Good Eye Taipei’s recommendations for makerspaces to check out in Taipei.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/27
By: TNL 編輯

What comes to mind when you hear the word “maker?” Programmers, engineers

and entrepreneurial product developers? A broad description of the word is one who fabricates a physical thing from an idea, so those involved in carpentry, fixing and cooking are also makers.

As international maker communities continue to thrive and expand, they have inspired the development of makerspaces and maker events in Taipei; international organization Fablab has been gradually establishing various makerspaces in Taiwan, and the annual “Maker Faire Taipei” has made maker events more accessible.

Currently, Taipei’s maker communities and spaces are mostly software or hardware-oriented or focused on Arduino and 3D printing, and “Good Eye Taipei,” a new bilingual Taipei city guide, shares six of these spaces in the city.

Openlab. Taipei

Come realize all your odd ideas with friends.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s goodwill will not change, but it will never yield to pressure: Tsai

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/27
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) slammed China over its

“senseless pressure” to prevent Taiwan from attending the World Health Assembly (WHA) as she met Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) Saturday just hours after he arrived back from Switzerland.

After nine years of attending the annual Geneva meetings as an observer, this year Taiwan did not receive an invitation, mainly due to China’s displeasure at the Tsai Administration’s refusal to state that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it.

Despite the absence of an invite, Chen still traveled to the WHA, where he had bilateral meetings with delegations from 31 countries and from 28 organizations.

Taiwan’s participation should not be interfered with for political motives, Tsai said, cautioning that cross-straits relations had been damaged to a certain degree by the events surrounding the WHA.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/27
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Elaine Hou

Taipei, May 27 (CNA) Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中)

said Saturday that he held 59 talks with 31 countries and 28 international organizations on the sidelines of this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting, which is taking place May 22-31 in Geneva.

Despite Taiwan’s exclusion from this year’s WHA conference due to China’s obstruction, Chen led a delegation to Geneva, where he held bilateral talks with representatives of WHA participating countries and international organizations to discuss health and medical issues of global concern.

At a news conference in Taipei on his return, Chen said that as of May 26, he and his delegation had held 59 meetings with 31 countries, including the United States, and 28 international organizations.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 27, 2017
By: The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A new ad promoting the 2017 Summer Universiade has made it big.

Released on Facebook Thursday night, the ad had 30,000 Likes and 14,000 shares the next morning. The ad a thrilling mix of cityscapes and sporting movements. Each action blends seamlessly into the next with Taipei landmarks in the spotlight. Such as a judo throw that transitions beautifully into the act of throwing divination blocks. [FULL STORY]

The world is unfair, but through the lenses of Taiwanese photographer Simon Chang, we are all just human.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Olivia Yang

We are sitting on a bench in a dim exhibition room with our backs against the wall. I scan

the wall of faces in front of us, as the only Taiwanese photographer that has documented refugees in Slovenia softly speaks to me.

Simon Chang (張雍), is a freelance photographer based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

When Hungary closed its borders in late 2015, thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan started flooding into Slovenia, and Chang was in Rigonce, a small town of just 200 people, to record their stories. The series is also part of Chang’s latest exhibition, “The Left Atrium, The Right Ventricle,” at Xue Xue Institute in Taipei.

“I’m an immigrant myself. I’ve been in Slovenia for seven years, and spent another seven in Czech,” says the 38-year-old. “Most of the photographers I met at the scene were there shooting for work. Those are very distant shots to me.    [FULL  STORY]

Hotpot restaurants in 6 cities and counties served the prawns

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Inspectors in Kaohsiung found more than 1,000 kilograms of prawns possibly more than one year past their expiration date, with mostly hotpot restaurants in six cities and counties still serving the seafood to customers, reports said Friday.

Taiwan has been hit by a wave of recent incidents where food producers and distributors forged labels in order to sell products way past their sell-by dates.

In the latest case, a Taipei-registered company called Fu Yu (福有) had stored 1,041 kg of expired prawns at a Kaohsiung warehouse, which were found after a tipoff alleging that a department store in Tainan had been using the seafood.

Fu Yu had reportedly supplied the problem prawns to 17 restaurants, mostly hotpot places, in Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taichung City, Chiayi County, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/26
By: Chao Li-yen, Kun Chuan and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 26 (CNA) The National Immigration Agency (NIA) has cracked a child smuggling ring involving Vietnamese children and youths, who were brought to Taiwan posing as the children of Taiwanese fathers and Vietnamese mothers, but were in fact put to work as child labor on arrival in Taiwan.

Seventeen couples comprised of Taiwanese men and Vietnamese women were arrested during raids by over 150 NIA investigators and prosecutors at locations in central and southern Taiwan over the past few days, the NIA Taichung City Specialized Operation Brigade said on Friday.

During the raids, three boys and eight girls from Vietnam were identified as having been smuggled into Taiwan over the past few years posing as children born to the couples, the brigade said.    [FULL  STORY]

MORE TO GO?DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-chin said that former leaders should not even be refunded for travel costs and should try to attend as few public events as possible

Taipei Times
Date: May 27, 2017
By: Tseng Wei-chen and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Legislative Yuan passed the first reading of an amendment to the Act of Courtesy for

Former Presidents and Vice Presidents (卸任總統副總統禮遇條例), which might bring about major cuts to payments.

The act stipulates a monthly stipend of NT$250,000 (US$8,300) and NT$180,000 to former presidents and vice presidents respectively for every month they were in office.

“We feel that slashing the courtesy funds for presidents and vice presidents to NT$80,000 per month is reasonable, given that this is not that much more than the maximum pension retirees would receive should pension reforms pass,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said.

The plan is to peg the courtesy fund to expected payments once the Act Governing the Recompense for the Discharge of Special Political Appointees (政務人員退職撫卹條例) is amended, Tuan said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 26, 2017
By: The China Post

On his whirlwind Taiwan stop, Hollywood star Tom Cruise found time to sit down for

afternoon tea with pop diva Jolin Tsai, who surprised him with a homemade cake themed on “The Mummy.”

Cruise jetted in Wednesday for a one-night, two-day visit to promote the film.

Local reporters were unable to snap a single photo of Cruise enjoying the sights, but it turns out he wasn’t spending all his free time in his hotel.

According to photos Tsai posted to her Facebook page, she and Cruise shared a leisurely afternoon at Sin Hong Choon Trade’s (新芳春行) traditional Taiwanese tea house in Dadaocheng on Wednesday.    [FULL  STORY]