeffrey Warner

Taiwan has not been included in a European Union list of tax havens published Tuesday.

The tax haven black list includes 17 countries and regions. Taiwan’s representative to the EU Harry Tseng says this shows that the EU recognizes and affirms Taiwan’s efforts on tax issues.

In order to avoid being placed on the black list, the EU must deem a country’s tax laws to be fair and transparent. Countries must also use Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development measures to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).

In recent years, many wealthy persons and international companies have been caught avoiding taxes and hiding their profits overseas. The EU has been pursuing these cases and found that over 90 countries and regions do not meet EU standards. The EU may take measures such as keeping EU funds from entering blacklisted countries.
[FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2017/12/06
By: Jeffrey Warner

Asia Cement’s permit to mine on indigenous land was renewed in double quick time, leading to mass protests and opening debate over how Taiwan’s government allows big business to ride roughshod over civil rights.

Whiffs of what indigenous activist groups claim is scandalous whirled around the edge of Taroko National Park like Pacific Ocean mists last week as demonstrators staged a week-long blockage of an Asia Cement Corp. (ACC) mine.

The protest dredged up a host of murky issues revolving around how big business has been allowed to trample on indigenous rights.    [FULL  STORY]