title: Accidents hurt 358 children last year

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Accidents hurt 358 children last year

DILIGENCE NEEDED:Children accidentally swallowing harmful objects has risen nearly fourfold in just a few years, the Ching-chuan Child Safety Foundation said
Ching-chuan Child Safety Foundation chief executive officer Lin Yue-chin gives a news conference in Taipei on Monday to remind the public of the harm that accidents cause to children each year.Photo courtesy of the Ching-chuan Child Safety Foundation
Last year, 358 children were accidentally injured or killed, with cases of children accidentally swallowing harmful objects on the rise, a study released on Monday by the Ching-chuan Child Safety Foundation showed.

An analysis of news articles on IBABY, a parenting Web site created by the foundation, found 276 accidents last year involving children, after excluding cases of child abuse or sexual abuse, the foundation said.

The accidents resulted in the deaths of 45 children aged 14 or younger, and caused physical or psychological trauma to 313 children, it said.

The results showed that the primary cause of death or injury among children was traffic accidents, with 120 children being affected.

Neglect caused 76 children to be harmed in accidents, the foundation added.

More than half of the children involved in accidents were six or younger, it said.

Children that age lack the ability to judge dangerous situations, so caretakers need to be more aware of potential risks, the foundation said.

The results also showed that 12 children were injured or killed because they accidentally swallowed something harmful.

Over the past few years, the number of accidental ingestions has risen nearly fourfold, the foundation said, adding that nine cases occurred from 2014 to 2016, but 33 from 2017 to last year.

Harmful things accidentally swallowed by children included bottle caps, stickers, glue and citric acid, among others, the foundation added, urging parents to pay closer attention to the storage of dangerous objects and liquids.

In the past, common items accidentally ingested included medication and baby products, it said.

Signs that a child might have accidentally swallowed something include coughing, drooling, difficulty swallowing, and chest or abdominal pain, MacKay Memorial Hospital pediatrician Chen Wei-tao (陳偉燾) said.

If an accidental ingestion is suspected, children should be immediately taken to the hospital, he said.

Parents should not attempt emergency measures and delay treatment, he added.

There are a number of things not to do in the case of an accidental ingestion: Do not induce vomiting, do not allow the person to eat, do not use a hand to try to dig out the ingested item, and do not arbitrarily perform emergency measures, he said.

Only if the person is having difficulty breathing should someone pat the patient’s back or perform the Heimlich maneuver, or abdominal thrusts, Chen added.

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World risks ‘disaster’ as reuse of natural resources falls to 8.6%, researchers say

The proportion of raw materials the world is reusing has fallen, researchers said yesterday, warning of a “global disaster” as annual consumption of natural resources rose to 100 billion tonnes for the first time.

Just 8.6 percent of the 100 billion tonnes of materials — including minerals, metals, fossil fuels and biomass — was put back into service in 2017, said a report by Amsterdam-based social enterprise Circle Economy, using the latest available data.

That compares with 9.1 percent of materials that were used again two years earlier, when annual consumption was 93 billion tonnes, chief executive officer Harald Friedl told reporters.

“For the first time in history, more than 100 billion tonnes of materials are entering the global economy every year,” he said. “We are going from bad to worse in terms of circularity. This is really dramatic news at the beginning of this year, which only points to one thing: action.”

To reduce waste and planet-warming emissions, and keep climate change in check, economies should seek to become “circular” by reusing and recycling products, green groups have said.

The amount of materials the world uses has tripled since 1970 and could double again by 2050 if no action is taken, the US has estimated.

Friedl said the world was predominantly relying on extracting virgin materials to fuel growth, rather than making better use of existing resources.

“We are risking global disaster if we continue this way of limitlessly using the world’s resources,” he said, urging faster action to keep the average rise in global temperatures to limits adopted in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Governments must lead the change in their economies by collaborating on circular strategies, working with businesses, green groups and academics, and creating national road maps, he said.

So far, 13 European countries have adopted such road maps and Colombia last year became the first Latin American country to launch a similar policy, the report said.

Governments, researchers and companies working to achieve circular economies should share data on things such as supply chains, emissions and materials extraction, Friedl said.

That would make it easier to identify opportunities and help economies shift to a more sustainable model, he said by telephone from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

A global coalition in support of circular economies is also needed, as today’s voluntary and often fragmented efforts could not drive transition fast enough, he added.

Cristianne Close, a global markets expert at WWF, said economic and financial systems promoted unsustainable consumption, and were degrading the natural environment.

“The circular economy provides a tangible framework for reducing our impacts, protecting ecosystems and living within the means of one planet,” she said in a statement.

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title: FSC fines Bank SinoPac, E.Sun Bank

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The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) and E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行) NT$12 million (US$400,027) each for contravening the Banking Act (銀行法) after their consultants stole a total of NT$100 million from clients.

They were the largest fines issued to banks in a single case after amendments to the act took effect on Jan. 1, allowing the commission to fine banks up to NT$50 million for such contraventions, from NT$10 million.

A Bank SinoPac financial consultant surnamed You (游) stole about NT$70 million from eight clients over four years starting in November 2015, the commission said.

You, who was working in the bank’s Zhongxiao branch in Taipei, asked his clients to file certain documents and transfer money after suggesting that they redeem their investments, buy new insurance policies or pay their premiums in advance, it said.

You took advantage of his clients’ trust and neglected to confirm their investments, transferred the money to his account or other accounts, and spent the money on his own investments, the commission said.

The bank was fined because it failed to monitor its financial consultants and set up an effective mechanism to detect suspicious fund transfers, the commission said.

An E.Sun Commercial Bank consultant surnamed Tsai (蔡), who worked at a branch in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), stole NT$30 million from two clients from 2014 to last year, it said.

Tsai terminated his clients’ term deposits, redeemed their investments and transferred the money to new accounts that he opened under the name of the two clients, the commission said.

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title: Wan Hai to use low-sulfur fuel to comply with rules

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Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運) is not equipping its vessels with scrubbers, but would use fuel oil with low sulfur content to meet new regulations set by the International Maritime Organization, the company said on Monday.

“We have considered many factors [when making this decision]. We are aware of the higher price of low-sulfur fuel, but still thought that using the cleaner fuel would work better for us,” Wan Hai spokeswoman Laura Su (蘇麗梅) said by telephone.

The company’s clients have accepted the increased fees caused by low-sulfur fuel, Su said.

The company’s strategy would differentiate it from local peers, such as Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) and Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), she added.

Under the rules, shippers either need to use fuels containing only 0.5 percent sulfur, or install scrubbers that can clean higher-sulfur fuel to reduce emissions.

Fifty-three of Evergreen’s 139 vessels had been equipped with scrubbers as of the end of last year, company data showed.

Yang Ming plans to equip five of its container ships with scrubbers by May and another 29 ships later this year.

Evergreen and Yang Ming have said that installing scrubbers would be more economical, given that the price spread between high-sulfur and low-sulfur fuel is estimated to be about US$250 per tonne.

Wan Hai, which makes 70 percent of its revenue on intra-Asia routes, uses smaller vessels than its two peers. None of the company’s vessels is larger than 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, data showed.

Taipei-based Wan Hai said its business remained stable last quarter, with revenue rising 1.5 percent annually to NT$18.8 billion (US$626.7 million).

For the whole of last year, revenue rose 9.24 percent annually to NT$72.95 billion, the company said.

The company’s business outlook remains unclear this quarter, Su said, adding that the timing of orders by Chinese clients after the Lunar New Year holiday would give some clues.

Evergreen, which saw revenue slow down in the third quarter of last year due to lower spot rates on major routes, reported that revenue last quarter declined 2.42 percent annually to NT$47.58 billion.

Cumulative revenue totaled NT$190 billion last year, up 12.41 percent year-on-year, Evergreen said.

Yang Ming’s revenue last quarter fell 6.33 percent annually to NT$35.99 billion, while cumulative revenue for last year rose 5.27 percent annually to NT$149 billion.

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title: Moody’s downgrades HK for ‘inertia’ over protests

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Riot police charge demonstrators during a protest in Hong Kong’s Central district on Sunday.Photo: Bloomberg
Moody’s Investors Service on Monday lowered Hong Kong’s rating as a long-term issuer of debt by one notch, just months after Fitch Ratings Ltd took a similar action amid political protests.

Moody’s cited a degree of “inertia” characterizing the legislative and executive branches of government in the statement, as it lowered the rating to “Aa3” from “Aa2.”

The ratings agency also changed the outlook to “stable” from “negative.”

“The absence of tangible plans to address either the political or economic and social concerns of the Hong Kong population that have come to the fore in the past nine months may reflect weaker inherent institutional capacity than Moody’s had previously assessed,” the company wrote in a statement.

Hong Kong has been rocked by pro-democracy protests, and clashes between demonstrators and the police which have broken out regularly since June last year.

The economy contracted sharply in the third quarter, pushing the territory into a recession, as the often-violent clashes led to a plunge in the number of tourists, hurt consumption and disrupted business operations.

The Hong Kong government strongly disagreed with Moody’s assessment and said it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision to downgrade.

“Moody’s rating falls way out of line with Hong Kong’s sound credit fundamentals,” a government spokesman said in a statement early yesterday. “Our fiscal performance and external positions have long been amongst those of the top-rated economies and serve as a strong buffer for Hong Kong to withstand shocks.”

Banks in Hong Kong are “well-cushioned given their strong capital base, sound liquidity and healthy asset quality,” while initial public offerings and bond financing activities continue, despite the unrest, the spokesman added.

The move by Moody’s marked the first downgrade by the agency of the territory’s rating since May 2017.

Fitch Ratings downgraded it in September last year from “AA+” to “AA” with a negative outlook.

A government report on Monday showed that Hong Kong’s unemployment rate rose to 3.3 percent in the three months ending last month, compared with 2.8 percent in the months before the protests started.

The local economy is stuck in a “vicious cycle” whereby scenes of protest deter tourist arrivals, and reduce earnings and employment in the retail and hospitality sector, creating further wage cuts and job losses, ING Bank NV greater China economist Iris Pang (彭藹嬈) said.

Because of Hong Kong’s low debt-to-GDP ratio, the downgrade was likely more significant for corporate borrowers, she added.

“The persistent social unrest reflects that there are deep-seated problems in society in Hong Kong, on which the government will conduct an independent review soon,” the spokesman said, adding that the administration is engaging people from all walks of life to find a way out for the territory.

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title: Holiday day trips in Taiwan touted

taiwan-subdivisions: 八里 觀音 壯圍

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A visitor is pictured on a path at Bitoujiao in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District on Jan. 30 last year.Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Government’s Tourism and Travel Department

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The Tourism Bureau is recommending several day trips as a way to explore the natural and cultural settings in Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday from tomorrow to Wednesday next week.

Visitors can explore 102.5km of New Taipei City and Yilan coastline in the Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area, the bureau said.

The Zhuangwei Dune Visitor Center (壯圍沙丘旅遊服務園區) features the natural sand-dune landscapes of Yilan and an architectural space designed by Huang Sheng-yuan (黃聲遠) of Fieldoffice Architects.

At the Waiao (外澳) Service Area, people can relax or explore the nearby beach, known for surfing and paragliding.

Cape Santiago (三貂角) Lighthouse — which sits at the nation’s easternmost tip and is called the “Eye of Taiwan” — is the only lighthouse open to the public in northern Taiwan, and a favorite spot for shooting TV dramas and wedding photographs, the bureau said.

To end the day, visitors can explore the 3.5km-long Bitoujiao Trail (鼻頭角步道), where they can see stunning landscapes formed by coastal erosion.

In the north, the Guanyinshan (觀音山) Scenic Area has an 800m-long hiking trail to be enjoyed by all ages, the bureau said.

Visitors can then discover Lingyun Buddhist Temple (凌雲禪寺), which offers spectacular views of the surrounding volcanic landscapes. The temple encompasses Eastern and Western elements in its architecture, providing a unique sacred scene, it said.

Afternoon tea is available at Doris Cafe, a farm in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), which offers local pomelo specialties and provides a tour of the area, the bureau said.

In central Taiwan, a hike at dawn on Nantou County’s Jinlongshan (金龍山) is the perfect place to photograph the sun emerging from a sea of clouds.

An afternoon visit to the Lianhuachih Research Center offers 461 hectares of broad-leaved trees, as well as birds, fireflies, Japanese rhinoceros beetles and frogs.

Another option in central Taiwan, the Tehchi Reservoir (德基水庫) — near Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Nantou County — is the nation’s smallest reservoir and provides visitors a different taste of the natural environment, the bureau said.

The area boasts numerous boardwalks and suspension bridges, giving visitors different perspectives of the 5.13-hectare reservoir, it said.

Nearby, a 50-hectare wetland covered by peat soil is a must-visit spot, the bureau said, adding that the landscape has been formed by water plants over thousands of years.

For a taste of Aboriginal culture, the Tourism Bureau said that people should head south to visit the Tsou community in Chiayi County’s Poftongaveoveo (逐鹿部落藝術村) art village, where they can take tours of Tsou culture and history.

Visitors can participate in dances, sing-a-longs and archery, while partaking in a feast that showcases the community’s hunting tradition.

There is also a park of Formosan sika deer, which used to be hunted, but now are cared for by the Tsou community, the bureau said.

More information about travel in Taiwan can be found on the bureau’s Web site at eng.taiwan.net.tw.

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people: 蔣萬安 郝龍斌 吳敦義

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KMT’s Hau calls for new cross-strait policy

‘COLLABORATORS’:While the DPP rejects the ‘1992 consensus,’ the CCP does not even recognize the Republic of China’s existence, the former KMT vice chairman said
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman Hau Lung-bin talks to the media in Taipei yesterday after announcing his bid to run for KMT chairman.Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who on Monday evening announced his bid for KMT chairperson, yesterday said that the party must come to a new consensus on its cross-strait stance, as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “have collaborated to destroy” the Republic of China (ROC).

Hau stepped down along with former KMT chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on Wednesday last week, following the party’s defeats in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections. He launched his bid via Facebook on Monday.

Hau is the third person to commit to joining the KMT’s March 7 chairperson by-election, following National Taiwan University political science professor Chang Ya-chung (張亞中) and Blue Sky Action Alliance convener Wu Chih-chang (武之璋).

If elected chairman, he would be committed to helping the KMT overcome its “unprecedented crisis” and fostering young talent in the party, Hau wrote on Facebook.

To ensure the party is in touch with public opinion and to encourage more young members to participate, he would promote new regulations to guarantee the party’s elected officials meet certain quotas, and that there are members aged 40 and younger in the KMT Central Committee and Central Standing Committee, he said.

He would also promote internal dialogue to develop a cross-strait policy for the party, he said.

During an interview with radio station News98 yesterday, Hau said that one reason the KMT lost the elections was because “the DPP and CCP have collaborated to destroy the ROC.”

While the DPP rejects the “1992 consensus” and even interprets it as supporting Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula, the CCP refuses to acknowledge the existence of the ROC or the consensus’ perquisite of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation of what China means,” he said.

Although the “1992 consensus” worked well for both sides of the Strait from 2008 to 2016, currently “there is no consensus between the KMT and the CCP,” he said.

If the KMT cannot develop a new cross-strait policy that is acceptable to the public and the other side of the Taiwan Strait, “the KMT’s development would be limited,” he said.

Asked for comment, KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), who has been described by some political watchers as a political star of the KMT’s middle generation, said he looks forward to the reform plans of any party member who is willing to shoulder the responsibility of party chairperson.

As a KMT member, he would seek to assist the party in the reforms that follow, he added.

Separately yesterday, KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) told Pop Radio that he has received 200 to 300 text messages from friends urging him to run for KMT chairperson.

However, even if he decides to launch a bid, as an individual he would not be able shoulder all responsibility for leading the KMT, he said.

The party needs collective leadership, he said, adding that, more importantly, members must avoid conflicts of interest.

Some members run for chairperson because they want to run for president and end up tearing the party apart, he said.

Many Central Standing Committee members spend their time fawning over the upper management with the hope of obtaining a legislator-at-large seat, he added.

The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.


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Kemba Walker on Monday finally beat LeBron James, and he did it by helping the Boston Celtics send the Los Angeles Lakers to their biggest loss of the season.

Walker ended a career-long losing streak against James, scoring 20 points to beat him for the first time in 29 tries and lead the Celtics past the Lakers 139-107.

“I’m happy I got one at least, before he goes,” Walker said with a laugh after the Celtics snapped their three-game losing streak. “Who knows how long he can play, because he’s just incredible, but you know, it’s only one. One and 28.”

Jaylen Brown scored 20 points, drawing a taunting technical after dunking over James, while Enes Kanter had 18 points and 11 rebounds for Boston.

The Celtics gave up the first eight points of the game, but turned things around when Anthony Davis, playing for the first time in almost two weeks, went to the bench with a pair of fouls 49 seconds apart early in the first quarter.

“The less he plays, the better for everybody else,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said.

James had 15 points and 13 assists for the Lakers, who had won 10 of their previous 11 games.

However, the Celtics made 13 of their first 22 three-point attempts to open a 103-75 lead in the third quarter — the biggest against Los Angeles all season until Boston made it a 34-point game in the fourth.

“We were fortunate to put the ball in the basket quite a bit,” said Stevens, whose team shot 56 percent overall. “The ball going in masks some things.”

Walker’s 28 games without a win against James was second in NBA history only to Sherman Douglas’ 0-30 head-to-head record against Michael Jordan.

In other results, it was:

‧ Trail Blazers 129, Warriors 124

‧ 76ers 117, Nets 111

‧ Bucks 111, Bulls 98

‧ Thunder 112, Rockets 107

‧ Jazz 118, Pacers 88

‧ Nuggets 107, T’wolves 100

‧ Heat 118, Kings 113, OT

‧ Pelicans 126, Grizzlies 116

‧ Spurs 120, Suns 118

‧ Wizards 106, Pistons 100

‧ Raptors 122, Hawks 117

‧ Knicks 106, Cavaliers 86

‧ Magic 106, Hornets 83

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title: Walker wins first against James as Celtics rout Lakers


title: Last-gasp Acciari goal lifts Panthers over Wild

content_text:
The Florida Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky, left, stops a shot by the Minnesota Wild’s Jason Zucker, center, as the Panthers’ Riley Stillman pushes Zucker past the goal in the first period of their NHL game in St Paul, Minnesota, on Monday.Photo: AP
Doink. Doink. Winner.

Noel Acciari on Monday scored with 5.6 seconds left in the third period as the Florida Panthers rallied to win their fifth straight game, beating the Minnesota Wild 5-4.

Despite his stick being held by Ryan Suter, Acciari was able to tip in a shot from the point by Mark Pysyk that was first tipped by Aaron Ekblad. A video review upheld the goal.

“That’s what you call a break, very opportunistic break,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said.

“Yeah, it was pretty crazy,” added Keith Yandle, who had a goal and three assists for Florida. “Mark Pysyk, the hybrid does it all. Defense, forward — great shot by him. I think it was double-tipped. Game-winning goal in a building that has been tough for us to win in.”

It was Florida’s first regulation victory in Minnesota. Since a 2001 scoreless tie during the Wild’s inaugural season, Minnesota were 10-0-1 at home against Florida, including seven wins in a row.

Aleksander Barkov added a goal and an assist for the Panthers. Evgenii Dadonov and Vincent Trocheck also scored.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 29 saves in his second consecutive start after missing two games with an upper-body injury.

Florida have won six of seven and 12 of 16 to move into third place in the Atlantic Division.

“Huge win, especially with the break coming up there, in the tight race we’re running,” Trocheck said.

Luke Kunin had two goals, including one shorthanded, and Zach Parise scored on the power play, while Jared Spurgeon added a goal and an assist for Minnesota, last in the Central Division and seven points out of a playoff spot.

Alex Stalock stopped 20 shots, while Joel Eriksson Ek and Suter each had two assists.

“Pretty disheartening,” Parise said. “From getting ourselves back into the driver’s seat, and feeling like a few more shifts and we had to close it out to not getting a point out of it, that’s a tough one right now where we are. That’s a tough one to take.”

Kunin’s second goal of the game — a snap-shot from the slot off the glove of Bobrovsky — gave Minnesota a 4-3 lead 7 minutes, 6 seconds into the third.

However, Trocheck beat Stalock between the pads with 4 minutes, 8 seconds to go, tying the game at 4-4.

With the score tied 2-2, Dadonov lifted his stick waist-high to redirect a shot by Yandle early in the third, but Parise countered just more than two minutes later, putting in a rebound for his fifth goal in four games. Parise has a career-best four straight games with a power-play goal.

Minnesota have seven power-play goals in 13 chances during the past four games after going four for 27 in the previous 10.

“The power play is going good and we got a shorthanded goal. When you get those things, you’re supposed to win. The tightness of the race, those are the games that really you look back at,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said.

A highlight-reel effort by Barkov put Florida up 2-1 midway through the second.

Receiving a long outlet pass from Josh Brown just inside the blue line, the Florida captain sped past Carson Soucy through the right circle and cut across the crease before flipping a shot into the top-right corner as he continued moving left.

Yandle scored early in the first for Florida, who are 22-2-2 when getting the game’s first goal.

Elsewhere, the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Detroit Red Wings 6-3.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Myanmar panel denies genocide

content_text:
Myanmar panel denies genocide

‘WHITEWASH’:A government-appointed commission acknowledged ‘war crimes’ had taken place, but said it found no evidence of intent to destroy a Muslim community
A government-appointed panel established in Myanmar to probe allegations of abuses in Rakhine state in 2017 that drew global outrage on Monday said that they had found no evidence of genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine during weeks of brutal violence, with the UN saying gang rapes and mass killings were carried out with “genocidal intent.” Hundreds of villages were burned to the ground, and later razed and scraped.

Although the Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) acknowledged “war crimes” had taken place, rights groups and Rohingya leaders dismissed the report as a “whitewash” days ahead of an expected ruling by the UN’s highest court on a genocide case against the country.

The commission said there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude members of the security forces among “multiple actors” were responsible for possible war crimes and serious human rights violations during a military-led crackdown against the group in 2017.

These included the “killing of innocent villagers and destruction of their homes,” it said.

However, in its statement, issued to mark the finalization of a full report based on interviews with villagers and members of the security forces, the panel blamed Rohingya militants for attacking 30 police posts and “provoking” the crackdown, and described the situation as an “internal armed conflict”.

“The ICOE has not found any evidence suggesting that these killings or acts of displacement were committed pursuant to an intent or plan to destroy the Muslim or any other community in northern Rakhine State,” the statement read.

“There is insufficient evidence to argue, much less conclude, that the crimes committed were undertaken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, or with any other requisite mental state for the international crime of genocide,” it said.

Burmese President Win Myint said in a statement yesterday that the government “concurred” with the findings of the commission and vowed to pursue further investigations, specifically into alleged crimes by civilians and Rohingya militants.

He said he had given the report to the army chief, so that the military might extend ongoing investigations, adding that the executive summary would be made public.

The army began a rare trial in November last year of soldiers and officers from a regiment deployed to Gu Dar Pyin village, the site of an alleged massacre of Rohingya.

Two spokesmen for the military could not be reached for comment.

In Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled Myanmar have taken refuge, a Rohingya leader, Dil Mohammed, described the report as a whitewash.

“We have been persecuted for decades. So many of our people were killed, our women were raped, our children were thrown into fire and our homes were torched. If it is not genocide, what is it?” he said.

The International Court of Justice, the highest UN court, is this week to issue a decision on a request for emergency measures in a genocide case against the country.

The Gambia filed the suit in November alleging Myanmar was committing “an ongoing genocide” against the Rohingya.

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content_text:
Many international media outlets have interpreted President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) re-election as meaning that an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese voters have said “no” to China. However, does this mean that the “sense of the nation’s impending doom” will now disappear?

Starting in 2018, Taiwan was swept by a wave of support for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politician Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who was voted in as mayor of Kaohsiung and then challenged Tsai as the KMT’s presidential candidate. Behind the “Han wave” lies a serious problem of infiltration by China.

At the end of last year, Chinese citizen William Wang Liqiang (王立強) applied for political asylum in Australia, saying that he had been an undercover agent for China in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Wang affair made it possible for the Legislative Yuan to pass the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法), which went into effect on Wednesday last week.

However, the act only allows for punishment, not deterrence, and punishment alone cannot mend the harm done to democracy by rumors, slander, and the spread of fear and hatred.

The act lags far behind measures already taken by Western countries, such as the US and Australia, to counter infiltration by China. Taiwan’s defenses against the emerging threats of information warfare and hybrid warfare are also inadequate.

“Sunshine laws” concerning things like the declaration of assets of elected officials and public servants, as well as the registration of foreign agents, can further contribute to resisting communist China’s “united front” policies.

Building such defenses to protect the nation’s democracy should be an important and urgent item on the legislative agenda.

However, the incoming legislature might not be able to effectively deal with the problem of Chinese infiltration. That retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), who is a typical “red unificationist,” is about to enter the Legislative Yuan as one of the KMT’s legislators-at-large signals that the Democratic Progressive Party will face stronger legislative challenges from the KMT.

In addition, if the total number of party votes won by the KMT, the New Party and other pan-blue parties is subtracted from the 5.52 million votes Han won, the size of the difference shows that some swing voters have still not realized how serious the problem of Chinese infiltration really is.

It also suggests that “third force” parties that say “blue and green are equally bad” might play a disruptive role in the new legislature. Considering how hard it was to get the act through the last legislature, it will be even harder to enact further anti-China laws in the new one.

The act puts Taiwan on a firmer footing, but the sense of impending national doom is still there. The Tsai administration should continue responding to the public’s expectations. With the backing of 8.17 million votes in the presidential election, her government should firmly tackle China’s “united front” infiltration.

Taiwanese should not misread the election result as meaning that the sense of doom has disappeared. On the contrary, they must have a grasp of Taiwan’s problems, and explain them to friends and family who are not yet aware of China’s “united front” strategy.

Finally, Taiwanese must urge lawmakers and their parties to finish building the necessary defenses. Over the next four years, Taiwanese must go from passive to active and sweep away anything that acts as a breeding ground for the sense of national doom.

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title: Impending doom not averted by Tsai’s win

people: 韓國瑜 吳斯懷 蔡英文


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The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Monday approved an environmental impact assessment for two planned natural gas-fired generators, which are to be constructed at the Taichung Power Plant.

The generators are to have a combined installed capacity of 2.6 million kilowatts, said state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), the plant’s operator.

The generators and related facilities are to be built on land already owned by the company, so as not to impact the environment, Taipower said.

The EPA reviewed the project three times from October 2018 to June last year.

In October last year, it was reviewed a fourth time, and on Monday it was discussed at an environmental impact assessment meeting attended by officials, energy experts and environmental advocates.

During the five-hour meeting, environmental groups criticized the plant for failing to reduce its number of coal-powered generators, saying that “without doing so, [the project] will be an expansion of the power plant.”

The Taichung plant has 10 coal-fired power generators, but plans to only use six of them after the two natural gas generators are activated, it said, adding that doing so would reduce its emissions of air pollutants by 64 to 72 percent.

Experts at the meeting said it would be a waste to burn natural gas to generate power, as gas is more effective when used in the form of liquefied natural gas.

However, natural gas resources are stable to operate, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) told the meeting, adding that when operating the two new units, tighter standards would be applied to regulate emissions of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides.

Tseng also promised stricter management of the plant’s existing coal-fired units, saying that the plant would only be allowed to operate more than six generators simultaneously for 240 hours per year, and that the power plant would not be allowed to operate more than 10 units (coal-fired and natural gas-fired) simultaneously.

It was unacceptable that the two units passed the environmental impact assessment, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said.

The Taichung City Government strongly objects to the ruling and has lodged a protest, she said.

The fossil fuel-dependent Taichung Power Plant, one of the largest of its kind in the world, was slapped with hefty fines last year for breaching regulations, including by using more coal than is permitted for the year and failing to cease using raw coal.

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title: Taichung gas-fired generators approved


content_text:
Atalanta BC’s Mario Pasalic, right, challenges SPAL’s Mattia Valoti for the ball in their Serie A match at the Gewiss Stadium in Bergamo, Italy, on Monday.Photo: EPA-EFE
Andrea Petagna on Monday ignited a come-from-behind victory for struggling SPAL to hand his former club Atalanta BC a shock 2-1 defeat in Serie A.

The UEFA Champions League-chasing side from Bergamo, Italy, had won their past two home games against AC Milan and Parma, with 5-0 scorelines each time.

However, they slipped up against SPAL, who snatched just their fourth win of the season to move off the bottom of the table.

Gian Piero Gasperini’s team missed the chance to leapfrog past AS Roma into the final Champions League place and are now three points behind the capital side in fifth place.

“Today more than a few players were not at their best,” Gasperini said. “It was clear we were down a gear… But we will have to be ready to immediately redeem a bad performance, because the standings are very tight.”

Slovenian forward Josip Ilicic put Atalanta ahead after 16 minutes with a clever back-heel flick beating Etrit Berisha in the SPAL goal.

However, Petagna pulled SPAL level after 54 minutes by scoring his fifth goal in four meetings against his former club.

Mattia Valoti snatched the winner six minutes later, with new signing Bryan Dabo playing a role in the goal on his first start for SPAL.

“I left a piece of heart in Bergamo because I started here,” Petagna said. “But today we had to win, now we must continue like this if we want to save ourselves.”

Duvan Zapata missed chances to equalize for the hosts following a long injury layoff, with fellow Colombian forward Luis Muriel coming on for the final half-an-hour in place of defender Mattia Caldara, who started on his return on loan from AC Milan.

However, despite laying siege to the SPAL goal, the hosts fell to their fifth defeat of the season and fourth at home.

“You have to give credit to SPAL, despite being last in the standings, they tried to play a decent game,” Gasperini said. “Once in the lead, SPAL attacked with many men, but we weren’t good at fighting them.”

Gasperini’s side have the best attack in the league with 50 goals scored in 20 games.

However, he had conceded that his players were suffering from fatigue after their surprise elimination from the Coppa Italia by ACF Fiorentina.

Atalanta are playing their first season in the Champions League and host Valencia in the last-16 first leg at the San Siro in Milan on Feb. 19.

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title: Petagna leads SPAL to come-from-behind win


title: Rodent rescue

content_text:
A hamster quenches its thirst at the Rodents Care Association shelter.Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times

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Last time the Year of the Rat rolled around, many people listened to the advice of fortune tellers and bought a rodent to attract wealth. With three days left until the Lunar New Year, Rodents Care Association (中華民國愛鼠協會) president Chang Sheng-man (張勝鬘) hasn’t heard anything of the sort yet — although she is fairly certain that the animals will see a bump in popularity.

“In these cases, people aren’t buying them out of love for animals,” she says. “We are worried that we will soon be overloaded,” adding that overbreeding due to improper care is one of the main reasons people abandon these furry creatures.

Rodents — especially hamsters — continue to grow in popularity, as they’re relatively easy to care for and require little space. But Chang says pet shops often fail to warn customers of how fast they can reproduce, and the owners simply dump them when it becomes too much to handle. Rodents Care has taken in over 2,000 animals since its founding in 2016, and the rescue rate continues to grow.

The most important solution, Chang stresses, is to house one rodent in one cage. In addition to curbing overbreeding, rodents are usually territorial and cage-mates often end up seriously harming each other. In July of last year, the Liberty Times (Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) addressed the issue:

“People often buy several hamsters at once because they believe that it’s therapeutic to watch the cute scene of them cuddling together,” the report states. “This is totally wrong. Your imagined scenario will not happen, and the animals will end up either hurt or dead!”

FILLING THE VOID

Chang got her first pet hamster in college because she thought “they were cute.” Soon, she started paying attention to the issue of rodent abandonment, and decided to help out, only to find that there was no formal rescue organization. By contrast, there have been dog and cat rescues for decades and even one for rabbits, founded in 2009.

Chang says Rodents Care first started as a Facebook group around 2015. Group membership quickly swelled, and the volunteer rescuers combined their resources and started an organization and shelter.

“There were people posting information on the Facebook group about abandoned rodents every day,” Chang says. “That’s when I realized how serious the problem was, and also how many people cared and were willing to contribute.”

At first, there were quite a few misunderstandings as people thought the association was rescuing street rats (since the Chinese word for rodents and common rats are the same), that are considered pests. Someone even came into the shelter to scream at them, Chang recalls.

“We had to stress to the public that we are caring for pet rodents,” Chang says. “We don’t focus much on feral rats, only that people should use more humane methods to get them out of their houses.”

However, they have taken in lab rats as well as baby street rats. Adult wild rats aren’t suited to human conditions and can survive easily on the street, while a hamster cannot, Chang says. However, wild rats can make for good pets if raised from a young age.

YouTuber Vito (維特), for example, took in a litter of babies he found in his house last year and has been making videos with them.

“Most people in Taiwan still can’t accept it, though,” Chang says, and indeed Vito has received some negative attention for bringing them onto a television show.


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Sri Lanka’s Dimuth Karunaratne walks back to the pavilion after being dismissed in the third day of the first Test against Zimbabwe at the Harare Sports Club yesterday.Photo: AFP
Kusal Mendis yesterday struck a measured 80 as Sri Lanka reached 205-3 at tea on the third day of the first Test against Zimbabwe in Harare.

It was a hard sweat for Sri Lanka’s batsmen, who still trailed Zimbabwe by 153 at tea, with their captain Angelo Mathews unbeaten on a painstaking 51.

Mendis, 24, struck eight boundaries in his 163-ball innings before flashing at an outswinger from debutant Victor Nyauchi that flew to Brendan Taylor at first slip.

It marked a second success for Nyauchi, who collected his first wicket in Test cricket during the morning session, when Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne flicked a low catch to Ainsley Ndlovu at midwicket.

Nyauchi was the pick of the attack, taking 2-32 from 19 overs.

Karunaratne had resumed his partnership with Mendis after bad light stopped Monday’s play with Sri Lanka on 42-1.

They added 60 before Mathews joined Mendis in a third-wicket partnership of 92. Mathews hit three fours and a towering six over midwicket off Ndlovu, bringing up his 50 from 154 balls.

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title: Mendis, Mathews lead Sri Lanka to 205-3 in Harare


content_text:
The dust has settled after the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections. With a difference of 2.65 million votes between the winner and the runner-up in the presidential election, 14.3 million of Taiwan’s 19.231 million eligible voters decided the national direction for the next four years.

Although President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received a record number of votes — 8,170,231 — it must not be forgotten that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, received 5,522,119 votes.

These 5.5 million voters might be a bit older and have slightly different views from the majority of voters, but even if their view of whether Han is good or bad might differ from the majority view, 5.5 million votes is still a solid number.

Therefore, Tsai has a responsibility to take a softer approach and show her concern for these 5.5 million voters, to remind voters from two different generations that they all are part of the same family.

Still, there is no denying that Han lost the presidential election and his supporters are not disputing the results.

These are the rules of the game, and for democracy to work, the laws regulating the election process must be acceptable to the losing side. It is no different from someone taking a national test, and — despite working long and hard as they prepare for the test — still failing to pass.

This means that as far as the political parties are concerned, elections are a matter of key performance indicators: If they do not meet the standard, it does not matter how much time they spend on the campaign trail.

Any KMT supporter can verify this cruel reality by asking members of the People First Party, the New Party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union or the Taiwan Action Party Alliance what happens when you do not meet the key performance indicator standards: You get swept into the dustbin of history.

The point for the KMT is this: Has losing the presidential and legislative elections in 2016 and then — despite the fleeting success of the “Han wave” in the 2018 local elections — also losing this year’s elections awakened the party?

Do former KMT chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and the other old guys in the party have any sense of shame at all, staying on until the KMT Central Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday last week before stepping down?

Were they completely indifferent to all the negative criticism that followed as soon as the election results came out?

Do KMT legislators Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) and Lin Wei-chou (林為洲), KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) and other younger KMT members know that it is not enough to only huff and puff, and complain about the party?

If none of them takes the lead and comes forward to offer themselves up as candidates for the party chairmanship, they are just behaving as if everything is normal while the Titanic continues on its way toward the iceberg.

Another question is whether the members of the youngest generation of KMT members understand that only if they had taken a more forceful approach toward the central party leadership could they have been one of the elected legislators, even if they had not been appointed party deputy secretary-general like Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), who is of the same generation.

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people: 蔡英文 吳敦義 林為洲 蔣萬安 韓國瑜 江啟臣

title: Real opposition to DPP is necessary


content_text:
Toward the end of the past decade, globalization — the lowering of barriers to cross-border flows of goods, services, investment and information — came under severe pressure. Populist politicians in many countries accused others of various economic wrongs, and pushed to rewrite trade agreements.

Developing countries have argued for decades that the rules governing international trade are profoundly unfair.

However, why are similar complaints now emanating from the developed countries that established most of those rules?

A simple, but inadequate explanation is “competition.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, industrialized countries focused on opening foreign markets for their goods and set the rules accordingly.

Since then, the tide has turned. Emerging economies, especially China, became a lot better at producing goods, and the old rules dictate that developed countries must keep their markets open to the now-more-productive producers from elsewhere.

To a cynical observer, developed countries’ current efforts to rewrite the rules look like an attempt not to level the playing field, but to thwart competition.

One reason emerging-market producers are competitive is because they pay workers less, typically because those workers are less productive.

Hence, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement) would limit Mexico’s advantage by requiring that by 2023, 40 to 45 percent of auto components be made by workers earning at least US$16 per hour.

It also mandates a variety of labor protections, including stronger union representation for Mexican workers, which is to be monitored by US inspectors.

What looks like a good deal for Mexican workers imposed by sympathetic US negotiators could also be seen as a US effort to limit the number of manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

However, manufacturing jobs have been moving to emerging markets for decades, so why the heightened concern now?

To replace lost manufacturing jobs, developed economies have been creating jobs in services ranging from low-tech delivery to high-tech research and development.

The implicit bargain that had governed trade was that developed countries would keep their markets open to manufacturing exports from the developing countries, which in turn would be open to service exports from the industrialized countries.

THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Unfortunately, not everyone in developed countries has been able to move to good service jobs. The best are largely in big cities, where well-educated professionals have been able to cater to global markets, while small towns in, say, the US Midwest and northern England, have not recovered economically from the departure of large manufacturing employers.

The devastation of such places, and the frustration of those who live in them, ultimately fueled the political movements that put US President Donald Trump in office and will take the UK out of the EU.

The left-behind former manufacturing communities have a voice in the capital city now, and it wants to bring back manufacturing.

Yet this explanation, too, is incomplete. Much of the US dispute with China, for example, is not about manufacturing — China itself is losing manufacturing jobs to countries such as Vietnam. It is about services.

Although eight of the top 10 service exporters are developed countries, emerging-market competition is increasing — and prompting a major push by advanced-economy firms to enact new service-related trade rules.

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title: Trade could be protected through less intrusive agreements


title: World Business Quick Take

content_text:
SOUTH KOREA

Figures signal optimism

Early trade figures for this month showed that the country’s chip exports might be headed for the first monthly gain since late 2018, offering another sign that a recovery in global manufacturing is picking up momentum. Shipments of semiconductors during the first 20 days of the month rose 8.7 percent from a year earlier, the Korea Customs Service said yesterday. Overall exports dropped 0.2 percent in the period, the smallest decline in more than a year. The country’s 20-day trade report is closely watched as an early indicator of global demand, but January data are typically hard to interpret, because shifting dates for the New Year’s holiday cloud year-on-year comparisons. Still, the figures reinforced a view that global manufacturing is starting the year on firmer footing. Samsung Electronics Co, one of the world’s biggest semiconductor suppliers, this month beat earnings estimates after memorychip prices began to climb out of a persistent downturn.

BANKING

UBS yearly profit down 5%

Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG yesterday said that its full-year profit fell last year, but that economic stimulus measures and easier monetary conditions “contributed to a strong performance in financial markets in the fourth quarter and are likely to prevail.” UBS delivered solid full-year results in mixed market conditions, with net profit falling 5 percent to US$4.3 billion, the group said in a statement. Pretax profit, adjusted for restructuring costs, slipped 0.5 percent to US$6.04 billion, but earnings before tax in the global wealth management division rose 4 percent to US$3.4 billion. In the fourth quarter alone, adjusted pretax profit soared 153 percent to US$1.2 billion, driven mainly by wealth management and investment banking activities, UBS said. The bank said it would pay shareholders an increased dividend of US$0.73 per share for last year, compared with US$0.70 for 2018.

TECHNOLOGY

Uber to sell India unit

Uber Technologies Inc has agreed to sell Uber Eats in India to local rival Zomato, underscoring the US ride-hailing giant’s effort to cut back on loss-making operations globally. Uber is to offload the business in return for 9.99 percent of the Indian start-up, maintaining a foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing Internet arenas, the companies said in a statement. As part of the deal, the US company would shutter operations, but direct all restaurants, delivery companies and diners to Zomato. Neither company offered up financial details, but the Economic Times reported that Zomato — which CB Insights last valued at US$2.2 billion — paid Uber about US$350 million.

AIRLINES

EasyJet positive on winter

British low-cost airline EasyJet PLC said its first-half winter performance would improve from last year, helped by robust travel demand and a slight easing of competition in the European short-haul flying market. EasyJet yesterday said that it expected first-half revenue per seat to increase by mid-to-high single digits, upgrading a previous forecast for it to rise by low-to-mid single digits. Reporting on the quieter winter period when fewer people travel, the airline, which tends to make all of its profit in the summer, said its first-half headline pretax loss would narrow from last year when it made a loss of ￡275 million (US$359 million).

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title: Ministry offers sympathy after Czech politician dies

people: 吳釗燮 蔡英文

content_text:
The government yesterday offered condolences to the family of Czech Senate President Jaroslav Kubera, a supporter of Taiwan, who passed away a day earlier in Teplice, Czech Republic.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) had called the Czech Economic and Cultural Office, Taipei to communicate the sadness of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Taiwanese at hearing of Kubera’s death, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said.

Patrick Rumlar, the head of the Czech office, thanked Wu and said he would relay the message to his government, Ou said.

Ke Liang-ruey (柯良叡), the head of Taiwan’s representative office in the Czech Republic, also called Kubera’s office and his family after the news broke to express Taiwan’s sadness, the ministry said.

Kubera died in Prague on Monday at the age of 72 due to unspecified health problems, a Czech News Agency report said.

Kubera was described by Ou as a staunch supporter of Taiwan who was scheduled to visit the nation next month.

Kubera attended the National Day reception held by the Taiwan representative office in October last year and announced his intention to visit Taiwan with a business delegation, which angered Beijing and Czech President Milos Zeman, according to foreign media reports.

He was intent on pushing through with the visit, despite the opposition of the Chinese embassy in the Czech Republic, Ou said.

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content_text:
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday took a brighter view of the economy and left its main policy settings unchanged, offering a further indication that it is unlikely to add to its stimulus.

As had been widely expected, the BOJ raised its growth projections for the first time in a year, thanks to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s US$120 billion economic package, unveiled last month.

However, the bank also trimmed its inflation forecasts, a move that might raise fresh questions about how economic growth feeds into prices at a time when central bankers around the world are reassessing their targets, methodology and wider issues.

The central bank said that while overseas risks to the economy remained significant, they had decreased somewhat.

It said it would not hesitate to take additional easing action if risks increased.

“The BOJ is trying to avoid sending a message that it’s getting confident about the economy or it’s starting to seek adjustments to its easing bias,” said Nobuyasu Atago, chief economist at Okasan Securities Group Inc and former head of the BOJ’s price statistics division. “The bottom line is that the BOJ is comfortable with the current yen level and it doesn’t want to change that by indicating optimism or a change in its cautious view.”

While Japan’s economy is expected to have contracted sharply in the final three months of last year following a destructive super typhoon and a sales tax hike that cooled spending, the trajectory for this year now looks less gloomy.

A slump in overseas demand might have bottomed and the Abe administration’s stimulus is set to give the economy a shot in the arm.

The fiscal injection looks sufficient to help get growth back on track this year and remove the need for additional action by a central bank already stretched close to the limits of its policy toolkit, and facing mounting costs of its easing program.

The BOJ expects the economy to expand 0.9 percent in the year starting in April, compared with a 0.7 percent forecast in October last year, citing the effects of the government’s measures, but expects inflation of only 1 percent, down from its previous projection.

The BOJ’s upgraded growth forecast positions it between the view of private economists and the more optimistic 1.4 percent projection of the government.

Still, economists cast doubt on how growth can strengthen while prices weaken.

“If you take a step back, they are forecasting inflation of only 1.4 percent even in fiscal 2021. That’s very weak after years of massive easing and I think it’s coming to a stage where they need to rethink the price target. I wouldn’t be surprised if that discussion takes place this year as the [US Federal Reserve] and ECB [the European Central Bank] are also discussing theirs,” Atago said.

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title: BOJ keeps interest rates, raises growth forecasts


title: Mustachioed US envoy raises hackles in Seoul

content_text:
Protesters stage a rally to denounce a briefing by US Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris near the US embassy in Seoul on Monday. The sign reads: “Exile colonial governor Harris.”Photo: AP
US Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris has some unusual explanations for the harsh criticism he has faced in his host country. His mustache, maybe? Or a Japanese ancestry that raises unpleasant reminders of Japan’s former colonial domination of Korea?

However, many South Koreans have a more straightforward explanation for Harris’ struggle to win hearts and minds in Seoul, and it has more to do with an outspoken manner that they see as undiplomatic and rude.

Since arriving in Seoul in July 2018, Harris, a retired US navy admiral born to a Japanese mother and a US Navy officer, has been the focus of keen attention because of his military and ethnic background. The 63-year-old former US Pacific Command chief has sometimes drawn criticism from those who take issue with his manner when dealing with South Koreans.

His mustache has become the subject of ribbing online, with jokes made about how it resembles those of Japanese colonial masters, who brutally occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. However, there is more serious concern that the discord could widen a growing rift in Seoul’s relations with Washington at a time when diplomacy with rival North Korea seems in danger of imploding.

Harris has said his appearance and ethnicity have been a source of his criticism in South Korea.

“My mustache, for some reason, has become a point of some fascination here,” Harris told a group of foreign reporters in Seoul last week. “I have been criticized in the media here, especially in social media, because of my ethnic background, because I am a Japanese-American.”

It is not the first time a US ambassador in South Korea has been in the news for things other than diplomacy. In 2015, then-US ambassador Mark Lippert was slashed in the face and arm by an anti-US activist.

However, unlike Lippert, Harris has repeatedly irked many South Koreans since US President Donald Trump sent him here.

After meeting Harris in November last year, Lee Hye-hoon, then chairwoman of the South Korean Parliament’s intelligence committee, said the ambassador repeated about 20 times Trump’s calls for Seoul to drastically increase its financial contribution to US troop deployment in South Korea.

Four students were arrested in October last year after they broke into Harris’ Seoul residence during an anti-US rally. A mock mustache was plucked from his picture at another demonstration.

Harris said his mustache has nothing to do with his Japanese background and that he started growing it only to mark the start of his career as a diplomat.

“To those people, I say that you are cherry-picking history,” Harris said, adding that some Korean independence fighters also had a mustache.

Harris said he understands the historical animosity that exists between Japan and South Korea.

“But I’m not the Japanese-American ambassador to Korea,” he said. “I’m the American ambassador to Korea.”

Kevin Gray, a professor of international relations at the University of Sussex, England, on Friday last week tweeted that “Koreans’ reaction to Harris’ mustache is vastly exaggerated.”

He said what did rile South Koreans was Harris’ “imperialistic manner,” and efforts to “undermine” South Korean President Moon Jae-in and “dictate” South Korean government policy.

A Monday editorial in the Korea Times said that “the point is not his mustache.”

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content_text:
A handout photo taken yesterday and released by the Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court shows former Interpol president Meng Hongwei, center, during his sentencing at the court in Tianjin, China.Photo: AFP / Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court
Former Interpol president Meng Hongwei (孟宏偉), who was detained on a visit to China in 2018, was yesterday sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for bribery in a case that shook the international police organization.

Meng — a former Chinese vice minister of public security — is among a growing group of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres caught in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) anti-graft campaign, which critics say has also served as a way to remove the leader’s political enemies.

Meng vanished during a visit to China from France, where Interpol is based, and was later accused of accepting bribes and expelled from the CCP.

His wife was granted political asylum in France last year, after saying she was afraid she and her two children would be the targets of kidnapping attempts.

The 66-year-old was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison and fined 2 million yuan (US$290,000), the Tianjin First Intermediate People’s Court said.

At his trial in June last year, Meng pleaded guilty to accepting US$2.1 million in bribes, after the court said he used his status and positions to “seek improper benefit,” illegally acquire property and accumulate bribes.

The court statement said that some of the “stolen money and stolen goods could not be recovered.”

Pictures from the court showed a grim-faced Meng standing in front of a judge, flanked by two police officers.

Meng had “truthfully confessed to all the criminal facts” and would not appeal the decision, the court said.

The Chinese Public Security Bureau has linked Meng’s case to a broader initiative to “completely remove the pernicious influence” of Zhou Yongkang (周永康), a former security czar who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for bribery, abuse of power and leaking state secrets.

Meng was appointed vice security minister by Zhou in 2004.

In that role, he was entrusted with a number of sensitive portfolios, including the nation’s counterterrorism division, and he was in charge of the response to violence in China’s fractious northwestern region of Xinjiang.

During Meng’s tenure, the bureau also arrested and interrogated a number of prominent Chinese dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who later died of liver cancer while in police custody.

In 2013, Meng was appointed director of China’s Maritime Police Bureau, which includes the coast guard and maritime anti-smuggling authorities.

He was the first Chinese president at Interpol and was expected to serve a four-year term until this year. When he vanished in September 2018, he sent his wife a message telling her to “wait for my call,” and then a knife emoji signifying danger.

A few weeks later, Interpol was informed that Meng had resigned, with Beijing later announcing he was being held on suspicion of taking bribes.

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title: Ex-Interpol president sentenced to over 13 years in prison


content_text:
Chinese video messaging app’s security flaws exposed

數據、個資全外流！ 抖音被爆有「嚴重安全漏洞」

On Jan. 8, cyber security company Check Point Software Technologies announced that its research had discovered serious security vulnerabilities with video messaging app TikTok. The research found that a hacker could send a spoofed SMS message to a TikTok user containing a malicious link which, if clicked, would enable the attacker to assume control of the user’s account, allowing the hacker to upload videos and make a user’s private videos public.

An additional security loophole exposed by Check Point’s researchers would allow a bad actor to retrieve personal information saved on user accounts. According to media reports, TikTok was made aware of Check Point’s research in November last year, and by Dec. 15 had deployed a fix for the vulnerabilities.

Check Point’s Head of Product Vulnerability Research, Oded Vanunu, says that the vulnerabilities discovered by the researchers were all core to TikTok’s systems. The company also tested how easy it would be to hack into TikTok user accounts. It discovered that certain app functions, including sending video files and documents, contained security flaws.

The last two years has seen explosive growth for TikTok within the US market, making the app a rare success story in the West for a Chinese technology company. However, some US lawmakers have raised concerns over the potential for covert eavesdropping. Meanwhile, the five main branches of the US military have already banned the app’s use on government-issued devices over fears it could compromise national security. Additionally, US security officials have called on military personnel and their family members to remove the app from their personal devices.

(Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times)

報導指出，Check Point本月八日發布的研究報告發現，TikTok存在嚴重的安全漏洞，駭客可以透過這些漏洞，向TikTok使用者發送帶有惡意連結的訊息，而其他使用在點擊連結後，駭客就能夠控制他們的帳戶，包括上傳影片或訪問私密影片。

另外，透過另外一個安全漏洞，Check Point研究人員也可以從該公司網站上，取得TikTok使用者帳戶的個人訊息；報導指出，對此TikTok表示，公司在去年十一月了解到Check Point的研究，並表示已在十二月十五日之前修復所有漏洞。

Check Point產品漏洞研究主管瓦努努(Oded Vanunu)向該報指出，研究人員發現，這些漏洞都存在TikTok系統的核心部分；Check Point也檢驗了入侵TikTok使用者帳戶的容易程度，發現應用程式中的各項功能包括發送影片、文件等，都存在安全問題。

TikTok過去兩年在全美爆炸式增長，也成為中國科企在西方取得成功的罕見案例，但也有議員對TikTok提出安全隱憂，認為該程式可能會遭到竊聽；先前美軍五大軍種也已可能產生的國安風險為由，相繼宣布禁止與政府有關的任何裝置使用抖音，也呼籲軍方及家屬私人手機移除抖音。

(自由時報)

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title: Taiwan Ratings welcomes  rules on insurance policies

content_text:
Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) has said that it welcomes the Financial Supervisory Commission’s plan to tighten sales of insurance policies featuring target-maturity bond funds, adding that the move would help rein in risks that investors are not generally aware of.

The commission is to promulgate details intended to curtail sales of insurance policies linked to target-maturity bond funds with below-par credit ratings.

The policies have gained popularity over the past few years, with their balance surging to NT$300 billion (US$10 billion) in November last year, from NT$200 billion in January last year, Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (證券投信投顧公會) data showed.

The ratings agency attributed the policies’ popularity to the promise of monthly distributions of dividends equivalent to a 5 percent yield for the duration of the policies, which usually last six years.

However, many investors are not aware that junk bonds underlie such policies and there is no guarantee that their principal would remain intact upon redemption, Taiwan Ratings added.

“There is a wide credit gap between the issuer and the issued, but insurance companies fail to clarify the risks involved,” Taiwan Ratings credit analyst Andy Chang (張書評) told a media briefing on Friday last week.

The commission plans to limit the sales of similar polices to bond funds with “BBB+” ratings, on a par with life insurers’ own standards for investments in overseas debt, and limit such bonds to 40 percent of overall funds.

The new requirements might take effect next month without affecting existing policies, the commission said.

The restriction is reasonable, as insurers should not sell investment tools that they would shun, Taiwan Ratings said.

It is difficult to assign credit ratings to such policies, as they are linked to structured debt and come with conditions for redemption, it said.

Prospective policy buyers should not mistake the credit ratings of insurers or fund houses for the ratings of the products they sell, it said.

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title: Hsieh, Lu crash out of Australian Open

content_text:
Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun serves to France’s Gael Monfils in their Australian Open men’s singles first-round match in Melbourne, Australia, yesterday.Photo: Reuters
Taiwanese interest in the singles at the first Grand Slam of the year ended yesterday after Hsieh Su-wei and Lu Yen-hsun both fell to straight-sets defeats on the second day of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

World No. 37 Hsieh fell to a comprehensive 6-1, 6-3 defeat to world No. 38 Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan in 1 hour, 18 minutes on Court 15 at Melbourne Park.

The Taiwanese No. 1 produced 28 unforced errors and won just 47 percent of points on her first serve, while Putintseva won 85 percent of points on her first serve and converted five of 10 break points to advance to a second-round clash with 26th seed Danielle Collins of the US, who defeated Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia 6-1, 3-6, 6-4.

The defeat left Hsieh to concentrate on the women’s doubles, in which the Taiwanese and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic are the top seeds.

Lu, who had not played on the main tour since 2017, fell to a 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 defeat to French 10th seed Gael Monfils in 1 hour, 44 minutes at 1573 Arena.

Lu failed to convert any of the seven break points he created and hit 34 unforced errors.

Meanwhile, top seed Rafael Nadal turned on the style as he launched his bid for a record-equaling 20th major title, but falling star Maria Sharapova hit a career low.

Australia’s Nick Kyrgios also cantered into the second round, but fourth seed Daniil Medvedev had to fight his way past American Frances Tiafoe in four sets.

Nadal, one shy of Roger Federer’s Grand Slam mark, dropped only five games as he swatted aside Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien 6-2, 6-3, 6-0 in just more than two hours at a sunny Rod Laver Arena.

“It was a positive start,” said the reigning Roland Garros and US Open champion, wearing a bright pink singlet and matching trainers. “What you want in the first round is just to win and it’s better if it’s in straight sets.”

He joins Federer and defending champion Novak Djokovic in round two as the Big Three look to tighten a stranglehold that has brought them all but one of the past 14 Australian Open titles.

Nadal, the first player to be world No. 1 in three different decades, is still thriving at 33, but it was a different story for five-time Grand Slam winner Sharapova.

The 32-year-old, playing on a wild card as she wrestles with a shoulder injury, lost 3-6, 4-6 to Croatian 19th seed Donna Vekic, making her an opening-round loser at three straight Grand Slams for the first time.

The future looks uncertain for the former world No. 1, who won Wimbledon when she was just 17, but has not reached a Grand Slam final since she lifted the 2014 French Open trophy.

“I can speak about my struggles and the things that I’ve gone through with my shoulder, but it’s not really in my character to,” Sharapova said. “I was there, I put myself out there [playing]. As tough as it was, I finished the match — it wasn’t the way that I wanted.”

Britain’s Johanna Konta, a two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist, also fell at the first hurdle as she battles to overcome a knee problem, losing 4-6, 2-6 to unseeded Tunisian Ons Jabeur.

On a bumper day of 88 first-round matches — as rain wiped out half of Monday’s schedule — former US Open champion Marin Cilic and Milos Raonic both moved safely through.

Italy’s Fabio Fognini, two sets down against the US’ Reilly Opelka when their match was suspended on Monday, returned to win it in five after a stormy encounter in which both players argued furiously with the umpire.


title: CHT bearish on this year’s profit

content_text:
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecom, yesterday forecast that net profit would decline as much as 5.8 percent annually this year, due to higher operating expenses, including 5G deployment costs and license fees.

Net profit is to be between NT$30.91 billion and NT$32.47 billion (US$1.03 billion and US$1.08 billion), compared with NT$32.81 billion last year, hitting the lowest level in the company’s history, it said.

Earnings per share would fall to between NT$3.99 and NT$4.19 from NT$4.23 last year, it added.

Operating expenses would increase 5.3 to 5.5 percent annually to between NT$175.51 billion and NT$175.83 billion, from last year’s NT$166.74 billion, the company said.

Chunghwa Telecom attributed the increases primarily to new equipment amortization costs for 5G network and related expenses, along with higher costs for telecom devices.

“On the mobile business front, we have defended our market leadership, building a strong base for our upcoming 5G business,” chairman Hsieh Chi-mau (謝繼茂) said in a statement.

As the nation’s 5G spectrum auctions near their conclusion, Chunghwa Telecom plans to introduce 5G services in the third quarter of this year, Hsieh said.

Revenue is expected to increase 3.2 to 3.7 percent annually to between NT$214.1 billion and NT$215.29 billion, from NT$207.52 billion last year, the company said.

The revenue growth would be mainly due to increases in its Internet TV business, multimedia-on-demand, and Internet value-added services, offsetting constant declines in mobile service revenue amid intensive competition, it said.

Chunghwa Telecom has secured 90 megahertz of bandwidth, the largest among the five bidders, for NT$46.29 billion in the first phase of the 5G spectrum auction, which ended last week with total bids reaching NT$138.08 billion, more than four times the floor price set by the National Communications Commission.

The final bid total is expected to climb even higher, as the telecoms are to bid for the location of their 5G frequency bands in the second phase scheduled for Feb. 21.

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content_text:
Sam Bennett yesterday won a tight sprint finish to take the Tour Down Under’s first stage in a quick early return for his new Deceuninck-Quick-Step team.

Bennett, the Irish national champion, swept home in the final moments of the 150km stage to cross half a bike ahead of Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen.

Bennett’s teammates Iljo Keisse and Michael Morkov took to the front of the peloton to guide the Irishman to the head of the pack and clinch his victory.

“I’d be lying if I’d said I didn’t feel the pressure to get that first win,” said Bennett, the first Irishman to lead the Tour Down Under general classification.

“I am very happy it came today, on the very first stage of the season’s first race, and I can’t thank my incredible teammates enough, because the result is down to their amazing effort,” he added.

Philipsen, riding for UAE Team Emirates, was the only rider to challenge Bennett and almost pulled off the win at the line in Tanunda, northeast of Adelaide.

Slovakia’s Erik Baska was third for Bora-Hansgrohe at the UCI World Tour season opener.

Last year’s opening stage winner, Elia Viviani, was fourth for Cofidis Solutions Credits, ahead of former winner Andre Greipel of Israel Start-Up Nation.

South African Daryl Impey, chasing a third straight victory in Australia, was seven seconds behind Bennett in the general classification.

“Tomorrow is a key day,” Impey’s Mitchelton-Scott team sport director Matt White said. “It’s a course we know and it’s a crucial day for Daryl’s ambitions overall.”

The opening stage, a five-lap circuit through South Australia’s famous Barossa Valley wine district, was not affected by bushfires, which scorched the Adelaide Hills region last month.

Stages two and three are to take teams and spectators through areas where properties were destroyed in the blazes, which also killed one person and injured others.

“We’ve been working feverishly to make sure that the route is safe, and lots of tree clearance and some minor road repairs have been done,” Adelaide Hills Mayor Jan-Claire Wisdom said prior to the race.

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title: Ireland’s Bennett takes early Tour Down Under lead


content_text:
Xi’s fight with the US is only just beginning

After the signing of a ‘phase one’ trade deal, few are under any illusions that deeper tensions between the US and China will abate
In a letter read out during the trade deal signing at the White House on Wednesday last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked US President Donald Trump to take steps to “enhance mutual trust and cooperation between us.”

That will not to be easy: Apart from the trade agreement, the US and China are butting heads on everything from technology to human rights to territorial disputes.

Just last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told executives in Silicon Valley that the US is “facing a challenge from China that demands every fiber of your innovative skill and your innovative spirit.”

A return to acrimony could have major consequences for China, and for Xi.

In the short term, renewed tensions with the US risk weakening an already fragile economic situation, while investment restrictions could hamper plans to secure technologies essential to driving growth. For Xi, a perceived failure to manage US ties could also dent support for a third term in office at a key Chinese Communist Party (CCP) meeting in 2022.

“This is China’s most important bilateral relationship by a country mile, and Xi Jinping has made it clear that he’s in charge from the beginning,” said Trey McArver, cofounder of Beijing-based research firm Trivium China. “He’s under pressure to do a good job, because if he doesn’t, it opens him up to criticism that he’s not a good statesman and not a good steward of the nation.”

Early on, Xi himself defined the terms of a successful relationship. Even before taking the top job in 2012, he called for a “new type of great power relations” that would see the two powers respect each other’s “core interests” and abandon a “zero-sum” mentality.

Just days before Trump took office in 2017 after campaigning on an “America first” platform, Xi sought to claim the mantle as a defender of free trade by preaching “openness” and “economic liberalization” at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Later that year, he declared that China was “approaching the center of the world stage” as he outlined a road map for turning the country into a leading global power by 2050.

However, Trump sought to thwart those plans. His move to raise tariffs has disrupted China’s export-led economic model, accelerating a shift in global supply chains as lower-cost manufacturers look for cheaper places to set up shop.

It also opened the door for his administration to blacklist Huawei Technologies Co and other burgeoning Chinese tech companies that still rely on US firms for vital components.

“If you go back five, six, seven years, in 2019 they say China was going to catch us as the world’s largest economy,” Trump told supporters at a rally last month. “Guess what? They’re way behind. They’re way behind.”

For Xi, the “phase one” deal reached last week helps stop the bleeding on the trade dispute.

While he has struck an optimistic tone along with other Chinese officials, the text of the deal itself speaks to the wide gap between the world’s biggest economies. Its limited scope, highlighted by huge agricultural and energy purchases, defers tougher issues such as Beijing’s controversial state subsidies, industrial policies and state-owned enterprises.

Compromise on state-owned enterprises is likely to prove difficult because they are an “organic component of China’s political and economic governance,” said Wang Peng (王鵬), an associate research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in China.

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content_text: 新浪科技訊 日期:1月22日凌晨消息，淘寶發佈最新聲明稱，已向淘寶天貓平台上所有銷售口罩的商家發出通知，絕不允許漲價銷售。 　　淘寶表示，目前淘寶天貓平台貨源充足，未來幾周阿里健康「急送葯」服務春節不停歇。...

title: 淘寶：平台所有口罩絕不允許漲價 官方啟動專項補貼


countries: 美國 台灣

title: 華為年度拍照神機P40將登場？5色渲染圖與規格在網路上曝光了！

content_text:
匯流新聞網記者王佐銘／綜合報導

雖然去年華為被美國加入了實體清單，導致許多科技大廠都與其終止合作，讓華為的業務大大減損，不過他們並沒有放棄，仍然持續開發年度的旗艦機。隨著2020年的到來，華為勢必要推出新的機種吸引消費者，如今上半年的拍照旗艦機種P40、P40 Pro一系列的渲染圖就被曝了光，讓民眾非常地期待。

據國外科技媒體報導，日前一組華為最新拍照旗艦系列P 40在網路上流傳，只見P 40系列有5個顏色，分別為黑、金、銀、藍、白。雖然說目前顏色看似這五種，不過華為往往在外型上會出點奇招驚艷民眾，像是Mate 30就有素色皮革的版本，因此目前在網路上流傳的渲染圖還不準也看不出材質，只能等到實際推出後才可以知道確切顏色。

至於今年P 40的拍照會多麼強呢？據了解，今年P40 Pro將搭載會搭載一顆5200萬畫素的主鏡頭，然後去年的潛望式長焦鏡頭也會保留，並透過10倍光學變焦，最遠焦距可達240mm。此外還有另外三顆鏡頭，分別為超廣角、ToF和微距鏡頭，整體拍照規格非常豪華。

另一方面，P40 Pro將採麒麟990 5G處理器SA與NSA雙網模組等，但由於目前距離發佈會還有一段時間，所以獲得的資訊相當有限，不過隨著日子一天一天地道來，相信今年華為的P系列照相手機也會相當精采，畢竟其面臨的對手將是三星的S 20系列以及5G的iPhone。

更多匯流新聞網報導：

台灣大新總座上任 林之晨宣示超5G策略 讓台灣大成為超級航母

愛立信啟動全球市場5G網路 美國與亞洲具領先優勢

【匯流筆陣】


countries: 荷蘭 法國 日本 中國 美國

title: 尼德蘭擬造太陽能高速公路，這4個國家也將新能源導入交通

content_text:
（示意圖/取自pixabay）

尼德蘭長年致力於推廣太陽能發電，除了在所有合適的屋頂廣設太陽能板之外，還打造了太陽能自行車道。

現在，尼德蘭將打造一條40公里長的太陽能高速公路。根據《Global Construction Review》報導，荷蘭水利管理局Rijkswaterstaat，計畫在德倫特省A37高速公路上的隔島與圍牆鋪設太陽能板，鋪設長度預計達40公里、總面積達3平方公里、總裝置量達140MW（千瓩）。

不過，這並不是世界第一條太陽能高速公路，這幾年各國都陸續嘗試利用太陽能電力，來導入交通用電。

中國濟南

（取自齊魯交通發展集團 官網）

世界第一條太陽能高速公路，在2017年12月28日於中國濟南通車。根據開發商齊魯交通發展集團資料，該太陽能光電路段全長共1080公尺、總鋪設面積為5874平方公尺、總裝置量達817.2MW，且該道路每天都有超過4.5萬輛汽車駛過。

法國諾曼第

中國是全世界第一個，將太陽能板鋪設在高速公路的國家，而法國則是全世界的一個，將太陽能應用在道路上的國家。

法國在2016年12月底，於諾曼第Tourouvre-au-Perche小鎮中，在全長1公里的道路上，共鋪設了2800平方公尺的太陽能發電板，該太陽能道路將可為街燈供電。

可惜的是，由於該道路的發電量不如預期，還有道路磨損、天氣狀況、灰塵累積等種種問題，使這項太陽能道路試驗計劃最終宣告失敗。

美國密蘇里州

美國密蘇里州交通部，與美國太陽能道路新創公司Solar Roadways，在2016年推出「太陽能道路」測試計畫。

在歷史悠久的66號公路（Route 66）特定路段，鋪設太陽能板進行實驗，希望未來能取代柏油路及水泥路，而這也是全美首個鋪設太陽能板的公路路段。

不過Solar Roadways在2017年，於美國愛達荷州的一段道路上舖設太陽能板。沒想到不到一週的時間，太陽能板就故障了，不僅無法產生電力，還被美國媒體評論為一場「大災難」。

日本東京

日本東京神奈川縣的一間7-11便利商店，在2019年將太陽能板鋪設於屋頂及停車場路面。

根據《科技新報》報導，該超商經理指出，太陽能道路系統每年可以產生16145KWh電力，能抵消7-11 9%的電力；而屋頂太陽能每年則可產生64608KWh的電力，滿足7-11 36.6%的用電量。


countries: 美國 台灣 德國

title: 華為新專利曝光！新機將有5顆後置鏡頭 採「X型」排列很帥氣

content_text:
匯流新聞網記者王佐銘／綜合報導

隨著現代人的拍照需求日漸提升，各大手機廠牌的後置鏡頭可說是越做越多顆，不過怎麼樣排列與設計，就各憑本事了。近日華為的最新專利就被曝光，在新專利中，他們將使用５顆鏡頭，並以「X」的造型做排列，新穎的樣式備受民眾好評。

綜合外媒報導，日前華為被揭露向德國專利局DPMA申請了一項新專利。雖然說手機的主體與Mate 30 Pro設計相仿，不過其後置鏡頭的模組卻相當特別。從設計草圖上可看到，該機擁有5個攝像頭，是以X型排列，左側還有著閃光燈。螢幕的部分則是採如iPhone X系列般的設計，是有著「瀏海」的，並為曲面螢幕，上方傳感器則有三個。

不過這並不是第一款擁有5個鏡頭的智慧型手機，向過去小米CC9 Pro、Nokia 9 PureView等，都有著5顆攝像頭。但由於Nokia 9 PureView鏡頭的配置實在太過奇特，雖然讓消費者感到相當新鮮，但是對於許多有密集恐懼症的民眾可能較無法接受，紛紛直呼「太噁了」、「看了完全倒彈」等，讓人看得相當哭笑不得。

但撇去鏡頭配置問題，若實際使用Nokia 9 PureView拍攝時，照片表現相當的好，拍攝水準極高。只是當在設定為RAW或DNG檔案時使用景深模式時，每張照片的處理速度比較慢了一點，而在相機APP打開完整解析度照片時也要需要點時間，相當考驗使用者的耐心。

更多匯流新聞網報導：

台灣大新總座上任 林之晨宣示超5G策略 讓台灣大成為超級航母

愛立信啟動全球市場5G網路 美國與亞洲具領先優勢

【匯流筆陣】

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content_text:
匯流新聞網記者王佐銘/綜合報導

自從Apple推出採用Face ID的iPhone X系列，臉部辨識開始被世人關注，不過臉部辨識真的安全嗎？近日歐盟就以恐造成資安問題，提出了暫時禁止使用的建議。雖然說一開始引起許多人不滿、不習慣，但近日卻獲得Google母公司司Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai卻表示贊同，讓大家相當震驚。

綜合外媒報導，歐盟因為認為臉部辨識恐侵害民眾隱私權，因此最近提出建議希望暫時禁止臉部辨識系統。對此，Sundar Pichai深感贊同，認為這種技術很可能被用於不滿道德的用途，所以應該停止。

Sundar Pichai表示，倘若這樣的禁令被下達後，就像使用「切肉刀」一般控管，而並不是「手術刀」，來解決潛在的問題，因此他認為各國政府、監管機構應該盡快解決這個問題，為其制定法律、提供一個框架。

不過微軟總裁兼首席法務官Brad Smith卻對歐盟以及Pichai的反對相當不以為然，Brad Smith更舉出了幾個例子，來告訴眾人關於人臉辨識的好處，像是解鎖、電子支付、甚至非政府組織可以藉此找到失蹤兒童等等，因此不希望禁止這項技術。

Brad Smith認為，大家理應先找到問題的癥結點再來制定規則，從而確保技術不會用於重大監控。他強調，若要讓技術變得更好，指有一個方法，那就是「用起來」因此還是呼籲大家應該繼續多使用人臉辨識，科學家再從這些使用數據進行修正、改進，確保資訊、隱私更安全。

至於跟人臉辨識一樣、近期很夯的AI人工智慧技術，Pichai則是告誡人們要清楚意識到有天人工智慧可能會出問題，這一點非常重要。他指出，雖然這種技術將帶來巨大的好處，但可能會有的負面後果也讓人非常擔心，像是deepfake行為就讓人非常擔憂。畢竟Google已經發布了開放的數據庫，這將會幫助研究界打造更好的工具來研究更多的造假行為。

對此，Google的母公司Alphabet則在上周宣布，該公司正在建構政策與技術保障措施，Google也不會提供任何通用的臉部辨識API，以確保民眾們的個資安全。

更多匯流新聞網報導：

台灣大新總座上任 林之晨宣示超5G策略 讓台灣大成為超級航母

愛立信啟動全球市場5G網路 美國與亞洲具領先優勢

【匯流筆陣】

CNEWS歡迎各界投書，來稿請寄至cnewscom2016@gmail.com，並請附上真實姓名、聯絡方式與職業身份簡介。

CNEWS匯流新聞網：https://cnews.com.tw

【文章轉載請註明出處】

companies: Google Apple

countries: 歐盟 台灣 美國

title: 人臉辨識不安全？Google CEO支持暫停 微軟總裁卻這麼說


countries: 美國 中國 台灣 韓國

title: 美國街拍攝影先驅經典作品展五月首次登台 街頭攝影賽即刻起跑

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匯流新聞網記者胡照鑫／台北報導

一位默默無聞、平凡無奇的保姆，在世時拍攝近15萬張絕美攝影底片，直到去世後才被人發現，這就是美國當代最神秘的街頭攝影師Vivian Maier。胸前總是掛著祿萊雙眼相機的她，被稱作二十世紀美國當代最重要的街拍攝影師之一，作品窺視了美國五零到七零年代富裕社會貧窮暗角的離奇之處、生活不協調性，同時展現生活中愉悅和溫暖的時刻。

謎樣攝影師Vivian Maier近百件經典作品就要首度來台，5月2日至6月28日將在松山文創園區5號倉庫來台展出。「V.M. 薇薇安·邁爾攝影展」至今累積100場展覽，遍及全球知名24個國家、60多個城市，這次成為繼韓國首爾、中國北京後成為亞洲巡迴第三站。

Vivian Maier的作品主要分為「Street Photographer」及「Self-Portraits」，安靜卻充滿穿透力的風格，自2009年在網路上出現，即引起大眾及媒體的關注，在台首場「V.M. 薇薇安·邁爾攝影展」，將從15萬張底片精選百件經典作品展出。

▲New York, 1953

台灣場「V.M. 薇薇安·邁爾攝影展」主要展出「Street Photographer」系列，希望藉由Vivian Maier的作品和生平，喚起大家對攝影的熱忱，更希望在網路影像氾濫的年代，將這股追尋自我的精神傳遞近來，不分職業或年紀，人人都可以成為台灣下一個Vivian Maier。

為擴大台灣對於攝影與影像創作的認知，異角藝術針對攝影與光影，於2018年開啟了「X/edition」計畫，尋找國際上經典、具有代表性的攝影師，並透過大型企劃展讓民眾、創作者能夠實際、近距離接觸作品。

▲Undated, New York, NY

為延續Vivian Maier追尋自我的精神，即日起至3月20日止，還舉辦「城市漂流」台灣街頭攝影徵件攝影比賽，獲獎之27名作品可在「V.M. 薇薇安·邁爾攝影展」同步展出外，首獎更可獲得V.M.同款絕版Rolleiflex祿萊雙眼相機與展覽門票。

參加攝影比賽者第一步要把參賽街拍作品在本人的instagram帳號發布，貼文需依照規範標記活動主題標籤與Tag自己帳號，第二步將貼文分享至限時動態，即完成投稿。活動預計將選出首獎3名，可獲得V.M.同款絕版Rolleiflex祿萊雙眼相機與展覽門票2張；優選6名，可獲得紙可拍Papershoot相機木盒套組及展覽門票2張；佳作18名，可獲得V.M展覽門票2張，得獎作品並有機會在「V.M. 薇薇安·邁爾攝影展」同步展出。

更多匯流新聞網報導：

春節不想塞車去哪玩？走訪松山菸廠悠遊古蹟與現代藝術之間

各醫院擅公布「武漢肺炎疑似案例」 疾管署喊話：由中央統一發言

新聞照來源：異角藝術

【匯流筆陣】

CNEWS歡迎各界投書，來稿請寄至cnewscom2016@gmail.com，並請附上真實姓名、聯絡方式與職業身份簡介。

CNEWS匯流新聞網：https://cnews.com.tw

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title: 雲縣訂1／29鄧麗君日　褒忠故居辦追思音樂會

taiwan-subdivisions: 褒忠 雲林縣 土庫

content_text:
【大成報記者張立明／雲林縣報導】

為紀念雲林子弟、享譽國際流行音樂歌手鄧麗君小姐67歲冥誕，雲林縣政府今(21)日召開記者會，宣布1月29日訂為鄧麗君日，並與褒忠鄉鄧麗君文化協會於是日共同舉辦「賀新年鄧麗君67思君音樂會」，邀請民眾與歌迷朋友一同懷念出生在雲林褒忠鄉的巨星風采，讓大家聽音樂過好年。

縣長張麗善表示，1月29日是鄧麗君小姐的冥誕，縣府將這一天訂為鄧麗君日，紀念與懷念鄧麗君，鄧麗君是雲林的女兒，不僅是雲林之光、台灣之光，同時也是國際知名巨星，所有雲林人都以她為榮。

1月29日晚上在她的故居褒忠鄉田洋村，縣府將舉辦紀念音樂會，歡迎所有鄉親共襄盛舉，來聆聽她的歌曲，此外，春節初一到初五每天下午2點到4點，在她的故居也會有街頭藝人演唱鄧麗君的歌曲，希望大家春節返鄉時，可以到鄧麗君的故居欣賞音樂，一起懷念鄧麗君。

今日記者會特地舉辦簽訂儀式，由縣長張麗善、副議長蘇俊豪、鄧麗君基金會執行長鄧永佳、文化觀光處長陳璧君等人一同在簽名板上簽名，正式訂定1月29日為鄧麗君日。

鄧麗君基金會執行長鄧永佳表示，很榮幸在鄧麗君小姐逝世25周年，雲林縣訂下了鄧麗君日，感謝大家對她的喜愛與肯定，雲林縣褒忠鄉田洋村是鄧麗君出生的地方，她的故居是一個很簡單樸素的地方，一個小空間要住一家六口，是一件非常不容易的事，但在這樣的地方卻孕育出了一位國際巨星，希望大家過年期間可以來鄧麗君故居走走，看看她出生、成長的地方。

縣府文化觀光處長陳璧君表示，鄧麗君小姐位於雲林縣褒忠鄉田洋村的故居已列為歷史建築，縣府文化觀光處近年全力維護保存，29日舉辦賀新年鄧麗君67思君音樂會，樂迷可藉此一遊褒忠土庫，早上先前往土庫吃美食、順天宮祈福、參觀源順芝麻觀光油廠，下午可前往褒忠馬鳴山鎮安宮祈福，再到鄧麗君幼年故居回憶國際巨星的風采，晚上參與鄧麗君67思君音樂會，一起聽音樂過好年。

陳璧君說，今年縣府經由鄧麗君基金會授權，特別製作一款音樂盒，以木頭雕刻鄧麗君故居的窗花圖案當盒蓋，旋律則是「月亮代表我的心」，春節期間，民眾只要到縣內14處地方文化館參加集章活動，集滿5個館舍戳章後交給各館舍的服務台參加抽獎，就有機會獲得這款限量的音樂盒。

雲林縣褒忠鄉鄧麗君文化協會總幹事李堃玄表示，雲林縣褒忠鄉鄧麗君文化協會長年舉行鄧麗君紀念音樂會，1月29日是鄧麗君67歲冥誕，為讓更多廣大歌迷可以前來朝聖，訂於1月29日於故居進行一連串追思活動，讓大家在國際巨星故居的許願池許下願望，今年將邀請林秀儀、在地團體雲林愛樂室內合唱團、愛無限音樂工作室及台朔企業協理黃耀南等人演出鄧麗君名曲，讓觀眾懷念巨星風采。


title: 波多野結衣新作cos小丑！奮力肉搏蝙蝠俠

references: 網友 臉書 PTT

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近日由瓦昆菲尼克斯（Joaquin Rafael Phoenix）所主演的電影《小丑》橫掃國際大獎，掀起一陣旋風。而日本成人產業也看上這股風潮，有「暗黑林志玲」之稱的人氣女優波多野結衣，在新作品中就Cosplay成小丑，而男主角也身穿蝙蝠俠套裝上陣，引起網友熱議。

★ 【東森新聞line】一手掌握全世界

波多野結衣在新作中扮成小丑，忠實呈現電影中的小丑模樣，不僅將頭髮整個染成綠色，還穿上酒紅色外套、紅色裙子和絲襪，還在臉上畫了小丑的誇張妝容，模仿得相當到位。而她更搞笑在樓梯間，模仿電影中小丑跳舞的經典片段，讓不少網友笑翻。

▼波多野結衣有「暗黑林志玲」之稱。（圖／翻攝自推特）

消息更在PTT引起熱議，網友搞笑表示，「要飾演好小丑，需具備強大實力，波多野的演技，觀眾都有目共睹」，而演出電影《小丑》的男主角瓦昆，現在更是強勢問鼎奧斯卡影帝，「波多野結衣的小丑，是不是想角逐明年的影后，挑戰成為影史最佳小丑？」

▼波多野結衣致敬小丑經典片段。（圖／翻攝自新·一劍浣春秋臉書）


title: 是德科技和聯發科技在 CES 2020 展中

content_text:
是德科技 5G 模擬器解決方案結合聯發科技數據機，完美呈現超高速的資料速率

德科技（Keysight Technologies Inc.）是推動全球企業、服務供應商和政府機構網路連接與安全創新的技術領導廠商，該公司日前宣布與聯發科技（MediaTek）在CES 2020展中攜手合作，成功以 5G 無線連接展示智慧電視 8K 影音串流應用。CES 2020 於 1 月 7 日至 10 日在內華達州拉斯維加斯舉行。

藉由結合使用是德科技 5G 模擬器解決方案與聯發科技首款 5G 行動系統單晶片（SOC）Dimensity 1000，為新一代應用提供每秒4.7GB 的下行資料速率。此高資料速率讓使用者無需透過有線網路，也可享受 8K 智慧電視不間斷的 8K 影音串流。聯發科為無線通訊晶片的半導體大廠，該公司長期採用是德科技 5G 解決方案來驗證其Dimensity 5G 晶片組。

未來更將透過是德科技 5G 平台，進一步以 LTE 核心網路和射頻存取網路，建立支援 NSA 模式的 5G NR 連結。此連結將採用 EN-DC 雙連接來產生 LTE 和 5G 信號的匯聚資料流。

是德科技大中華區無線應用工程總經理陳俊宇表示：「是德科技非常高興能在 CES 2020 展中，成功以最新 5G 解決方案支援聯發科技的展示活動，再次證明是德科技適合多元應用的 5G 解決方案，是連網生態系推出可靠 5G 連線產品的幕後功臣。」

三年多來，在是德科技協助下，聯發科技加速驗證在 6GHz 以下和毫米波頻段運作的晶片組。如今，全球無線裝置廠商紛紛採用是德科技 5G 測試解決方案，以經濟有效的方式，在 NSA 與 SA 模式下，對各種不同外觀尺寸的 5G NR 多模設計，進行協定、射頻與無線資源管理（RRM）驗證。

是德科技小檔案
 是德科技（NYSE: KEYS）是全球首屈一指的科技公司，致力於協助企業、服務供應商和政府機構加速創新，以便連接並保護全世界。是德科技提供涵蓋設計模擬、原型驗證，到製造測試的多元解決方案，讓各個產業能達成將網路和雲端環境最佳化，並以更低的成本推出全新電子產品的目標。是德科技的客戶橫跨多個市場領域，包括全球通訊生態系統、航太與國防、汽車、能源、半導體和一般消費性電子產品等。是德科技 2019 會計年度總營收達 43 億美元。更多關於是德科技的詳細資訊，請上網查詢www.keysight.com。

(蘇松濤報導)


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日本傑尼斯天團「嵐（ARASHI）」近日喜事連連，團員二宮和也，在去年底宣布婚訊，事隔2個月，櫻井翔也被目擊疑似帶女友到越南旅行，更被媒體稱為「婚前旅行」，傳出櫻井翔將在24日與女友高內三惠子結婚。日媒近日也爆出團員松本潤和AV女優葵司復合，不僅下跪求她，還每月給她生活費。

★ 【東森新聞line】一手掌握全世界

▼嵐團員接連爆出喜訊，松本潤卻對此不爽。（圖／翻攝自嵐推特）

根據日媒《週刊文春》報導，松本潤對成員接二連三傳出的「喜訊」相當不滿，甚至連工作人員要求拍2人合照也會被他怒罵。不過松本潤的緋聞也沒少過，2016年就被爆出和井上真央交往時，劈腿AV女優葵司，當時甚至傳出葵司打算出書公布2人交往過程甚至是松本潤的「特殊性癖」，葵司立馬受到男方粉絲攻擊，雖然她出面澄清沒有要出書，但就此消失在社群網路上。

▼日媒爆出松本潤下跪求葵司復合。（圖／翻攝自推特、維基百科）

不料，近日日媒爆出其實松本潤在2019年的夏天就與葵司復合。爆料者表示，「他對葵司情未了，松本潤好像有下跪求復合，並且在惠比壽租房子，每個月給她生活費。」

而櫻井翔的訂婚傳言也在日網瘋傳，傳出櫻井翔將在本月25日迎接38歲生日，所以會在24日舉辦訂婚，而結婚儀式則會挪到2020年底休團後2021年再舉行，不過此一說法被日網質疑是假消息。而婚禮場所也讓眾網議論紛紛，就有網友傳出，他們將在「丸之內四季酒店」舉辦訂婚儀式。

（封面圖／翻攝自推特、維基百科）

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countries: 日本 越南 台灣 美國

title: 直接跪了！ 松本潤遭爆跪求復合女優葵司


content_text:
2020-01-22 00:04:45

〔即時新聞／綜合報導〕有些醫院和診所會在等候區擺放電視，讓等待看診的時間不至於那麼難熬，有網友在網路PO文表示，有人因為診所的電視不能轉台，而在該診所的Google評論留下負評，讓她忍不住在貼文中大嘆「這年頭啥事都有！」。

該網友21日在臉書「爆廢公社」po出1張台南某間皮膚科的Google評論擷圖，可以從圖片中看到有人給2星的理由竟是「只能看東森新聞台，不能轉台，不能看自己喜歡看的節目，導致心情低落」，而業主也不甘示弱在該評論回嗆「建議您在家看完電視再來看病」。

網友們看到貼文後紛紛留言「當自家想看什麼就看什麼嗎」、「他掛錯科了，精神科直走左轉不送，謝謝」、「沒讓你看X天新聞臺就該偷笑了」、「個人覺得播放國家地理頻道，這樣就不會有魔人」、「抱自己家的電視去醫院看啦」、「是有多窮啊！要出去蹭電視看」。

references: 臉書 爆廢公社 網友

title: 不能轉台病人給負評 診所反擊：建議看完電視再來看病


content_text:
2020-01-22 00:04:59

〔記者陳文嬋／高雄報導〕全國最早國運籤出爐！高雄市五甲關帝廟今年開出「中上」國運籤，廟方表示，上半年運勢持平、下半年財運亨通，金鼠年財運比去年好，各行各業發展順利。

五甲關帝廟的國運籤與其他廟宇不同，是全國唯一由神明降臨、透過筆生以桃筆寫成籤詩，今年開出「中上」國運籤，內容為「庚開新運納禎祥，子接財神西北方，年內乾行多錫福，民生重義重賢良」。

廟方表示，新年有新氣運，帶來諸多吉祥，財運來自西北方，此年上蒼賜予福氣，大環境天時、地利、人和，好運和福氣都可以接收，人民應當要有仁義、賢德，積善積福、用人唯才，百姓安穩過日子。

廟方說，今年財運比去年好，農曆3月籤詩「世上金鼠吐財來，赫赫民生多積德，禮門義路受福排」，意指財富源源不絕，如金鼠吐錢來，各行各業蓬勃發展，多加累積德行，會受到福氣眷顧。

此外，農曆5月籤詩「蒲風吹入動仙風，筆尖點石化金龍，發朗乾坤民得寶」，凸顯富貴盈天、太平盛世；農曆10月籤詩「陽開太運八方亨，海空天鳥萬里鵬」、「濟出四方樂人心」，呈現萬事通達，海闊天空不可限量，助益四方使人喜樂。

廟方指出，農曆6月籤詩「濟開海運透萬洲」，搭配8月籤詩「大船入港財寶得，萬民灯火樂業新」，解讀今年海運亨通，大船入港運載財寶，家家戶戶事業蒸蒸日上。

值得一提的是，農曆5月籤詩「六道輪迴轉安宮」，廟方提醒民眾留意天災，六畜要特別小心，農曆6月籤詩「天河有水普甘柔」，廟方解讀今年雨水來得比較慢，應多加留意、因應，確保民生穩定。

taiwan-subdivisions: 高雄市 高雄 萬里 太平

title: 獨家》全國最早國運籤！五甲關帝廟：財運比去年好


content_text:
「草屯囝仔」的阿倉自己買，也幫老闆「玖壹壹」買彩券，開心地跟蔡承恩和蔡媽媽合照，並答應過兩天會再送他們的簽名海報過來。（記者陳鳳麗攝）

2020-01-22 00:04:50

〔記者陳鳳麗／南投報導〕癱瘓卻不向命運低頭，輪椅男孩蔡承恩賣刮刮樂彩券，經本報報導後愛的回響不斷，很多人遠從台北到南投縣草屯鎮跟承恩買彩券，今晚更有「草屯囝仔」樂團的阿倉，不只自己買了很多，也幫他的老闆「玖壹壹」買，阿倉說，老闆「春風」特別交代要鼓勵承恩，也要向承恩的媽媽致意。

24歲的輪椅男孩蔡承恩，前年從國立台中科大資管系畢業，雖有科技公司要雇用他，但上班時間不能有家人陪伴，必須包尿布或掛尿袋，因家人怕這樣會有感染問題，因此放棄他的夢想。

承恩一開始很失意沮喪，但幾個月後他就決定賣刮刮樂彩券，在媽媽的支持下，半年多前，草鞋墩觀光夜市董事長江欽良免費提供場地讓他賣彩券，賣的地點逐步增加，不管天冷或天熱，他不喊累也不喊苦。

輪椅男孩自立自強的故事經本報報導後，獲得很大的回響，很多人得知他這幾天在草屯年貨大街賣彩券，專程來跟他買彩券，最遠的還有從台北趕來，只為當面要鼓勵他，幫他加油。

蔡承恩的媽媽汪依容也說，那麼多人從各地來買彩券，台彩公司人員看了報導後，也專程到草屯來鼓勵承恩，那麼多的溫暖鼓勵，承恩非常感恩。

今晚又有很多人前來買刮刮樂彩券，其中有1個人來了兩趟，那人就是「草屯囝仔」樂團的阿倉，他第一趟買了很多張面額不小的刮刮樂彩券，第二趟又來買了不少張，他說，這趟是幫他的老闆「玖壹壹」來買的。

阿倉表示，他和老闆「春風」都有看到輪椅男孩蔡承恩的報導，受到很大的感動，也希望能藉由買刮刮樂彩券鼓勵承恩。

蔡承恩透露他很喜歡「草屯囝仔」和「玖壹壹」的歌，阿倉馬上表示這兩天會帶「草屯囝仔」和「玖壹壹」簽名海報過來，承恩開心地直說：「謝謝！」。

title: 輪椅男孩賣刮刮樂超勵志 玖壹壹、草屯囝仔捧場

taiwan-subdivisions: 草屯 南投 南投縣


title: Macbook將搭載觸控螢幕？ 蘋果新專利首曝光

companies: 蘋果 Apple Google

content_text:
匯流新聞網記者趙廷睿／台北報導

隨著科技發展，現代工作者對於筆電的多工處理要求愈來愈高，筆電具有觸控螢幕功能已經不是新聞。儘管蘋果一直對外宣稱不會將觸控螢幕放到Mac筆電上，但近日蘋果的一項新專利顯示，蘋果仍不排除觸控螢幕的可能性，引發網友熱烈討論。

綜合外媒報導，美國專利局公布蘋果一項新專利Cross Device Interactions「跨設備互動」，這項專利可以讓使用者在筆電螢幕上進行觸控，並且同步到手機上，有人認為這是未來Macbook上搭載觸控螢幕的證據，對此蘋果也並沒有出面否認，畢竟Macbook上都已經有Touch Bar功能了，螢幕支援觸控似乎也不是那麼稀奇，反倒是蘋果使用者多保持懷疑態度。

至於為什麼Mac觸控螢幕的議題會引發這麼多人關注跟好奇呢？主要是因為早在2016年Apple副總裁Phil Schiller就已對外宣布，雖然在Mac上使用觸控螢幕是曾經有過的想法，但公司內部已做出結論，為了讓Mac成為最好的個人電腦，不應該讓Mac變成iPhone。

值得一提的是，蘋果遲遲不肯在螢幕上加入觸控功能還有一個主要原因，就是考量到當使用者以正常姿勢下使用筆電，卻要時不時伸長手去點擊螢幕，不舒服也不夠方便，不符合人體工學，主要還是以雙手平放鍵盤上才是最自然的動作。

而這項專利的發佈也證明蘋果還沒完全放棄觸控螢幕這一塊，只是要如何在不與產品理念背道而馳的情況下嘗試新功能，同時又滿足大多數果粉的需求，就要看蘋果高層的討論和取捨，也留給外界更多想像空間。

照片來源： Unsplash

參考來源：AppleInsider、Forbes

更多匯流新聞網報導：

人工智慧限制與否？ Google執行長提醒：「AI發展應受法規控管」

人臉辨識不安全？Google CEO支持暫停 微軟總裁卻這麼說

【匯流筆陣】

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CNEWS匯流新聞網：https://cnews.com.tw

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