Focus Taiwan
Date: 06/03/2020
By: Su Szu-yun and Evelyn Kao

1Taipei, June 3 (CNA) Thousands of surgical face masks that went on sale on the open market in Taiwan Wednesday in the wake of a rationing program were snapped up by online buyers in less than 10 minutes, according to some major shopping sites.

Yahoo! Kimo Shopping Mall said that shortly after it put up its first batch of 10,000 masks at 10 a.m., the site crashed due to heavy traffic.

The system was soon repaired, and by 10:09 a.m., the 10,000 masks were sold out, Yahoo! Kimo said.

On PChome24h Shopping, its first supply of 10,000 surgical face masks, manufactured by Taiwan's renowned medical equipment supplier China Surgical Dressings Center Co. (CSD), were snapped up within two minutes after they went on sale at 4 p.m., according to the e-commerce giant.    [FULL  STORY]

RESEARCH NEWS: NHRI is working with three firms on the development of four vaccines, while Academia Sinica is working with two others on two more vaccines

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 04, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

Research facilities and biotechnology firms are striving to develop effective vaccines or drugs against the novel coronavirus, but people must still practice the “new disease prevention lifestyle” to protect themselves, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reminded the public yesterday as it reported no new cases of COVID-19.

“As there have been no domestic cases reported for many consecutive days [52], local communities in Taiwan are relatively safe, but we still need to rely on the development of vaccines and drugs to effectively control the overall situation,” Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said at the center’s daily news conference in Taipei.

Eight COVID-19 patients remain hospitalized, but 428 people have recovered and been released from isolation, he said.

While disease prevention regulations are to be eased on Sunday, that does not mean doing away with all protective measures before an effective vaccine or medication is developed, Chen said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 02 June, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Labor rights activists urged the government to take steps to protect foreign fishermen at a press conference on Tuesday.[/caption] A civic group is calling on the government to take steps to protect foreign fishermen whose rights have long been ignored by the Fisheries Agency and the National Immigration Agency.

In a video, a foreign fisherman was talking about his plight after being released from quarantine. At a press conference on Tuesday, a labor rights activist accused Taiwanese brokers of exploiting and keeping a tight control on foreign fishermen.

They are fishermen working for Taiwanese whose boats are registered with another country. As of May, there are 228 Taiwanese fishing boats like that.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made life very difficult for foreign fishermen. Without an entry visa, they are not able to enter Taiwan after being released from quarantine on the boat, nor can they return to their own countries.    [FULL  STORY]

Forbes
Date: Jun 2, 2020
By: David Axe, Contributor

Taiwan already has a lot of missiles. It’s about to get a lot more. The island country, just 100 miles from its most powerful enemy, is turning into a heavily armed fortress.

Or to borrow the Taiwanese government’s own metaphor, an “undigestable porcupine.”
[FULL  STORY]

Foreign visitors must meet one of five criteria to apply for visa extension

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/06/02
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer\

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The National Immigration Agency (NIA) has announced five conditions under which foreigners will be allowed to apply for a visa extension during the coronavirus pandemic.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 06/02/2020
By: Flor Wang and Wu Jui-chih

Taoyuan, June 2 (CNA) A sit-in staged by hundreds of migrant workers from Vietnam at a Compal Electronics Inc. factory in Taoyuan came to an end Tuesday after the two sides reached an agreement on the disputed issues, city authorities said.

In a statement, Taoyuan's Department of Labor said that after the negotiations, the migrant workers agreed to return to work, and the company has promised to deal with workers' complaints over living conditions and wages deduction and not retaliate against those who took part in the protest.

They said Compal management had not breached the law in its handling of the relevant issues, as the Vietnamese workers had claimed.

During the negotiations, which were mediated by labor department officials, the two sides reached an agreement and promised to end the labor-management dispute, according to the statement.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 03, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

Someone in Taiwan is diagnosed with cancer every 4 minutes, 42 seconds, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday, adding that colon cancer was the most common cancer diagnosis in 2017, for the 12th straight year.

The 2017 Cancer Registry Annual Report released yesterday by the agency showed 111,684 new cancer cases that year, up by 5,852 from a year earlier.

The median age of diagnosis in 2017 was 63 years old, the same as a year earlier, but the median age of diagnosis for some types of cancer was lower, such as for esophageal cancer (58), oral cancer (57), breast cancer (55) and thyroid cancer (50), the agency said.

A new case of cancer was diagnosed every 4 minutes, 42 seconds — which was 16 seconds faster than a year earlier, HPA data showed.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 01 June, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

In Taiwan, roadside banquets are a traditional way to hold weddings or funerals. But, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, people are reluctant to organize or attend such large-scale events. Now, chefs that cook for roadside banquets are hardly making a living. However, one chef in Kaohsiung has come up with a creative solution to his financial woes. 

Crispy duck and braised pork belly are just two of many popular dishes found at roadside banquets.  That’s right — “roadside.” In Taiwan, people set up tables and chairs on the side of the road, while a chef cooks in a makeshift kitchen off to the side.

However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the roadside banquet business has taken a substantial hit. People used to ask southern Taiwan’s Chef Hung Hui-hsiung to cook for hundreds of people at a time. But, over the past few months, he has hardly made any money from catering.

Zero Hedge
Date: 06/01/2020
By: Tyler Durden

A dramatic video emerged over the weekend of a Tesla traveling on a highway in Taiwan, at what appears to be full speed, before slamming directly into an overturned truck that was laying across the highway. The Tesla appears to make little or no change in direction before hitting the truck. At one point, smoke can be seen coming out of the back tires of the vehicle, indicating that the Tesla may have tried to brake – but to no avail.

The Tesla was "presumably on Autopilot," Inside EVs said. "Clearly, the car should've stopped itself here and you'd think this scenario would be among the easiest for a system such as Autopilot to detect and respond to, but that's definitely not the case."

On Reddit, one poster postulated that the incident may have happened due to the vehicle's lack of LIDAR, which Elon Musk has publicly ridiculed and has said is unnecessary:
[FULL  STORY]

CIB suspects Chinese trolls of posting fake story about Taiwanese cop tormenting 'Hong Kong refugee'

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/06/01
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Friday (May 29) announced that Facebook posts alleging that a Taiwanese police officer placed his knee on a "Hong Kong refugee" is fake news.

On Friday, the CIB announced the following six persons are being investigated for "malicious distribution of untruthful information on Facebook": Chi Ying Leung, Nancy Leung, Siu Ted Ted, Ken Lee, Zhi San Gao, and Ming So. The bureau alleges that these individuals posted the fake news on Facebook groups, such as "香港漢奸活動觀察小組 2.0" and "香港突發事件爆料區."

The false story included a photo taken on Sept. 25, 2018, of a drill held by Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) police rehearsing the subduing of a violent passenger. The suspects then wrote fictitious captions, such as "Taiwan black police taking away Hong Kong refugee from Taipei Main Station."

The position of one of the officers' knees over the simulated "suspect's" neck in the photo was clearly meant to harken to the incident in which a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on George Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25. The incident has since sparked outrage, protests, and riots in multiple cities across the U.S. over the past week.
[FULL  STORY]