Taiwan bans eating dogs and cats

Yahoo – AFP, April 12, 2017

The tradition of eating dog meat dates back hundreds of years in many
Asian countriesView photos (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

Taiwan has banned the eating of dogs and cats, lawmakers said Wednesday, as pressure grows to improve animal welfare after a spate of cruelty cases that stirred public outrage.

Parliament passed legislation to outlaw the consumption, purchase or possession of dog and cat meat, with offenders facing a fine of up to Tw$250,000 ($8,170).

Authorities can also name and shame those who break the law.

"This shows that Taiwan is a society with advanced animal welfare," said lawmaker Wang Yu-min who proposed the new rules.

The bill also hiked the penalty for killing or abusing animals to a maximum two-year jail term and a stiff fine of Tw$2 million.

Dog consumption -- believed by some in Taiwan to help boost male potency -- was common on the island decades ago but has become less popular amid growing calls to protect animal rights.

In 2001, Taiwan amended its animal protection law to ban the slaughter of pets -- which included dogs and cats -- for food, although there was no penalty on eating or buying the meat.

More than 10,000 canines are killed every year at China's notorious dog meat

festival in Yulin (AFP Photo/JOHANNES EISELE)

Sales of pet meat were banned at the end of 2003.

But a string of much-publicised animal abuse cases have continued to triggered deep public concern and demands for tougher protection laws.

Last year, the military was forced to apologise after a video surfaced of three soldiers torturing and strangling a stray dog to death with an iron chain, prompting several street protests.

And in 2014, a male hippo famous for regularly performing at a private zoo in central Taiwan died after breaking a leg and sustaining other injuries during transportation, sparking a public outcry.

Reactions to the new law were mixed, with some deeming it unfair to only single out cats and dogs for better protection.

"This is the cute animal protection law? only cute animals are protected while the rest deserve to die?" read one message posted on Apple Daily's website.

Dog meat consumption is also common in countries such as China, Indonesia,

Vietnam and South Korea (AFP Photo/SONNY TUMBELAKA)

"Why doesn't the parliament amend laws to toughen punishment on drunk driving, fraud and homicide? what a lousy job it is doing," said another post.

Dog meat consumption is also common in countries such as China, Vietnam and South Korea.

Last year, China's most notorious dog meat festival drew crowds despite international outrage, as more than 10,000 dogs were killed at the event in conditions activists described as brutal.

South Koreans are believed to consume somewhere between 1.5 million - 2.5 million dogs every year, but the meat farming industry is in decline, with little demand among the younger generation.

In Vietnam, cat meat -- known locally as "little tiger" -- is also a delicacy and although officially banned it is widely available in specialist restaurants.

HSBC helped La Fayette scandal suspect's son avoid taxes

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-02-11

A branch of HSBC in London, where Andrew Wang is
understood to have died last month. (File photo/Xinhua)

The Swiss branch of HSBC helped Wang Chia-hsing, the eldest son of the late Taiwanese agent Andrew Wang involved in the La Fayette scandal, to alter the dates of documents to hide tens of millions from tax authorities, reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.

Andrew Wang, who is udnerstood to have died in London last month, was the Taiwanese agent of French arms supplier Thomson-CSF. He has been on Taiwan's most wanted list for corruption and bribery related to a 1991 deal in which Taiwan's navy bought six La Fayette-class frigates from Thomson-CSF, later renamed Thales SA, for an inflated price tag of US$2.8 billion. The price included procurement kickbacks and bribes to facilitate the purchase of the ships, which entered service with the ROC Navy as Kangding-class frigates.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found an account of the bank with over US$38 million relating to Wang Chia-hsing (the relation remains unclear) was blocked by a court order. The bank's documents obtained by the consortium documenting conversations between Wang and a clerk of the bank showed the clerk was willing to change the date on Wang's form to an earlier date. Wang sought to avoid paying income tax on earnings overseas by having the bank recognize his status as foreign national resident in Britain, a legal way to reduce tax.

Andrew Wang died of illness in London on Jan. 20, according to Taiwan's representative office in the UK which has confirmed the death with British authorities but did not specify the cause, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

The report based on the information obtained by Herve Falciani, a former employee of HSBC Geneva and a computer expert. In 2007, he stole over the data of the bank's 100,000 accounts belonging to members of royal families, celebrities, sports stars, arms dealers, traders in blood diamonds and dictators and handed it to the French government the following year.

HSBC's statement said it has cut nearly 70% of the accounts at its Swiss branches and reformed its private banking business to avoid being used by launderers and tax dodgers since 2007.

A wanted notice for Andrew Wang. (Photo courtesy of Criminal

Investigation Bureau)

The Chengde, a ROC Navy Kangding-class (La Fayette) frigate.

(File photo/China Times)

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Prosecutors seize assets of Ting Hsin's former chairman

Want China Times, CNA 2014-10-16

Luxury apartments in Taipei, Oct. 15. (File photo/CNA)

Prosecutors on Wednesday seized three luxury apartment units as well as other assets owned by Wei Ying-chung, who recently resigned as chairman of Ting Hsin International Group, the conglomerate at the center of Taiwan's latest food scare.

Wei's assets–stocks, bank accounts, apartments in the upscale 'Palace' complex in Taipei and other real estate–were seized to prevent him from getting rid of them, prosecutors said.

Wei is under investigation in Taipei, Changhua, Chiayi, Tainan and Kaohsiung amid a snowballing food safety scandal involving the Ting Hsin group, which is owned by Wei and his family.

Investigators were worried that the family would move their assets to China to avoid having them frozen in Taiwan, pending an investigation into irregularities at edible oil plants operated by Ting Hsin subsidiaries.

A top executive of Ting Hsin Oil & Fat and another two from Cheng I Food, two of the subsidiary companies, were detained by prosecutors Tuesday in connection with the recent food safety scandal.

The two companies are accused of using lard meant for use in animal feed in their edible oil products.

The incident–the third cooking oil-related scandal to hit the conglomerate within a year–has sparked widespread outrage among consumers in Taiwan, leading to a public boycott of the group's products and brands.

Wei Ying-chung in a police car on the way to a detention

center, Changhua, Oct. 17. (Photo/CNA)

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Sunflowers reveal new political consciousness among Taiwan's youth

Want China Times, Kuo Chien-chih, Tsui Tzu-ti and Staff Reporter 2014-05-17

The Legislative Yuan in Taipei on April 10 as the student protesters prepare
to leave after their three-week sit-in. (Photo/Yao Chih-ping)

Taiwan's young people are increasingly aware of political issues and have surpassed the custom of making decisions according to their own political party affinity instead of what is right and wrong, writes our sister paper China Times.

The recent Sunflower Student Movement that occupied the country's parliament for over three weeks in opposition to the handling of a controversial trade pact with China sent shockwaves through the country's political arena with its efficiency and power of mobilization. The most popular group among those who protested at the Legislative Yuan were the Black Island Nation Youth Front, which included prominent leaders of the students' movement Lin Fei-fan, Chen Wei-ting and Wei Yang.

Lai Yu-fen, spokesperson for the Sunflower Movement, said the Black Island Nation Youth Front has long paid attention to important social issues and has taken action against what it believes to be wrong. Taking the cross-strait trade-in-services agreement as an example, the group closely followed its development and sent people to monitor each public hearing that the ruling Kuomintang held about it to take notes. They also gathered large amount of information in order to work out a common stance, write communiques and produce packages of information with background on diverse issues, and finally to spread them online.

As members of the group are scattered around the country, they rely heavily on the internet for communication, Lai said. They would assign tasks and have each department study, interview, spread information, hold meetings and protest at key sites.

Members of the group are mostly students of humanities subjects, according to Lai.

Attempts were made to link the group's activities to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, with claims made that the group's leading figures formerly worked for former DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai's office issued a statement however saying that she does not know either Chen or Lin.

Noting that social activists have grown dissatisfied with Taiwan's partisan politics that does not address issues of concern to them and that indeed they took steps during their recent sit-in protest to keep the DPP at arm's length, the deputy chief of the party's youth division Chou Yu-hsin said the DPP will need to actively "politics in life" and cooperate with young people in different fields.

At the beginning of Taiwan's democratic journey, people protested because they wanted an end to political persecution under martial law and the right to elect their leaders. Now they are protesting to obtain justice in areas related to people's livelihoods, environmental protection, bullying in the military and free trade agreements, Chou said, and the best way to gather more young people into political movements is to invite them to "cooperate and discuss," and then take action.

Taiwan's Sunflower Movement follows 'Occupy' model

Want China Times, Yang Yi and Staff Reporter 2014-05-06

Protesters march in the streets of New York in memory of the
Occupy Wall Street movement. (Photo/CNS)

The world's protest model has been reshaped by Occupy Wall Street in 2011 in the US. The Sunflower Student Movement in March-April in Taiwan was also influenced by Occupy Wall Street. Ever since the movement in New York in 2011, the idea of "occupying" has become a new protest model that has become increasingly popular in Taiwan, reports our sister spaper China Times.

Occupy Wall Street was itself inspired by the Arab Spring movement of the same year, and soon other sites in New York and 1,500 cities around the world were taken over by activists, with hundreds of thousands of people responding.

Chiang Chi-ji, a student who took part in the Sunflower Movement, which occupied the main chamber of Taiwan's Legislature for over three weeks in opposition to a controversial trade deal with China, said the movement had several similarities with Occupy Wall Street. Both movements were formed because people felt oppressed by institutions and they also disagreed with a large quantity of resources and power falling into the hands of a few, Chiang said. As they tried to resolve the situation through institutionalized channels without success, the people could not take it any more and were left to occupy the streets to take their rights back, he said.

"In the future, I know I can achieve my means through such an approach," Chiang said when asked about what he learned from the Sunflower Movement.

Wu Cheng, another Sunflower student, said their movement did not intentionally intend to imitate Occupy Wall Street, but that both conveyed public anger.

Occupy Wall Street was a movement to express anger at the inequality of income levels in the US as well as the power that financial institutions exercise over government by spending money to have politicians lobby to influence policy in their favor. They believe this imbalance is what led to the financial crisis of 2008, Wu said.

On the other hand, the Sunflower Student Movement started with a political-economic issue, but soon spilled over into a challenge to Taiwan's fundamental political and democratic process, according to Wu.

Students in the Sunflower Movement used the same hand signals that protesters in Occupy Wall Street used at meetings in order for thousands of people to communicate and receive the same information at the same time.

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Taiwan's young people are right to be angry

Taiwan's young people are right to be angry

Want China Times, Editorial 2014-04-28

President Ma Ying-jeou, left, and Premier Jiang Yi-huah sought to address
young people's concerns at a KMT youth forum in Taipei, April 20. (Photo/
Fang Chun-che)

Although political factors were behind the recent Sunflower Student Movement, which saw Taiwan's Legislature occupied for more than three weeks in opposition to a controversial services trade pact with China, the movement would not have found the resonance it did among the general public were it not for economic factors in the country, including stagnant salary levels, difficulty in finding jobs and surging property prices in particular.

Addressing the latter issue, how difficult is it to buy a house in Taiwan? Last week, the Ministry of the Interior announced the house price to income ratio for the fourth quarter of 2013, a key measure of housing affordability, with Taipei surging to 15.01 and New Taipei rising to 12.67, ranking first and third in the world, respectively. The average house price to income ratio was 8.37 in Taiwan overall, far ahead of the South Korean capital Seoul at 6.0, indicating that houses are expensive in Taiwan no matter what part of the country one lives.

In the ruling Kuomintang's Youth Forum held on Sunday, the problem of property prices was a major focus, with Premier Jiang Yi-huah vowing to take action to get the ratio below 10 in the capital and surrounding area.

Taiwan's property prices were not always this high. A survey in 2003 showed that Taiwan's average house price to income ratio stood at just 5.3, with Taipei at 6.1 and New Taipei (then Taipei county) at 5.1. The ratio has jumped to the highs cited above in just 10 years, indicating the government's property control policy has totally failed. How can the country's young people not be disappointed? How can they not complain?

Taiwan's property prices are not the highest in the world, but its house price to income ratio has become No. 1 in the world chiefly because salary levels have simply not gone up, especially for younger members of the workforce. According to government figures, the salary for a person's first job after entering employment has stood at the same level for more than a decade. In 1999, college graduates could expect to earn an average monthly salary of NT$28,551 (US$943 at current exchange rate), but this had actually dropped to NT$26,722 (US$882) in 2012. Is it any wonder that students are opposed to a liberalized labor market policy?

Taiwan produces more than 200,000 college graduates and over 60,000 students with master's or doctorate degrees every year. Why is it that the government's investment in higher education cannot transform this talent into a workforce with economic competitiveness? Though the problem has existed for more than 10 years, Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president for six years should bear a good measure of the responsibility.

Last year, the ratio of single women of marriage age rose to a new high of 32.55%, and economic factors were cited as the second-most important reason why they had not married. This indicates many current political and social problems are caused by economic imbalance. According to a recent survey, only 6% of younger married couples under the age of 34 owned their own home. But even if they did, they would have to bear a huge pressure on mortgage repayments. On average, Taipei's homeowners have a housing cost burden ratio of 63.4% (53.5% in New Taipei), meaning these families have to pay more than 50% of their income just on their mortgages. The resulting lack of disposable income is one of the reasons Taiwan's economy has been stagnant in recent years as private consumption provides important momentum for economic growth.

We have cared about the wealth gap between the rich and the poor, but have ignored the wealth distribution between the younger and older generations. Today's young people face worse employment prospects than their parents and have to continue to rely on their financial assistance in consequence. Such a gap in wealth distribution from generation to generation will continue to expand and the government should not underestimate its future effects.

Anti-nuclear activists rally in front of the Taipei Main Station to urge the government
 to stop the construction of the fourth nuclear power plant, Apr. 27. (Photo/
Wang Chin-ho)

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Anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo draws tens of thousands

Googel – AFP, 9 March 2014

Women shout slogans in front of the National Diet in Tokyo on March 9, 2014

as they take part in a rally denouncing nuclear power plants (AFP, Toru Yamanaka)

Tokyo — Tens of thousands of citizens turned out for an anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo on Sunday, as the nation prepares to mark the third anniversary of the Fukushima disaster.

Demonstrators congregated at Hibiya Park, close to central government buildings, before marching around the national parliament.

They gathered to voice their anger at the nuclear industry and the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has called for resumption of nuclear reactors to power the world's third largest economy.

A woman holds a placard in front of the

 National Diet in Tokyo on March 9, 2014

 as she takes part in a rally denouncing

nuclear power plants (AFP, Toru

Yamanaka)

"I felt it's important that we continue to raise our voice whenever possible," said Yasuro Kawai, a 66-year-old businessman from Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.

"Today, there is no electricity flowing in Japan that is made at nuclear plants. If we continue this zero nuclear status and if we make efforts to promote renewable energy and invest in energy saving technology, I think it's possible to live without nuclear," Kawai said.

This week, Japan will mark the anniversary of the deadly 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit the northern region on March 11, 2011, that prompted killer tsunami that swept the northern Pacific coastline.

The natural disasters killed 15,884 people and left 2,636 people still unaccounted for.

Huge waves swamped cooling systems of the Fukushima plant, which went through reactor meltdowns and explosions that spewed radioactive materials to the vast farm region.

The plant remains volatile and engineers say it will take four decades to dismantle the crippled reactors.

Protesters in Tokyo stressed that Japan can live without nuclear power as it has done so for many months while all of the nation's 50 commercial nuclear reactors have remained offline due to tense public opposition to restarting them.

In a light-hearted approach to get their message heard, musicians performed using electricity generated by huge solar panels at the park, while dozens of merchants promoted products made in the tsunami-hit region.

People display mock drums of nuclear waste in Tokyo on March 9, 2014

during a march denouncing nuclear power plants (AFP, Toru Yamanaka)

The rally featured stars like composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who played music he created three years ago to mourn for the victims of the disasters.

Although no one died as a direct result of the atomic accident, at least 1,656 Fukushima residents died due to complications related to stress and other conditions while their lives in evacuation become extended.

"The Fukushima accident continues today," Sakamoto told the audience.

Tokyo resident Michiko Sasaki, 80, said Japan's national priority should be to think about how to end nuclear power and to rebuild the northern region hit buy the disaster.

"In this small nation of ours, there are so many nuclear plants. We are prone to earthquakes," she added.

"Unless we end it now, what will happen in the future? Politicians must think about children of the future," she said.

Anti-nuclear protests in Taiwan draw tens of thousands

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Anti-nuclear protests in Taiwan draw tens of thousands

Deutsche Welle, 8 March 2014

Tens of thousands have marched in anti-nuclear protests across Taiwan, calling on the government to phase out nuclear energy. The protest comes ahead of the third anniversary of the Fukishima disaster.

Anti-nuclear protesters in Taiwan held four rallies across the country on Saturday, urging the government both to stop construction of a new nuclear power plant and to abandon nuclear power altogether.

Organizers said some 50,000 people attended the protest march and rally in the capital, Taipei, while three other events held simultaneously in other parts of the country drew a combined total of some 30,000.

The Taipei protest was attended by members both of opposition parties and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT).

Concern about the risks posed by Taiwan's atomic power plants has been growing since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami unleashed a nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant on March 11, 2011.

Taiwan is also regularly hit by earthquakes, raising fears that its currently three nuclear facilities may be similarly vulnerable.

Protesters called on the government to cease construction work on a fourth plant that is being built in a coastal town near Taipei. The plant was originally scheduled to be completed by 2004, but the project has been delayed by political wrangling.

Several polls conducted last year showed that about 70 percent of Taiwanese oppose the building of the plant, which is situated near undersea volcanoes.

The existing plants furnish about 20 percent of the country's energy needs.

tj/kms (dpa, AFP)

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