Vietnam guarantees safety of Taiwanese residents amid anti-China protests

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/06/23
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s representative office in the Vietnamese capital

Hanoi has moved into a new and larger home, reports said Saturday.

Improving relations between the two countries has become a priority under President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) New Southbound Policy. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam, as the center is officially called, opened its doors in 1992.

On Saturday, representative Richard Shih (石瑞琦) hosted a reception at the new location on the 21st floor of the PVI Building, a gleaming glass office tower in the Vietnamese capital.

Taiwanese residents of the communist country, including Taiwanese investors and business people, were present at the event, where “zongzi” and pearl milk tea were on the menu, the Central News Agency reported.

The office had been maintaining close contacts both with the Vietnamese authorities and with Taiwanese business people amid repeated protests directed against China, Shih said. The demonstrations targeted a new law on special economic zones, which many Vietnamese fear will unfairly favor Chinese interests.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/06/23
By: Chu Tse-wei and Frances Huang

Taipei, June 23 (CNA) Taiwan’s jobless rate for May fell to a new low in three years due to a continued economic recovery, which has helped the local job market improve further, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

In May, the local unemployment rate fell 0.01 percentage points from a month earlier to 3.63 percent, the lowest level since May 2015, when it stood at 3.62 percent, data compiled by the DGBAS showed.

After seasonal adjustments, the May jobless rate remained unchanged from a month earlier at 3.69 percent, the data indicated.

It was the third consecutive month for the unemployment rate to move lower on a month-on-month basis, which provided further evidence of a recovering economy at home.    [FULL  STORY]

President says continued suppression has pushed self-ruled island to work more closely with United States

South China Morning Post
Date:June, 2018
By: Lawrence Chung

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday blamed Beijing for escalating cross-strait tensions, saying it has resulted in the self-ruled island drawing closer to Washington as it tries to counter pressure from the mainland.

During a meeting at her office with scholars from a Washington-based think tank led by Richard Bush, a former unofficial US envoy to Taiwan, Tsai said non-stop suppression from the mainland had only pushed Taipei to work more closely with the United States.

“Despite the latest changes in the Asia-Pacific region or in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea or the Korean peninsula, being a responsible member of the international society, Taiwan has done all it can to maintain the cross-strait status quo in order to maintain peace, prosperity and development in the region,” she told Bush and others from the Brookings Institution.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/06/22
By: Yang Su-min and Hsu Hsiao-ling

Taipei, June 22 (CNA) Over 86 percent of cosmetic surgery clinics in Taiwan promote

the services they offer in ways that violate the Medical Care Act, according to the Consumer’s Foundation Friday.

In response to 246 plastic surgery related complaints by Taiwanese consumers over the past two years, the foundation investigated the Facebook pages of 15 cosmetic surgery clinics.

Only two were found to contain no improper advertisements or misleading messages, the foundation said.

The other 13 clinics were all liable to fines ranging from NT$50,000 (US$1,640) to NT$250,000, as promotions for gifts and price discounts on their Facebook pages violate the provisions of Article 61 of the Medical Care Act, according to the foundation.    [FULL  STORY]

A WASTE: The National Audit Office said that the army has not been using TOW missiles for its live-fire drills with AH-1W helicopters, despite keeping stock of them

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 23, 2018
By: Lo Tien-pin and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

A live-fire combined arms drill is to be held at the beginning of next month, with the

primary focus of improving the army’s coordinated combat between land and air forces, a military officer said.

The live-fire artillery exercise would be aimed at seaborne targets, with helicopters also shooting at targets with precision weaponry, the officer said.

While both branches usually hold separate drills, AH-1W helicopters joined the live-fire artillery drill conducted by the 10th Army Corps in September last year to ascertain the actual effects of both branches’ weapon systems, the officer said.

Whereas last year the helicopters were limited to deploying heat flares as interference, this year they would be firing live munitions against seaborne targets, the officer added.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/06/21
By: If Lin

Sensational stories of murder in Taiwan have sparked fears of crumbling social order, but police data tell a different story.

Reports of grizzly murders and social misconduct have proliferated recently, begging the question as to whether Taiwan’s social order is deteriorating.

This article uses official government crime data to show the changes in the number of criminal cases in Taiwan each year, over the past 25 years.

Since May 13, the news has featured several sensational stories, including a grandmother being killed by her grandchild, a dental surgeon being murdered, a person being dismembered after being killed by their lover, a TV broadcaster being stabbed to death, to name just a few high-profile homicide cases.

In addition, a Kuomintang think tank recently held a press conference to discuss Taiwan’s perceived economic downturn and the potential impact this has had on social order. A spokesman at the conference said that, according to official police statistics, the total number of “crimes” committed in 2013 was 255,000, a number which has since increased year on year to reach 287,000 in 2017. As such, the conference organizers suggested that social disorder in Taiwan is getting worse and harder to control, but is this really the case?    [FULL  STORY]