Top 1000 Funds
Date: October 8, 2018
By: Sarah Rundell

China and America’s relationship is the biggest geopolitical risk on the global landscape, said Stephen Kotkin, speaking at the Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Stanford University. The John P Birkelund ’52 Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, told delegates conflict could arise over Taiwan.

He discounted geopolitical risk on the Korean peninsula. Although it is dangerous and potentially catastrophic for the region, it doesn’t pose a systemic risk, he said. Nor, in Kotkin’s estimation, do Russia, instability in the Middle East, or Iran, which has a small army and uses proxies and militias to fight its wars.

He said the “Trump chaos” that has manifest in a denunciation of allies and breaking of key global agreements, looks very different from Obama’s policies. However, scratch beneath the surface and US President Donald Trump’s policies are not that dissimilar, he argued, because the administration is grappling with the same problems as Obama’s: the US is trying to reduce its foreign commitments, demand more of its allies, and find more common ground with its adversaries as America’s power in the world declines.

“Obama tried to do all these things, the style was different, but the substance is similar,” he said.    [FULL  STORY]

A report was filed, but an agreement was reached that the foreign official would leave Taiwan as soon as possible

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/10/08
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As the Paraguayan presidential delegation visits Taiwan this week, an official from the country has drawn some unwanted attention for alleged misconduct, the director of the country’s Immigration Bureau, Julian Vega.

Vega arrived in Taipei last week at the invitation of the Taiwanese National Immigration Agency (NIA) to join a standardized training program for immigration officials. Vega was assigned a female translator for the duration of what was to be an eight day visit.

It was reported on Sunday, that the female translator accused Vega of inappropriately “rubbing her thigh.” According to LTN, the translator filed a report with the Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office on Oct. 5 alleging sexual misconduct.

A settlement was reportedly reached the same day in private, with the result that no formal charges would be pressed but that Vega would leave Taiwan as soon as possible.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/10/08
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan 

Taipei, Oct. 8 (CNA) Nongovernmental organization (NGO) activists on Monday called for greater public participation in a national campaign to discuss alternatives to the death penalty aimed at replacing it with other punishments.

A series of 30 deliberative meetings, titled “Let’s Discuss the Alternatives to the Death Penalty,” have been scheduled since May to engage with people holding different views on the death penalty. So far, 10 have been held and another 20 sessions are scheduled by the middle of 2019.

“We hope to hear a wide diversity of opinions on the subject no matter whether they support retaining or abolishing the death penalty,” Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), head of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) which initiated the campaign, said at a press conference.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: Oct 09, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Visiting Taiwan for the first time as president is like “homecoming,” due to his family’s

close ties with the nation, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez said yesterday.

At a ceremony at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei hosted by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Abdo said this is not his first time to visit, but his first as president.

He praised Taiwan’s insistence on democracy, peace and human rights.

These shared values have bonded Taiwan and Paraguay for decades since the two countries established ties 61 years ago, he said.

Paraguay would continue to support Taiwan on the international stage, especially on its rights to participate in UN events and other international organizations, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

Suspect could face up to five years in prison

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/10/06
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Police arrested a man who falsely claimed online that armed

military with guns at the ready had accompanied President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on a tour of flood-ravaged areas in Southern Taiwan last August.

The suspect had posted two Line messages on his Facebook page on August 26 which quoted the driver of a military armored vehicle saying the soldiers accompanying Tsai had their weapons loaded and ready.

The Presidential Office and the Ministry of National Defense denied the accusation and said the incident damaged the government’s reputation. As a result, the military took the case to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), the Central News Agency reported.

The CIB said Saturday the investigation had taken them to a 35-year-old fish farmer in Kaohsiung City’s Linyuan District surnamed Na (那).    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/10/06
By: Su Mu-chun and Ko Lin 

Taipei, Oct. 6 (CNA) An exhibition of select artworks from collections of four museums in Taiwan and Japan opened Saturday in Taichung, as a prelude to the 2018 Taichung World Flora Exposition to be held from Nov. 3 to April 24 next year.

The flower-themed “Flowers of Immense Charm – A Master Piece Exhibition by Four Major Museums” exhibition is co-organized by Taiwan’s National Palace Museum, Chimei Museum and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Japan’s Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, with Hsiao Chong-ray (蕭瓊瑞), professor in history at National Cheng Kung University, serving as its chief curator.

A total of 148 select artworks from the four museums’ collections are on display at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts until Feb. 10 next year.

Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Deputy Culture Minister Hsiao Tsung-huang (蕭宗煌) were also present at the opening reception.    [FULL  STORY]

REFERENDUM PROPOSALS: The Central Election Commission is to decide on Tuesday if the referendums, with 83 percent valid signatures, are to be part of the voting on Nov.

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 07, 2018
By: Chen Yu-fu  /  Staff reporter

The Central Election Commission yesterday announced that the number of petition forms

for the two referendum proposals launched by the Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation had passed the legal threshold, with each garnering more than 550,000 signatures.

As the number of signatures for the referendum petitions had exceeded the legal minimum, the commission said it would convene a meeting on Tuesday to decide whether the proposals are valid and to be included in the voting on Nov. 24.

For a referendum proposal to be established, its initiator has to collect at least 281,745 signatures, or 1.5 percent of the number of the total electors in the most recent presidential and vice presidential election, as stipulated by Article 12 of the Referendum Act (公民投票法).

Launched by the alliance’s referendum convener, Yu Hsin-yi (游信義), one of the proposals asks: “Do you agree that marriage should be strictly defined as between a man and a woman in the Civil Code (民法)?”    [FULL  STORY]

Can Taiwan’s trendiest cafés surge to the top of a competitive market by attracting Instagram influencers?

The News Lens
Date: 2018/10/05
By: Sonia Su, Taiwan Business TOPICS Magazine

With the proliferation of cafés in Taiwan in recent years, proprietors have been looking for ways to make their shops stand out from the rest.

Besides offering single-origin coffee, more and more cafés are dedicating space to displaying premium, handcrafted goods for sale. Many are going beyond the cutesy style of animal-themed cafés that might be deemed the “made for Instagram” business model, and instead are offering a tasteful environment that is also uniquely Taiwanese.

One of the many Taipei neighborhoods to find such trendy shops is the area around the Liuzhangli MRT Station. Customers appreciate the minimally stylish furnishings and cutlery used at the Taimo Café, as well as the fashionable stationery and patterned hats sold at the Beatnik Café (shown below).    [FULL  STORY]