Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/11/28
By: Ozzy Yin, Chai Sze-chia and Evelyn Kao

Beijing, Nov. 28 (CNA) It cannot be ruled out that the verdict a Chinese court handed

Lee Ming-che (李明哲)/CNA file photo

down against Taiwanese pro-democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) for “subversion of state power” was determined by political considerations and meant to send a warning to other pro-democracy advocates, a Chinese human right lawyer said Tuesday.

Lee was sentenced to five years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights by the Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan province on Tuesday.

Lee said he will not appeal.

Mo Shaoping (莫少平), a Chinese lawyer who takes on “politically sensitive” cases, said that the verdict in Lee’s case might have been driven by political rather than legal considerations.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-11-27

A Chinese court is set to give its verdict on detained Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-

Lee Ching-yu, Lee’s wife, writes “Lee Ming-che, I am proud of you.”

che on Tuesday.

Lee Ming-che, who is also a former employee of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has been detained by China since mid-March after entering the country via Macao. In September, he pleaded guilty in a Chinese court to “subverting state power”.

The Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan Province says it will hand down its ruling on Tuesday.

Taiwan’s top China policy-making body, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), says Lee’s wife, Lee Ching Yu, will fly to China Monday afternoon. She will be accompanied by two friends and two officials from the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official organization in charge of cross-strait ties in the absence of official links.  [FULL  STORY]

Teacher in Taichung sentenced to 9 years for engaging in sexual acts with his 11-year-old female student 41 times

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/11/27
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An elementary school teacher in Taichung has been sentenced

(Image by Tinker Air Force Base)

to nine years in prison after being convicted of sexual assault, engaging in sex with a minor, and forced obscenity (強制猥褻罪), reported Liberty Times.

What began as a sexual assault against his 11-year-old student in 2014, evolved into a “relationship” between a teacher, identified as A-chiang (阿強), and his student, given the fictitious name Hsiao-chen (小真), in which 41 more sexual encounters took place. These sexual acts took place in the school’s classrooms, in love hotels, A-chiang’s home, and even in parking lots.

According to court testimony, A-chiang first seduced Hsiao-chen by inviting her to the teachers’ lounge to watch the film “L’amant” (The Lover), a sexually explicit film about an illicit affair between a teenage French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in French Indochina. After the film, A-chiang started touching Hsiao-chen’s body, to which she reportedly responded “this is very strange.”  One to two weeks later, again in the teachers’ lounge, A-chiang rubbed her breasts and lower body.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwn
Date: 2017/11/27
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Nov. 27 (CNA) Flights between Taiwan and the Indonesian island of Bali have

File photo courtesy of Antara News

been disrupted, while more than 250 Taiwanese tourists have been stranded, due to volcanic eruptions on Bali, service operators in Taipei said Monday.

The eruptions on Mount Agung have forced Bali to close its Denpasar International Airport, which in turn has led to the cancellation of flights on that route by Taiwan’s China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Airways.

All CAL flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Bali will be canceled Monday to Wednesday, while EVA has canceled its flights on the route for Monday, saying it will determine later whether to extend the period.

Meanwhile, 275 tourists traveling in 17 Taiwanese tour groups are stranded in Bali, along with thousands of other international travelers, according to Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau.
[FULL  STORY]

The Cointelegraph
Date: Nov 26, 2017
By: Jon Buck

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has laid out the future plan of the Blockchaintechnology-based platform at a conference in Taipei, dealing with some of the biggest problems in Ethereum and suggesting how the future might shape up. Having already provided a substantial amount of information, the new update from Buterin gives more specific details.

The statement from Buterin began with a sort of tongue-in-cheek commentary on the many Ethereum replacements that have come on the market in recent months. According to the young computer scientist:

“The Ethereum killer is Ethereum, the Ethereum of China is Ethereum, the Ethereum of Taiwan is Ethereum… 2.0.”

Biggest issues ahead
Buterin continued by describing the four areas where he sees a need for improvement on the current Ethereum platform. These were privacy, consensus safety, smart contract safety and scalability.

For each of the first three, the Ethereum co-founder sees a solution that is actively developing. In the area of privacy, the Byzantium hard fork has created the ability for zk-SNARKs, a solution that Vitalik sees as a viable one with continued implementation. For consensus safety, the recent development, nicknamed ‘Casper,’ should bring solutions, and for smart contract safety, Viper and formal verification can produce real solutions.

However, the problem of scaling is substantial. Vitalik explained that decentralization, scalability and security are a complex trifecta that can present major challenges in the future. While it’s relatively easy to have any two of the three creating a system where all three are functional has proven difficult.    [FULL  STORY]

A Taiwanese newspaper has raised a red flag about safety concern of Alishan Forest Railway that has fallen under the media outlet’s claim of the dual leadership of Forestry Bureau and Taiwan Railways Administration since May 2013.

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/11/26
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPIE (Taiwan News)–A Taiwanese newspaper has raised a red flag about safety

A Taiwanese newspaper has raised a red flag about safety concern of Alishan Forest Railway. (By Wikimedia Commons)

concern of Alishan Forest Railway that has fallen under the media outlet’s claim of the dual leadership of Forestry Bureau and Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) since May 2013.

According to a United Evening News report on November 25, TRA began to assist Forest Bureau in running Alishan Forest Railway in May 2013, but after four and a half years, the business model has not achieved the expected congenial partnership and beneficial results. Instead, the fact that operating budgets for the forest railway have to come from Forest Bureau has subjected the line to dual leadership and affected its safety.

The report cited a senior Alishan Forest Railway worker as saying that since the TRA took over the operation of the line, the safety bar has been raised, but as all engineering projects had to be approved by Forestry Bureau, not all urgent actions could be taken immediately, and “every time it had to be after something bad had happened, would Forestry Bureau attach great importance to what went wrong.”    [FULL  STORY]