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Japan talks to address food ban: source

QUID PRO QUO:Taiwan wants Japan to open its market to five fruits, an official said, but a ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures is obstructing progress

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 27, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Important issues concerning agriculture will be brought to the negotiating table in annual trade and economic talks between Taiwan and Japan that are to be held in Taipei on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Taiwanese official who declined to be named said.

Discussions on agricultural issues were suspended in the Taiwan-Japan Trade and Economic Meeting last year due to Japan’s dissatisfaction with Taiwan’s refusal to ease a ban on food imports from five prefectures in Japan, over fears of radiation contamination following a meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

For this year’s meeting, Japan seems to have changed its mind now that Taiwan has a new president — President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party, who took office on May 20.

This year, the Japanese side has expressed a willingness to discuss the impasse, the official — who is to attend the talks — said yesterday.    [FULL  STORY]

Unhealthy middle age can lead to dementia: expert

The China Post
Date: November 27, 2016
By: CNA

TAIPEI–People with obesity or abnormal health examination reports face six times the risk of getting dementia 20 years later, a European expert on the medicine of aging said in Taipei Wednesday.

Jean-Pierre Michel, co-founder of the European Academy of Medicine of Aging (EAMA) and former president of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS), said that parents should teach their children to maintain a healthy diet and to avoid smoking.

Healthy aging is not only having no illness, but maintaining a good quality of life and functional capacity, said Michel.

Doctors, nurses and social workers should learn the medicine of aging and cooperate with each other to ensure that the elderly can enjoy healthy twilight years, he said.

Japanese scholar Takao Suzuki said at a forum on the medicine of aging that prevention measures are the key for people aged 65-74, in the early stages of old age, because symptoms of being feeble or frail are forks in the road between health and illness.    [FULL  STORY]

What’s on in Taiwan this Weekend (11/25-27)

The News Lens
Date: 2016/11/25
By: ZiQing Low

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What’s on this weekend in Taiwan.

Music

Dadado Huang Things That Love Told Me Tour / Nov. 26 / Legacy Taichung
Dadado Huang (黃玠) is a Taiwanese independent contemporary folk singer and songwriter. He released his first solo album “Hard Days” in 2007. After his first performance at the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) this August, he continues his “Things That Love Told Me” tour in Taichung.

Instrumental Rocks in Taiwan 2016: →Pia-no-jaC← / Nov. 26 / Legacy Taipei

→Pia-no-jaC← is an instrumental music duo from Japan. The two members, Hayato and Hiro, play the piano and cajon, a peruvian percussion instrument. The self-taught duo blend Japanese music into their pieces, and this is their second time performing in Taiwan, the first being at the Taichung Jazz Festival in 2009.

→Pia-no-jaC← has been featured on Disney’s compilation albums and the “Chopin 100th Anniversary Compilation Album” among others. The pair perform in over 150 concerts every year, including at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and the Corciano Festival in Italy.

Stand-up Comedy

Sanyuan Idol Comedy Show Taiwan / Nov. 25 – 27 / Ruin Livehouse, Kaohsiung; Sound Livehouse, Taichung; Riverside Music, Taipei

Keigo Mihara (三原慧悟) is a Japanese YouTuber who wants to become a pop-idol in Taiwan. He makes videos that introduce and compare Japanese and Taiwanese culture, and has also filmed parodies of popular Taiwanese music.

This weekend, he brings his comedy videos on the road in Taiwan with a series of live performances in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]    

TransAsia chief questioned about insider trading

Prosecutors summon 12 witnesses

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/11/25
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Prosecutors questioned TransAsia Airways Chairman Vincent Lin and searched

TransAsia Chairman Vincent Lin.(By Central News Agency)

TransAsia Chairman Vincent Lin.(By Central News Agency)

offices Friday in their investigation into alleged insider trading related to the planned dissolution of the airline.

The authorities reportedly uncovered a suspiciously high amount of transactions in TransAsia shares last Monday, the day before the airline’s board unexpectedly announced the company would immediately halt all flights and move toward dissolution.

The planned demise of the 65-year-old airline has touched off a storm of protests from staff, passengers, travel agencies and shareholders, with the government scrambling to find a solution.

Lin, who has made headlines before with a collection of about two dozen German sports cars, was brought in for questioning by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office Friday afternoon after the investigators raided TransAsia headquarters as well as his home and five other locations.    [FULL  STORY]

Golden Horse Awards set for Saturday

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/11/25
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, Nov. 25 (CNA) The ceremony for the Golden Horse Awards, one of the most prestigious film

Photo courtesy of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee

Photo courtesy of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee

awards in the Chinese-speaking world, will be held Saturday in Taipei, in which 47 films will compete for titles in 22 categories.

A total of 534 films have been submitted for competition this year, the most ever to enter the competition, and up from 427 last year.

Leading the pack this year is Taiwanese director Chung Mong-hong’s (鍾孟宏) black comedy crime film “Godspeed” (一路順風). It has been nominated in eight categories, including best feature film, best director and best lead actor.

“Godspeed” is about a drug mule who travels across Taiwan to deliver heroin, and a taxi driver who unwittingly becomes the drug dealer’s driver and finds himself caught up in a drug delivery gone wrong.    [FULL  STORY]

Speculation China involved in seizure

READY:China and Singapore in 2014 conducted joint military exercises, which some Taiwanese observers see as a threat to the nation’s long-term alliance with Singapore

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 26, 2016
By: Aaron Tu and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The seizure on Wednesday by Hong Kong Customs of armored vehicles belonging to the Singapore

This Thursday photo shows nine eight-wheeled Singapore-made Terrex infantry carrier vehicles seized at a container terminal in Hong Kong. Photo: AP

This Thursday photo shows nine eight-wheeled Singapore-made Terrex infantry carrier vehicles seized at a container terminal in Hong Kong. Photo: AP

military onboard a container ship from Taiwan has sparked concern from Taiwanese military observers of possible involvement from Beijing.

Hong Kong media on Thursday reported that Hong Kong Customs officers on Wednesday night discovered armored vehicles at Hong Kong’s Kwai Chung Container Terminals, unloaded from a container ship that left Taiwan en route to Singapore.

While Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General Chen Chung-chi (陳中吉) said the armored vehicles are “definitely not military vehicles from the Republic of China,” the Singaporean Ministry of Defense on Thursday evening confirmed the seizure, without mentioning Taiwan.

The shipment of Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicles (ICVs) and other military equipment is being held in Hong Kong on a request for “routine inspections by the Hong Kong Customs authorities,” the Singarorean ministry said.    [FULL  STORY]

Two major KMT-affiliated enterprises to be nationalized by year-end: IGPASC

The China Post
Date: November 26, 2016
By: The China Post news staff

The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee (IGPASC) on Friday officially resolved to nationalize two firms widely believed to be affiliates of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

The resolution, made in an extraordinary session held by the IGPASC, came some 45 days after the committee failed in its first public hearing to determine whether the Central Investment Corp. and Hsinyutai Co. are KMT-affiliated organizations.

At a press conference held after the session, IGPASC chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said his committee would deliver the resolution document to the KMT next Tuesday, Nov. 29 at the latest and would ask the party to transfer all of its shares in the two companies to the government within 30 days after receiving the document.

“In other words, the KMT is required to nationalize all of its stakes in the firms on Dec. 29,” Koo said.

Over the KMT’s long period of one-party rule, the party dominated the distribution of national resources, thus easily translating national resources into party assets.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei’s NPM wins top production award in Hungary

Taiwan Today
Date: November 24, 2016

Taipei City-based National Palace Museum’s digital “Giuseppe Castiglione-Lang Shining New Media Art

Tao Wen-lung, head of the Taipei Representative Office, Budapest, Hungary, receives the Festival of Audiovisual International Multimedia Patrimony’s grand prize on behalf of Taipei City-based National Palace Museum Nov. 22 in Budapest. (MOFA)

Tao Wen-lung, head of the Taipei Representative Office, Budapest, Hungary, receives the Festival of Audiovisual International Multimedia Patrimony’s grand prize on behalf of Taipei City-based National Palace Museum Nov. 22 in Budapest. (MOFA)

Exhibition” and iPalace Channel won the Festival of Audiovisual International Multimedia Patrimony’s grand prize Nov. 22 in the Hungarian capital Budapest.

Tao Wen-lung, head of the Taipei Representative Office, Budapest, Hungary, received the Claude-Nicole Hocquard Award on behalf of the museum. The NPM houses more than 650,000 pieces and is widely considered one of the top four facilities of its kind in the world, he said.

The grand prize recognizes innovative audiovisual and multimedia technology productions by museums or heritage and cultural institutions worldwide. It is named in honor of Hocquard, the late founder of festival organizer International Committee for Audiovisual and New Image and Sound Technologies under Paris-based International Council of Museums.

According to the NPM, Giuseppe Castiglione was a Jesuit from Milan who traveled to China to proselytize in the late 17th century. He adopted the local name Lang Shining and spent 51 years in the service of emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. An avid painter, the missionary left behind a large body of work drawing upon the finest Eastern and Western techniques and traditions.    [FULL  STORY]

Man who killed and sealed victim in a barrel of concrete escapes death in retrial

The notorious murder happened in March 2013 after Chen Yu-shu and his partner in crime barged into the residence of Chen Wen-husan and abducted him.

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/11/24
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The man who three years ago abused a victim, stuffed him into a gasoline barrel and sealed his body 5836da9aa9845with concrete was given a life sentence following a retrial on Thursday after previously being sentenced to death.

The notorious murder happened in March 2013 after Chen Yu-shu and his partner in crime barged into the residence of Chen Wen-husan and abducted him.

The abduction was triggered by a dispute between Chen Yu-shu and the victim over drug sales, after the former accused the latter of allegedly pocketing a large amount of money they had put together to purchase narcotics.

After abusing him, Chen Yu-shu and his partners stuffed Chen Wen-husan headfirst into a gasoline barrel, encased his body in cement, and dumped the barrel in a pond in the then Taoyuan County’s Guanyin Township.    [FULL  STORY]

Draft bill amendment to allow HIV-infected to donate organs

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/11/24
By: Tai Ya-chen and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Nov. 24 (CNA) Individuals infected with HIV will be able to donate their organs to each other

File photo courtesy of the Hualien Hospital

File photo courtesy of the Hualien Hospital

under a draft amendment passed on Thursday during an Executive Yuan meeting.

Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said after the meeting that under the existing law — the HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act — people infected with HIV are prohibited from donating organs in order to help prevent the spread of AIDS.

But providing the Legislature passes the draft amendment, recipients who are also infected with HIV can accept donated organs from other infected people.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that it has worked out the amendment in consideration of the needs of individuals infected with HIV.    [FULL  STORY]