ANNUAL ACCOLADES: A presentation ceremony for the awards is to be held on Jan. 26 at the opening of next year’s Taipei International Book Exhibition, which runs until Jan. 31

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 16, 2020
By: Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter

The Taipei Book Fair Foundation yesterday announced the winners of its annual awards, with graphic novels simultaneously receiving top honors in the fiction and nonfiction categories for the first time.

Ahead of the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) each year, the foundation unveils the winners of its TIBE Book Prizes, as well as the Golden Butterfly Awards for book design.

This year’s exhibition was held online for the first time after the event was postponed from January to May, and then canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The TIBE Book Prizes — for fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, young adults’ literature, and editing — recognize Chinese-language works that were published for the first time in Taiwan between Nov. 1 last year and Sept. 30.    [FULL  STORY]

Deadline
Date: December 13, 2020
By: Nancy Tartaglione
International Box Office Editor/Senior Contributor

The international box office continues to provide welcome surprises during the pandemic era. Where movie theaters are open and people feel safe, they turn up for new or enduringly exciting product that’s on offer.

To wit: Japan’s Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train has perhaps become the story of the year. A runaway success across this period, and in its 9th weekend, it is now estimated to have crossed $310M worldwide (largely from the home market, but also including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam). The movie is days away from becoming the top-grossing film of all time in Japan, overtaking Hayao Miyazaki’s 2010 Spirited Away. Think about that for a minute: It has taken 19 years to reach this level, and was done so during a pandemic.

We’ll have confirmed numbers out of Japan on Demon Slayer tomorrow, where the cume is expected to be closely approaching Spirited Away and primed to beat the all-time record.

Elsewhere, there was good news from China. While local title Bath Buddy was the leader this weekend, DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Croods: A New Age had a great -45% hold. The cume after three weeks is $46M, overtaking Mulan to become the 2nd biggest imported title of 2020.

Overall, Croods 2 grossed an estimated $8.4M this session oversea; lifting its offshore cume to $52.1M and global to $76.3M.    FULL  STORY]

Stuff
Date: Dec 14 2020
By: Anna Loren

A Taiwanese woman denied New Zealand residency because of her partner’s sexual offending against children will have her case re-examined by authorities.

The woman’s partner, a 74-year-old man, was previously a member of the Catholic clergy.

In 2019, he was convicted on two counts of indecently assaulting a girl aged between 12 and 16, and one of indecently assaulting a girl who was under 12 years old. All three incidents occurred in 1977.

He was also convicted of one count of possessing objectionable material, which occurred in 2018.    [FULL  STORY]

Latest infection of 3-year-old may have occurred in US airport play area

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/12/12
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After a three-year-old boy recently returned from the United States became Taiwan’s third coronavirus (COVID-19) case under the age of five Saturday (Dec. 12), officials told the public not to worry since all three were mild cases.

A Taiwanese woman in her 30s and her son aged three lived in the U.S. for more than a year before returning to Taiwan recently, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced Saturday. While the boy and two other infected children had a fever, they were otherwise mild cases who had not shown any side effects, CNA reported.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 12/13/2020
By: Huang Ming-hui and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) Two old unexploded landmines were found Saturday in Kinmen, an island that was the frontline in Taiwan's defense against attacks by Communist Chinese forces in the late 1940s and into the 70s, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said on Sunday.

The two landmines were spotted in a coastal area on the western side of Kinmen's Lieyu Township by a passerby, who informed local authorities late Saturday, the CGA said in a press release.

According to the press release, the CGA immediately dispatched its 9th Coastal Patrol Corps to the site, where the objects were identified as American M3 landmines, a kind of anti-personnel landmines designed to wound or kill by its fragmentation.

A member of the corps Tian Tzu-ching (刁子敬) said after close examination, CGA personnel determined that the rusty mines posed no immediate threat, and they called a military bomb disposal unit.    [FULL  STORY]

LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION: A ‘household service act’ is needed to protect foreign domestic workers, who are not currently covered by the Labor Standards Act

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 14, 2020
By: Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter

About 200 migrant workers and workers’ rights advocates yesterday rallied in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei to push for legislation to guarantee legal protection for domestic workers.

At the heart of the protesters’ demands is a proposed “household service act” that the Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT) — a coalition of grassroots migrants’ rights organizations that organized the protest — has been pushing for since 2003.

Protesters held signs with messages reading “We want legal protection,” “We are not slaves and not products,” and “Stop human trafficking. Stop exploitation.”

Representatives of several groups, including MENT members such as the Taipei-based Taiwan International Workers’ Association, the Taoyuan-based Hope Workers’ Center and the Hsinchu Migrants and Immigrants Service Center, as well supporters such as the Awakening Foundation, took part in the protest.    [FULL  STORY]

Business Times Online
Date: December 12, 2020
By: .Artie Villasanta

President Tsai Ing-wen warns mainland Chinese illegal fishermen and resource robbers to stay out of Taiwan's waters. (Photo: w:en:Presidential Office Building, Taiwan / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0))

The Republic of China (Taiwan) said it won't hesitate using its most powerful coast guard vessel, the first of which entered service Friday, to hunt down mainland Chinese ships illegally fishing and stealing mineral resources inside its territorial waters.

President Tsai Ing-wen delivered the stern warning during the ceremony in Kaohsiung that saw the "Angping (CG-601)," a heavily-armed catamaran patrol boat/missile corvette, enter service with the Coast Guard Administration of Taiwan (CGA). The same event also saw the launch of "Chengkung (CG-602)" slated to enter CGA service in 2021.

Anping is the first boat in the Anping-class offshore patrol vessel. A further three boats are scheduled for delivery to the CGA before the end of 2026.

The Angping-class will eventually consist of 12 locally designed and built 600-ton class catamaran patrol vessels that can quickly be converted into warships armed with Taiwan's latest hypersonic anti-ship missiles.    [FULL  STORY]

Labor fund official allegedly bribed to allow illegal deals resulting in massive losses for national labor fund

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/12/11
By:Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The CEO and other executives of one of Taiwan's largest asset management companies are being held incommunicado after being questioned over an alleged national labor fund investment scandal, the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office said Friday (Dec. 11).

The office launched the third stage of its bribery investigation on Thursday (Dec. 10). A Ministry of Labor official responsible for labor fund management was arrested two weeks ago for allegedly engaging in stock speculation.

You Wei-wen (游迺文), who had been working as a chief asset management officer for the fund, is accused of accepting bribes from PJ Asset Management (PJAM) speculators in exchange for getting rid of a large chunk of shares after a failed attempt to manipulate Far Eastern Group stock (TW-2903). This resulted in astronomical losses for the national labor fund, which bought shares at a premium.

Fuh Hwa International Asset Management (復華投信) was involved in the problematic shares transaction. Sources familiar with the matter told Taiwan News the company had experienced abnormal employee turnover before You was nabbed in the bribery investigation.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 12/12/2020
By: Chu Hsiang-ping and Kay Liu

Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) An exhibition that highlights indigenous cultures of Taitung County, past and present, opened Saturday at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Taipei.

Titled "Hatch, a Dream at the Far Edge," the exhibition at MOCA Studio features the work of three artists and artifacts selected by curator Akac Orat (陳豪毅).

The displays include a modern piece titled "Fawah," which is a 5-meter long canoe crafted by Amis artist Lafin Sawmah, who said he had no experience with that kind of work.

"Fawah" by Amis artist Lafin Sawmah. CNA photo Dec. 11, 2020

Lafin said, however, that when he was a child, he felt a great connection to the ocean, which persisted into adulthood whenever he returned to his coastal hometown and when he was an artist in residence in the Philippines. Based on his imagination of how his Austronesian ancestors sailed and traded between islands, he crafted the canoe, he said.    [FULL  STORY]