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▲長期便祕、身體水分代謝失調也會引起胃食道逆流。（圖／免費圖庫）

記者趙于婷／台北報導

過年是大吃大喝放鬆的時期，但也容易作息和飲食不正常，長期累積的壓力和放假時的不正常，容易導致胃食道逆流。中醫師賴睿昕指出，常見問題包括「壓力引起、飲食引起、便秘引起和天生腸胃功能不好」四大族群；除了就醫診斷之外，日常也可以多按揉穴位幫助舒緩為食道逆流的不適。

賴睿昕說，過度偏食就很容易有胃食道逆流，例如很多人喜歡生酮飲食，常常攝取過多的油與蛋白質，導致胃排空時間拉長。食物、胃酸停留在胃的時間變多，導致「飲食停積」，就會影響下食道括約肌的張力，容易胃酸逆流。

除了飲食問題之外，長期便祕、身體水分代謝失調也是引起胃食道逆流的原因，中醫講究氣血水的平衡，人的腸與胃都是同一個空腔，當空腔下部壓力過大，東西就會往上湧，通常會有宿便、便秘的狀況，腸道無法排空，連帶就會向上擠壓到胃部，造成食物容易往上衝，產生胃酸逆流。

另外，賴睿昕也特別提到，天生腸胃功能不好的族群、長期胃痛找不出原因、天生脾胃虛弱，久病也會出現胃食道逆流，這類型屬於「脾虛胃弱」或是「氣虛血瘀」，中醫常常使用理中湯、香砂六君子湯調養脾胃。

▲足三里穴有助舒緩胃食道逆流。（圖／記者趙于婷攝）

除了正確診斷用藥之外，賴睿昕也建議，飲食宜三餐正常、食量固定、不吃易生痰或促進胃酸分泌的食物，少吃難消化的食物，如果飯後容易腹脹，則應避開易脹氣食物；當胃酸嚴重時避免咖啡、辛辣、燥熱、有刺激性的食物，平時可多吃富含膠質的食物，如含植物性膠質的地瓜葉、皇宮菜、黑木耳、白木耳、秋葵，有助增強胃壁。

作息也盡量在晚上11點前就寢，因為熬夜容易傷肝陰，長期下來更會進一步傷胃陰，導致胃壁（胃黏膜）變薄，降低對胃酸的耐受度；除了日常作息顧好之外，醫師建議也可以透過穴道按摩來舒緩不適。

壓力引起胃食道逆流：

1.合谷穴：在一手的拇指第一個關節橫紋正對另一手的虎口邊，拇指屈曲按下，指尖所指處。

2.太衝穴：腳的大拇指和第二指指縫間，往上1寸（約一個拇指橫寬）處。

三餐不定引起胃食道逆流：

1.足三里：足三里穴位於腿膝蓋骨外側下方凹陷往下約4指寬處。

2.中脘穴：找到胸口正中間的胸骨，沿著胸骨，向下找到最下端的突起「劍突」，劍突與肚臍連線的中間，按壓有輕微的酸脹感就是中脘穴。

便秘引起的胃食道逆流：

1.上巨虛穴：位於「足三里」穴位往下4指寬度的部位。

2.天樞穴：位於肚臍左右旁2寸，以手部食指、中指的力量，以順時針方向按揉即可。

天生腸胃功能不好引起胃食道逆流：

1.湧泉穴：湧泉穴位於腳底中間凹陷處，在足掌的前三分之一處

2.脾俞穴：位於背部，第11胸椎棘突下，旁開1.5寸。肚臍對應的是第二腰椎，再向上摸三個椎體，下面旁開兩指處即是。

title: 便秘、壓力讓「胃酸狂衝」　醫提「胃食道逆流4族群」舒緩穴位！


title: 「用時間還自己清白」 吳斯懷宣布要進國防委員會

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2020-02-01 00:17:55

〔即時新聞／綜合報導〕國民黨不分區立委吳斯懷被黨內同袍視為2020年大選慘敗的戰犯之一，他近日接受媒體專訪時表明自己未來在立法院的意向，將憑藉專長至外交及國防委員會關心相關議題。

根據《中央社》報導，吳斯懷自認為是平凡人，卻要經歷「抄家滅族的抹紅」，心裡難免不是滋味，他自稱曾在中國境內說出「中華民國」名諱，也認為兩岸共創未來的前提是「尊重歷史」，此舉同時能夠印證他對國家的忠貞，「用時間跟歷史還給自己清白」。

吳斯懷提到，現在民進黨為立法院多數黨，在軍改議題上要顧及中低階層、弱勢軍人家庭，部分軍人因任務之故晚婚，退休後還要照顧家庭，如果因故逝世，與配偶結婚沒達10年，則不具相關撫恤資格，他認為，這些事情是進入外交及國防委員會要修正的。

吳斯懷強調自己是藍營軍系立委，無論軍建案、軍購案都要注意，承諾問政出發點是「國家安全、國家戰略」，台灣與中國的關係必須「化繁為簡」，讓和平相處不再只是口號，而是雙方政府、政黨與民眾的「最大公約數」，並秉持「對等、尊嚴、捍衛中華民國」的原則看待。

countries: 台灣 中華民國 中國


title: 上電視談改判色法官 陳志祥遭司法院書面警告

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2020-01-31 23:57:30

〔記者吳政峰／台北報導〕基隆地院法官陳志祥2018年兼任職務法庭法官，承審台北高等行政法院法官陳鴻斌性騷擾女助理再審案件時，因把免職改判為罰薪1年，讓同庭法官謝靜慧很不滿，辭任明志，引發漣漪，陳志祥決定上電視說明改判理由，但被司法院人事審議委員會認定發言不當，31日決議給予書面警告。

人審會指出，陳志祥身為職務法庭承審法官，卻於接受媒體採訪時，發表言論逾越判決書內容，且引喻失當、欠缺性平意識，有損法官之中立、客觀、公正形象，違反法官法第18條第1項、法官倫理規範第5條、第18條等規定，決議予以書面告誡之警告處分。

據了解，陳志祥除了出席人審會陳述外，也提出答辯兼聲請狀，聲請司法院院長許宗力、副院長蔡炯墩、副秘書長葉麗霞、少年及家事廳廳長謝靜慧、司法行政廳廳長許紋華迴避，以上5人全都迴避，會議改由秘書長林輝煌主持。

陳志祥認為遭到前秘書長呂太郎和謝靜慧兩人陷害，主張呂、謝兩人才是真正違背法官倫理規範和法官法的人，要求人審會一併審議，但會議並未處理。

另外，高等法院民事庭法官賴淑芬（已離職）2018年審理一起請求返還借款事件，說出「不要把法院當成討債的地方」，又調閱與本案無關的當事人公司資產負債表，人審會認為她違反法官倫理規範第3條、第12條第1項及第3項法官執行職務應中立、維護當事人權利及不得以不當方式解決紛爭等規定，決議予以書面方式發命令促其注意，並將處分情形登載於人事資料。


title: 防疫視同戰役 台灣燈會30週年特展「VR體驗區」暫停開放

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2020-01-31 23:42:03

〔記者陳彥廷／屏東報導〕武漢肺炎疫情延燒，大鵬灣國家風景區全面啟動防疫措施，除大鵬灣、小琉球兩處遊客中心，第一線值勤人員於值勤期間一律載上口罩，服勤前先測量自身體溫，做好自主健康管理；同時提供消毒酒精，供需要之遊客使用。而去年讓大鵬灣爆紅的台灣燈會，目前遊客中心常駐的「台灣燈會30週年特展」，其中包括一小區的VR特展則是暫停開放。

鵬管處表示，為維護安全旅遊環境，防疫視同戰役，相關人員若有發燒等症狀，須在家休養，並每日確實執行服務櫃檯消毒等防疫措施；台灣燈會30週年展館VR部分屬較密閉空間，且使用VR設施有較多接觸面，故防疫期間暫停開放使用，以維護遊客安全。

鵬管處強調，僅「VR體驗區」暫停開放，台灣燈會30週年特展持續常駐，全力打造友善及安全環境，歡迎遊客來陽光宜人的大鵬灣安心旅遊。

除公部門外，該管理處轄區內的大鵬灣觀光產業聯盟也相當支持防疫措施，例如大鵬灣大飯店為了保護每位開心出遊的遊客和工作同仁的安全，目前會請入住旅客配合量體溫；小琉球交通船業者也同步實施自主管理，並貼心準備消毒酒精，供遊客使用。

相關新聞請見︰武漢肺炎懶人包》傳染途徑、預防措施看這裡
「武漢肺炎專區」請點此，更多相關訊息，帶您第一手掌握。

taiwan-subdivisions: 屏東 琉球


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2020-01-31 23:56:59

〔記者許倬勛／桃園報導〕桃園市平鎮工業區今晚11點左右傳工廠火警，一處連棟保麗龍工廠廠房1、2樓全面燃燒，染紅整片夜空，火勢一度有延燒趨勢，消防人員據報趕抵，出動24車70人灌救中。

據了解，事發工廠附近也都是廠房，消防人員目前未發現有人員受困，仍持續搶救中，詳細起火原因仍待詳查。

taiwan-subdivisions: 平鎮 桃園

title: 大火染紅夜空！桃市保麗龍工廠全面燃燒 70警消灌救


title: 魔術方塊解法被盜 台灣紀錄保持人怒告違反著作權

references: 臉書社團 網友

content_text:
2020-02-01 00:19:26

〔記者王捷／台南報導〕國人著作權的觀念淡薄，依著作權法規定，著作完成即有著作權，但一位魔術方塊玩家，疑用相同手法破解全國冠軍破解魔術方塊的方式，遭提告違反著作權，目前雙方已和解。

台灣魔術方塊多顆盲解紀錄保持人洪啟倫，在遮眼的情況下，用24秒鐘完成魔術方塊，2017年時他獨特的拆解影片，放在Youtube上有8萬人次觀賞，但一個月前黃姓男子錄製相同解法的影片上傳，讓洪男認為著作權遭侵犯，多次向黃男要求回應，但黃男沒有理會，最後直到洪男提到告後，雙方才和解。

快30歲的洪啟倫在2008年開始接觸魔術方塊，在2010年首次參賽拿到第三名，之後他接觸「盲解」，也就是矇眼完成魔術方塊的訓練，他把每個方塊做標記，並且在腦內編碼，在2011年他獲得魔術方塊的台灣冠軍，當時是世界排名第20名，2014年他在盲解比賽中刷新台灣的紀錄，在2018年多顆盲解魔術方塊中，又刷新台灣紀錄。

2017年，他自創適合初學者的3×3魔術方塊雙公式「下右上左」，測速平均是31秒完成魔術方塊，放在Youtube上有8萬人次點閱，讓網友直呼是神手。不過在上個月，一位黃姓玩家也製作了20多分鐘的教學影片，洪認為，黃使用了他的公式，且約有3萬5千人觀看，還分享在臉書社團上，讓洪啟倫看到後認為自己的權益受損，並在臉書社團上留言警告，引起魔術方塊界注意。

據了解，洪啟倫多次向黃男喊話，告知黃男侵犯他的著作權，要求黃男回應，不過黃男卻沒有理會，直到洪啟倫提告後，黃男才表示願意和解。警方指出，有受理這件違反著作權案，雙方也在和解中，但由於偵查不公開規定，細節無法透露，已將全案函送。

對此洪男指出，目前與黃男提出和解，並要求黃男刪除侵權部分，還有返還部分盈利。而黃男對此表示不方便受訪。

律師洪銘憲說，依據著作權法規定，創作完成即有著作權，而同法第5條有立定10項著作範圍，以洪男的狀況，可以討論10項中的視聽作品，而依據91條規定，如果擅自重製的方法，侵害他人的著作財產權者，處三年以下有期徒刑、拘役，或科或併科75萬元以下罰金。


title: 特斯拉超狂！多頭喊到1000美元 今年拚入標普500

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特斯拉公布財報後，周四股價再度飆漲10.3%，收在640.81美元。前華爾街分析師看好，特斯拉股價有機會衝上1000美元，且今年將納入標普500指數。

外媒報導，知名前華爾街分析師、Aegon資產管理公司執行長Gary Black將特斯拉目標價由800美元調升至1000美元，數月前，特斯拉股價剛剛觸及400美元時，他就預期特斯拉股價能翻倍。目前特斯拉市值超過1150億美元，在汽車產業僅次於豐田汽車。

而特斯拉是目前未被納入標普500指數的最大美國企業，Gary Black認為，特斯拉今年有機會被納入該指數。巴倫周刊最近也寫道，特斯拉的獲利能力不斷提高，2020年底或2021年初很有可能被納入標普500指數。惟標普對此不願評論。

特斯拉上季營收成長1%至73.8億美元，經調整後的每股盈餘2.14美元，優於分析師預期。此外，特斯拉上季全球交車11.2萬輛，為最佳單季表現；展望2020年，特斯拉預期全年交車量應該可以「輕鬆超越」50萬輛，代表將較2019年成長36%。


content_text:
Virus Fears: Outbreak’s cost could top SARS: expert

‘HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY’:Warwick McKibbon, who estimated that the SARS outbreak cost the global economy US$40bn, said panic will likely be the biggest economic drain
A man wearing a mask walks past a closed shop with a notice on the outbreak of a new coronavirus in Kunming, China, yesterday.Photo: Reuters
The global cost of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak could be three or four times that of the 2003 SARS outbreak, which sapped the world’s economy by US$40 billion, the economist who calculated that figure said.

The sheer growth in the Chinese economy over the past 17 years means that the global health emergency triggered by the 2019-nCoV outbreak has far greater potential to gouge global growth, Australian National University economics professor Warwick McKibbon said in Canberra.

“It’s just a mathematical thing,” McKibbon said in a telephone interview. “Most of the GDP loss that we saw in the SARS model, and in reality, was China slowing down. And so, with China much bigger, you’d expect the billions would be much bigger.”

While difficult to pinpoint a precise cost as the crisis is still unfolding, the effects would be experienced mostly through changes in “human psychology,” he said.

“Panic is what seems to be the biggest drain on the economy, rather than deaths,” he added.

McKibbon’s forecasts are in line with those of other analysts.

Nomura International forecast that the negative effects on China’s growth could exceed those seen during the SARS outbreak.

Real GDP growth in the first quarter could “materially drop” from the 6 percent pace in the fourth quarter of last year, maybe by even more than the 2 percentage-point quarterly deceleration seen in the second quarter of 2003, Nomura economists led by Lu Ting (陸挺) wrote in a report to clients.

“Back in 2003, China accounted for just 4 percent of global GDP. Fast forward to 2020 and its share has increased to 17 percent. That means the global spillover if China’s growth slumps will be larger,” Bloomberg economists Chang Shu (舒暢), Jamie Rush and Tom Orlik said.

“Hong Kong stands out as the most exposed — our simulation shows a hit of 1.7 [percentage points] in the first quarter. South Korea and Vietnam would also suffer, each slowing by 0.4 [percentage points]. Japan would take a 0.2 [percentage-point] hit,” they said.

More contagious than SARS, but less deadly, the insidious nature of 2019-nCoV is such that it often presents as mild cold-like symptoms and can go undetected, which could potentially protract the crisis for longer than the 2003 epidemic.

The new virus, which emerged in central China late last year, has reportedly infected more than 8,200 people in two months, eclipsing the 8,096 SARS cases reported from November 2002 through early 2003, when the contagion spread from China across Southeast Asia and to North America and Europe.

“If a country had a bad epidemiological outcome, then their shocks were likely be a lot bigger than countries that were able to control it well,” McKibbon said, referring to his findings from examining the financial effects of SARS.

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content_text:
The Chinese government learned a lot from SARS: That was the message that Beijing and the WHO have been trying to hammer home for the past few weeks, even as the WHO on Thursday declared the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak a global health emergency.

Instead, as we saw with SARS in 2002 to 2003, the contaminated milk scandal of 2008, avian flu outbreaks and the outbreak of African swine fever in August 2018, to name but a few crises, the instinctive response of local governments and Beijing has been denial, obfuscation and the harassment or arrest of whistle-blowers, followed by downplaying the problem, and repeated pronouncements that everything is under control and will soon be over.

If anything, thanks to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) crackdown on the media and civil organizations, and his demand for adherence to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line, it has been harder to get accurate information.

In a meeting on Tuesday last week with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Xi promised transparency, said China was confident of containing the crisis and that it “cannot let this demon hide.”

Yet doctors in Wuhan who in late December tried to call attention to what they believed was a public health threat were called rumormongers and “educated” by the police, and while Beijing finally did notify the WHO about the virus on Dec. 31, it did not inform the Chinese.

As with SARS, which began in November 2002, the government has appeared obsessed with not letting a public health problem disrupt the Lunar New Year holiday, despite the risks posed by the mass migration of people for the holiday.

China stayed silent as the Lunar New Year began on Feb. 1, 2003, and while the National People’s Congress met in Beijing the following month.

It was not until Jiang Yanyong (蔣彥永), a surgeon at Beijing 301 Military Hospital, broke ranks in early April that year to notify television stations in China and Hong Kong about the number of patients with the disease, and talked with foreign reporters, that the CCP changed its tactics, with the politburo announcing on April 17 that it was determined to fight the new disease.

That was a full month after the WHO issued its first global alert about SARS, after a patient hospitalized in Hanoi infected several of the Vietnamese medical staff treating him.

Although the kinds of internal and international communications that took months during the SARS outbreak have been compressed into days, as have the research efforts to identify the virus and create testing kits, so much of the work needed could probably have been alleviated — or at least better preparations made — had China really learned the lessons of SARS.

The rest of the world now has to face the new coronavirus, hence the willingness of Canada and Japan to speak up this week in support of Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly and the WHO.

Little has changed in China, where students are taught that Jiang was unpatriotic, a traitor basically, for alerting the world to the extent of SARS.

The CCP has put the health of thousands of people at risk, left China’s medical system woefully unprepared and cost the lives of more than 200 Chinese so far. It has forced other nations to scramble to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, batten down their borders and establish quarantine procedures.

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title: EDITORIAL: Fighting the demon within


title: SK Hynix reports 95% plunge in quarterly profits

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South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc, the world’s second-largest memorychip maker, yesterday reported a 95 percent quarterly profit plunge, as it suffers from a long-running lull in the global market.

The East Asian nation’s chip manufacturers — led by behemoth Samsung Electronics Co — have enjoyed record profits in recent years as prices for their products soared.

SK Hynix supplies chips to companies from US giant Apple Inc to China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), but demand began to decline and supply increase after manufacturers invested billions in new factories.

Its operating profit dropped 95 percent to 236 billion won (US$198 million) year-on-year in the October-to-December period, the company said in a statement.

The firm also recorded a net loss of 118 billion won, while sales fell 30 percent to 6.9 trillion won.

For the full year, net profit was 2.01 trillion won, down 87 percent from the previous year.

The manufacturer has been strained by a trade dispute between China and the US, and caught in a diplomatic row between Seoul and Tokyo over wartime history, with Japan in July last year imposing tough restrictions on exports crucial to South Korean tech giants.

“The increase in inventory burden and conservative purchasing policies on the side of customers led to a slowdown in demand as well as price falls,” the chipmaker said.

The company will “carry out more prudent production and investment strategies, as complexities and uncertainties still remain much higher than in the past,” it added.

Weakening overseas demand for memory chips — one of South Korea’s key trade items — is bad news for the nation’s export-driven economy.

Rival Samsung faces similar challenges and reported a 38 percent fall in net profit for the October-to-December period.

However, Avril Wu (吳雅婷), an analyst at the Taipei-based market tracker TrendForce, forecast that there would be an improvement in the company’s profitability in the first quarter of this year.

“We expect both DRAM and NAND Flash average selling prices to rise, while the cost of goods sold has no reason to increase as far as we know,” she added.

Shares of SK Hynix yesterday closed down 0.53 percent in Seoul.

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title: Nintendo shares plunge after profit target is missed

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Nintendo characters, including Mario, right, are pictured at its official store in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday last week.Photo: AP
Nintendo Co saw its stock fell the most in nine months after it missed estimates for quarterly profit and forecast full-year earnings that were short of expectations, raising concern about demand for its Switch game console.

The shares fell as much as 4.7 percent in early trading in Tokyo yesterday, the biggest intraday drop since April 26, before closing 3.55 percent lower at ￥40,770.

A day earlier, Nintendo reported operating income of ￥168.7 billion (US$1.55 billion) in the three months ended December, but that underwhelmed versus the ￥175.4 billion average projection.

The lackluster results might fuel worries about the Switch console’s longevity, especially in a year when Microsoft Corp and Sony Corp are preparing to launch new machines for the holidays.

Nintendo released a lower-cost Switch Lite in the fall, reaching out to more mainstream users, and that console has sold 5.19 million units to date, the company reported.

“We expect the results to have a negative impact on the shares over the near term,” Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co analyst Hirotoshi Murakami wrote in a report. “We will be closely watching efforts that Nintendo makes to overhaul its mobile games business.”

Mobile game revenue rose about 11 percent from a year ago, totaling ￥36.9 billion in the nine months ended Dec. 31.

Mario Kart Tour was a runaway hit on smartphone platforms: It was downloaded nearly 124 million times in its first month alone, comfortably eclipsing prior Nintendo mobile game debuts, Sensor Tower data showed.

Fire Emblem Heroes has emerged as Nintendo’s biggest mobile earner, grossing US$656 million since its launch almost two years ago, Sensor Tower data showed.

Nintendo’s total earnings from mobile games topped US$1 billion to date across six titles, the researcher said in a report.

Still, the company’s mobile business accounts for a tiny fraction of its earnings and it has fallen short of an earlier promise to launch two or three new titles per year.

Nintendo has been criticized for being slow to roll out key features — like multiplayer functionality for Mario Kart Tour, which is still in beta — Jefferies Group analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a report.

The company has also offered little visibility for its future game pipeline, Goyal said.

Nintendo’s holiday lineup included two new entries in the Pokemon franchise — Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield — which sold a combined 16 million units since their debut on Nov. 15.

Ring Fit Adventure, an US$80 exercise game that comes with a flexible plastic ring attachment for a motion-capture setup, sold more than 2 million units since its release in October, Nintendo said.

“We expect investor interest to shift” to the company’s strategy for sustaining earnings growth in the fiscal year starting April, SMBC Nikko Securities Inc analyst Eiji Maeda wrote in a report.

“We focus on whether the firm announces strategies for further expanding Nintendo Switch sales, title lineups, and new smartphone game titles,” he said.

Nintendo and its local partner, Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), began selling the Switch in China on Dec. 10, a move that excited Nintendo investors hopeful of tapping a new market.

The optimism has been tampered by the historically lackluster performance of Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, which have not had great success over several years of trying to crack the market where smartphones remain the dominant gaming platform.

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Virus Fears: China outbreak could drag on GDP growth, ANZ says

A 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak might drag China’s GDP growth this quarter, which would be unfavorable to Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) said yesterday.

The 2019-nCoV outbreak and its aftermath would likely subdue China’s economy by 0.9 percentage points this quarter, resulting in GDP growth of 5 percent, ANZ said in a report.

Industrial activity and exports were already expected to lose momentum due to the Lunar New Year holiday and now supply chain activities have been interrupted since Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, is a large industrial hub in China, it said.

“We find Taiwan and Vietnam are most exposed in terms of the potential impact on growth via the trade channel,” the report said.

The magnitude and duration of the economic effects, as well as financial market developments, would be determined by how quickly Beijing can contain the outbreak, it said.

Taiwan’s exports could squeeze a 1 percent pickup for last month, slowing from a 4 percent increase in December, because of fewer working days, it added.

The projection was more optimistic than the Ministry of Finance’s estimate that exports could slip back into contraction, with a retreat of between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent amid holiday disruptions.

Tens of thousands of Taiwanese firms have extended the Lunar New Year holiday for their operations in China to help authorities battle the outbreak.

A disruption in China’s industrial activity would reduce its import demand across the region, at least temporarily, ANZ said.

About 40 percent of Taiwanese exports are destined for China, although some firms have sought to diversify their clientele in the past several years, official data showed.

The Ministry of Finance is expected to update export figures on Friday next week.

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Virus Fears: Game show postponed to summer

SPOOKED:The move was likely sparked by Gamania Digital’s withdrawal from the annual game show in Taipei, amid concern over a new coronavirus outbreak
The Taipei Game Show is to be postponed until summer after the WHO declared a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, the show’s organizer, the Taipei Computer Association (台北電腦公會), said yesterday.

The annual show was originally scheduled to begin on Thursday next week.

As 2019-nCoV spreads across the world, participants from China, where the virus was first discovered, and other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the US and Canada, are no longer able to attend the show, the association said in a statement.

To preserve the health and safety of all participants, the show is to be postponed until the summer and would be held at its original location, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 1, it said.

While the association a day earlier announced that the show would go on, despite the epidemic, saying that it has undertaken all necessary precautions, its change of heart might have been provoked by online game publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co’s (遊戲橘子) decision to withdraw from the event.

Citing local confirmed cases of the virus, Gamania said that at the end of the Lunar New Year holiday it established a team to prevent and combat the disease.

While there is no need for panic, the company said that it would remain cautious and therefore refrain from participating in crowded events held indoors.

The company said that it would halt all production and sales related to the event.

Following Gamania’s announcement, Wanin International Co (網銀國際), Kingston Technology Corp’s Hyper X and Logitech International SA also quit the show, online news outlet Tech News reported yesterday.

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Virus Fears: Finance minister urges confidence in local market

VIRAL FEARS:Su Jain-rong urged investors to have faith, as Taiwan has sound economic fundamentals, and is forecast to expand by 2.72 percent this year
Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) yesterday urged investors to have confidence in the local stock market, after it plunged 5.75 percent on Thursday amid worries over the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak in China, which has spread around the world.

Before the market opened yesterday, Su said that the viral infection remained in check in Taiwan, as he urged investors to have faith in the nation’s economic fundamentals and not be scared off by the market’s plunge on Thursday, the first trading session after the long Lunar New Year holiday.

The TAIEX on Thursday fell 696.97 points, its steepest fall in history, as concern grew over the spread of 2019-nCoV, with the WHO declaring a global health emergency.

Judging by the global markets’ performance, concern over the outbreak seems to have eased to a certain extent, Su said, referring to the US and European markets.

However, foreign institutional investors did not seem inclined to agree with Su, with the net sell of shares reaching NT$18.1 billion (US$598.35 million) on Thursday and another NT$17.2 billion yesterday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.

The TAIEX closed 0.64 percent, or 73.36 points, higher yesterday.

Su said the Ministry of Finance advises the National Financial Stabilization Fund and has kept a close eye on global financial markets, which generally dictate the direction of the local market.

If it sees signs of irrational volatility in the local market, the ministry would suggest that the Executive Yuan convene a meeting of the stabilization fund’s committee to respond to market movements in an appropriate manner, he said, urging investors not to panic.

The NT$500 billion fund was set up in 2000 by the government to serve as a buffer against unexpected external factors disrupting the local bourse.

The fund intervenes in the market when it receives authorization from the fund committee, which is headed by Vice Minister of Finance Juan Ching-hwa (阮清華), the executive secretary of the fund.

Taiwan has sound economic fundamentals, Su said, citing the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics’ forecast that the economy would grow 2.72 percent this year.

The outbreak could encourage more Taiwanese businesses operating in China to expand their production in Taiwan, which would provide an additional boost to domestic demand along with ongoing public infrastructure projects, he said.

The stabilization fund would also be watching closely how Chinese stock markets perform when they resume trading on Monday, Su said.

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An Amazon Air Boeing 767 takes off from the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California, on Wednesday.Photo: EPA-EFE
Amazon.com Inc on Thursday posted holiday quarter results well above expectations, as the expansion of its one-day shipping program came under budget and membership in its Prime loyalty club notched a 50 percent increase in two years.

Shares soared as much as 13 percent in after-hours trade, putting the online retailer back in the US$1 trillion market capitalization club.

Amazon also forecast operating income of up to US$4.2 billion in the current quarter, down from US$4.4 billion a year earlier. Still, that appeared to assuage investors’ concerns about Amazon’s continued spending on fast delivery, which could have erased windfalls from e-commerce, advertising and cloud computing sales.

“We’re past the worst in terms of the margin pressure from the one-day shipping initiative,” Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said.

That and the “massively overstated” concerns about cloud competition rebutted some of the biggest arguments against buying the stock, he said.

Amazon chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told reporters that additional investment in one-day shipping came slightly under the US$1.5 billion the company had forecast for the fourth quarter, despite more customer orders.

Extra costs in the current period would be about US$1 billion for the delivery effort, he said.

Olsavsky added that spending on video would rise going forward, but the company was still determining its overall level of investment for this year.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement that the world’s biggest online retailer now has more than 150 million paid members in its loyalty club Prime, a 50 percent increase from its last disclosure in April 2018.

Subscribers keep returning to Amazon to benefit from perks like fast delivery, television and music streaming. Its suite of voice-controlled Echo speakers has prompted still more engagement from customers, and grocery orders more than doubled in the holiday quarter in a vote of confidence for Amazon’s 2017 bet to buy Whole Foods Market.

This formula has helped make Bezos the richest person in the world.

Amazon is hoping that cutting delivery times to one day for Prime members would let it outmaneuver rivals, such as Walmart Inc, which have marketed two-day shipping without subscription fees.

The company made progress in the holiday season, reporting that it quadrupled one-day and same-day deliveries compared with the same period a year earlier.

Revenue from subscription fees grew 32 percent to US$5.2 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, Amazon said, as more shoppers signed up for Prime than in any period prior.

Net sales rose 21 percent to US$87.4 billion, while net income rose 8 percent to US$3.3 billion — each over US$1 billion more than analysts had expected, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The profit rise reflects the evolving nature of Amazon’s business. The company has been moving away from low-margin retail toward a marketplace model where it takes lucrative fees for shipping and advertising the products of other merchants on its platform.

This has helped weather massive spending at Amazon, a company that has long passed up short-term results in favor of bets that could reap it future profit.

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title: One-day shipping program lifts Amazon sales


content_text:
Virus Fears: Masks not a necessity, vice president says

NINE GROUPS:Chen Chien-jen said people can be divided into groups according to how likely they are to be exposed to the virus, which can guide mask necessity
A sign reading “The daily quota of masks distributed by the government for disease prevention is sold out” is taped to a door at a convenience store in Taipei yesterday.Photo: CNA
Most people do not need to rely on surgical masks to prevent contracting 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said on Thursday, after reports that convenience stores had run out.

Chen, who is an epidemiologist by training, said that people with no symptoms of upper respiratory infection and fever can decide about wearing a mask depending on how likely they are to be exposed to the virus.

In Taiwan, potential exposure is most likely in three scenarios, he said.

First is from exposure to people who have tested positive for the virus, Chen said.

However, they have been placed in isolation, so they do not pose a public risk, he said.

Second, the virus can be passed on by those who have contracted it, but have not begun to display symptoms, he said.

Most commonly, these are people who have been in close contact with confirmed 2019-nCoV patients, such as family members and colleagues, or people who have returned from China’s Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, he said.

This group is subject to digital monitoring and compulsory home confinement for 14 days, which means the chance of being infected by them is low, Chen said.

Third, the virus can be transmitted via droplets from an infected person’s respiratory tract, he said.

However, it is unlikely for people to become infected if places that infected people have been are disinfected, he said.

People can be divided into nine groups according to how likely they are to come into contact with the virus, which guides whether a mask is necessary, Chen said.

Medical professionals are the first group and they are the most likely to be exposed to the virus, he said.

The second group is family members of people with 2019-nCoV, and the third, those who have been in frequent contact with an infected person, such as close friends and colleagues, he said.

The fourth group is public transport workers; the fifth is employees of enclosed entertainment venues; the sixth is people who have visited a hospital; the seventh people who use public transport, the eighth is customers at enclosed entertainment venues; and the ninth any who do not fit in the first eight categories, Chen said.

The list is intended to prevent undue panic and to allow masks to be used more efficiently, he said.

For the average healthy person, masks are not necessary to prevent 2019-nCoV infection, while the likelihood of contracting the disease remains relatively low, he said.

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content_text:
Virus Fears: DPP vows suit over profiteering claim

NOT A MATH WHIZZ:A spokesman said false reports claimed that the party was making NT$15m a day, or NT$4.5bn per month, by controlling the mask market
At a news conference at the Democratic Progressive Party headquarters in Taipei yesterday, party spokesman Chou Chiang-chieh holds placards showing screen grabs of Facebook posts that claim the party has profited by trading in masks.Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday said that the party would not tolerate smears and rumor-mongering, and that it would file a judicial complaint over social media messages that claimed the DPP has been trading in masks to make up to NT$4.5 billion (US$148.76 million) per month.

The rumors were disseminated on Facebook, messaging app Line and other social media platforms, with claims that the “DPP was getting rich from the mask business” by taking advantage of demand due to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, DPP spokesman Ho Po-wen (何博文) said.

“These are false claims and are vicious attacks against the DPP, so we will file a judicial complaint with the Criminal Investigation Bureau seeking prosecution,” Ho said.

Evidence indicates that the messages were first circulated in a Facebook group for supporters of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), originating from an account named “Han’s Army,” while another was first seen in a Facebook group for local affairs in Changhua County’s Yuanlin City (員林), originating from an account named Sung Chung-chi (宋中積), Ho said.

From these sources, the rumors were disseminated widely on social media, as many people do not fact-check such things and pass them on, he said.

The messages claimed that “medical masks cost NT$1 each to make, but companies controlled by the DPP government rounded them up and sold them to convenience stores for NT$4 to NT$5,” he said.

“It profits by NT$3 to NT$4 for each mask,” Ho cited the messages as saying, adding: “With a daily distribution of 4 million to 6 million masks, how much can the DPP make per day?”

“The DPP government has prohibited exports of masks for a month, so only it can sell and make a profit,” Ho quoted the social media messages as saying.

“Every day, it makes NT$15 million, which multiplied by 30 equals NT$4.5 billion per month,” he quoted them as saying, adding that the false claims were “unprofessional,” as not even the math was right, with “NT$15 million multiplied by 30” adding up to NT$450 million.

The vilification of the party would not be tolerated, he said.

Chou Chiang-chieh (周江杰), another DPP spokesman, said that combating 2019-nCoV is like the nation fighting a war.

People who circulate falsehoods can create panic, so a judicial investigation and prosecution is necessary, Chou said.

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people: 何博文 韓國瑜


title: Eight indicted for running NHI fraud

content_text:
Eight indicted for running NHI fraud

A FAMILY AFFAIR:Taipei prosecutors said a family of eight allegedly defrauded eight insurance companies for more than NT$55 million in payouts over 11 years
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday indicted a woman and seven of her family members for allegedly defrauding the National Health Insurance (NHI) system by pretending to have mental illnesses.

The amount of money the family is suspected to have defrauded insurance companies is the highest in the system’s history, the prosecutors’ office said, adding that it has suggested the court mete out severe punishment to deter similar behavior.

Prosecutor Huang Pei-yu (黃珮瑜) said she first learned of Chang Yu-chen (張玉真) and her family while attending an insurance seminar in 2018 and thereafter launched an investigation into the matter.

From 2008 to last year, the Chang family allegedly stayed at 11 hospitals and defrauded eight insurance companies by claiming they had symptoms including loss of sleep, hallucinatory hearing, and thoughts of suicide or murder, Huang said.

The claims misled doctors into believing that the family required immediate hospitalization, she said.

However, while staying at a hospital, the family allegedly left to eat, drink, sing at karaoke clubs or go on trips, Huang said, adding that the family members allegedly filed for insurance payouts after they were approved to leave the hospital.

The family allegedly requested NT$5,000 to NT$10,000 (US$165.29 to US$330.58) per day of hospitalization from insurance companies, totaling NT$55.7 million over 11 years, and successfully obtained NT$9.38 million from the NHI to cover “medical expenses,” Huang said.

Chang’s daughter allegedly accounted for NT$12 million in insurance claim payouts, and Chang reportedly demanded NT$50,000 from her daughter per month, Huang added.

Prosecutors said the two allegedly had a falling out over how to split the money, with Chang’s daughter telling Chang over the Line messaging app: “I’m not your Golden Goose. I’ll give you what you are due and no more.”

Chang’s brother-in-law said Chang had faked her insurance claims, and he later allegedly copied her methods to falsify claims, Huang said.

Investigators said they discovered messages on the brother-in-law’s cellphone stating that Chang had been removed from a hospital because she was wearing a lot of jewelry, most of which was paid for through insurance payouts.

Chang told prosecutors that she had resorted to falsifying insurance claims at the suggestion of her insurance agent, surnamed Lin (林), as she was millions of dollars in debt, Huang said.

Lin denied the accusation, prosecutors said, adding that they concluded there was insufficient evidence to show that Lin was involved in the alleged scheme.

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title: Virus Fears: Employers must provide masks for carers: MOL

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The Ministry of Labor logo hangs by an entrance to the ministry in Taipei yesterday.Photo: Li Ya-wen, Taipei Times
Employers are legally obliged to provide surgical masks to foreign carers who visit hospitals in the course of their duties, the Ministry of Labor (MOL) said on Thursday.

In a press release addressing response measures being taken against 2019 novel coronavirus, the ministry said that providing masks in hospitals falls under an employers’ legal responsibility to guarantee safe working conditions.

Failure to provide a safe working environment for foreign workers, if not rectified within a stated period, is punishable under the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) by a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000, as well as a two-year ban from employing foreign workers, the ministry said.

It is preparing a letter to be sent to employment agencies and associations to ensure that employers are aware of their obligations, the ministry said.

It offers 24-hour consultation services via the 1955 hotline to facilitate virus prevention outreach among the more than 700,000 migrant workers in Taiwan, it said, adding that services are available in Mandarin, English, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.

Recently arrived migrant workers should keep watch for virus-related symptoms, including a cough or fever, within the first 14 days after arrival, and contact the 1955 migrant worker hotline or the Centers for Disease Control’s 1922 (or 0800-001-922) epidemic prevention hotline to report any concerns, the ministry said.

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title: Australia braces for fires as temperature rises, winds return

content_text:
Smoke billows from a bushfire near the town of Tharwa in the Australian Capital Territory yesterday.Photo: EPA-EFE
Australian authorities yesterday warned of severe fire danger in densely populated areas this weekend, declaring a state of emergency in the capital, Canberra, as soaring temperatures and strong winds whipped up huge, unpredictable blazes.

With temperatures surpassing 40°C, emergency officials urged people to prepare for fires in parts of the southeast, including hundreds of kilometers of coast south of Sydney that have already been badly hit in months of blazes.

“Tomorrow will be the peak of the heatwave in NSW [New South Wales], with some areas expected to reach extreme heat wave conditions,” the NSW Rural Fire Service said on Facebook.

The bushfires have killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion animals since September last year. About 2,500 homes have been destroyed as more than 11.7 million hectares have been razed.

Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the area’s first state of emergency since fatal wildfires in 2003 indicated the danger this weekend.

Four people were killed and almost 500 homes destroyed in the 2003 bushfire season.

Officials said that an out-of-control fire in the south, on the doorstep of Canberra, had grown to 185km2, almost 8 percent of the territory’s area.

“This fire may become very unpredictable. It may become uncontrollable,” Barr said. “The combination of extreme heat, wind and a dry landscape will place suburbs in Canberra’s south at risk.”

The state of emergency is to run for 72 hours, giving authorities greater powers to order evacuations, close roads and take control of property.

Victoria state, which adjoins NSW and the ACT, is also expected to experience a heat wave over the weekend.

Separately yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under fire for his climate policies amid the devastating bushfire season, announced a A$2 billion (US$1.34 billion) energy deal with NSW that aims to reduce emissions and lower power bills.

The federal government is to provide up to A$1 billion for clean energy initiatives, jointly underwrite investment in two new interstate transmission links to bolster grid stability and support new generation projects in the country’s most populous state.

In return, the state government committed to facilitating investment into gas supply in the east coast market and ensuring coal supplies to its biggest power plant until 2042.

The deal might buy Morrison some breathing space from the backlash over the bushfires, which scientists have warned are likely to become more extreme as a result of climate change.

Still, industry analysts saw the package as a costly way to tackle the issue that could serve to crowd out private investment.

“Doing negotiated bilateral deals between governments is a very strange way to run an energy market,” said Tony Wood, energy program director at the Grattan Institute think tank.

“This is what you do when you can’t, or you’ve chosen not to, have a policy to steer the industry toward lower emissions in an efficient way,” Wood added.

Morrison’s center-right government has steadfastly refused to introduce a carbon pricing mechanism, a step many in the industry see as the lowest-cost way to bring about the transition to cleaner energy.

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title: FEATURE: National soccer suffers horror 2019

content_text:
Last year was one that Taiwanese soccer fans would like to forget, with the men’s national team in disarray after calamitous results and a stumbling finish with the head coach being sacked.

The year began with a bright outlook, with the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) in January appointing Englishman Louis Lancaster to the top coaching job.

Lancaster had been with the players for more than a year, working as deputy to fellow Englishman Gary White, who was in charge from September 2017 to September 2018.

CTFA secretary-general Fang Ching-ren (方靖仁) said at the time that they received applications from other highly qualified foreign coaches, but Lancaster was chosen because he knew the players, had experience with the national squad and was familiar with Taiwanese soccer culture.

Lancaster said he wanted to help Taiwan improve their results and qualify for major Asian tournaments.

“My goal is to lead a team which can compete against other elite teams of Asia, and a team that Taiwanese fans can be proud of,” he said.

His philosophy was for Taiwan to play “attacking football,” with players pressing deep into the opposition’s zone.

Throughout last year, Lancaster had talked of instructing the team to “go on the attack right at the starting whistle,” while urging players to fully express themselves on the pitch.

“When playing attacking football, we will get more wins, but I want to win games in entertaining style,” he said.

However, Taiwan under his charge suffered several lopsided defeats in the qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and lost several against countries with lower FIFA rankings.

It began with international friendlies, but the team could not implement Lancaster’s “attacking football” on the pitch as the players misfired for a scoreless tie in an away match against Myanmar in March.

Later that month, the visiting Solomon Islands netted the only goal from a penalty as Taiwan lost in Taipei.

In two matches in June, Taiwan were held 1-1 by Nepal at home, although they grabbed their only win of the year, 2-0 over Hong Kong, with forward Chen Hao-wei (陳浩瑋) scoring a brace, but the result meant little and both sides had made a lot of changes.

The real test came in September, when the World Cup qualifiers began. Taiwan had high hopes for their home matches in Group B, but were beaten 1-2 by Jordan on Sept. 5 at Taipei Municipal Stadium, and five days later they were outplayed at the same ground by Nepal, with forward Anjan Bista netting a brace, and the players and home fans stunned by the 0-2 defeat.

That opened the floodgates of criticism and finger-pointing, with Lancaster’s role coming under scrutiny. The chatter on fan sites was that Nepal were better in almost every facet of the game, and played with good pace and purpose, which was lacking in the home players.

Fans wrote that it was tough to stomach the loss and that Taiwan had no excuse because of Nepal’s much lower ranking. Moreover, they have far fewer financial and material resources, while the CTFA reportedly received about NT$400 million (US$13.22 million) from the government over the preceding three years.

The results only went downhill from there: visiting Australia pounding Taiwan 7-1 at the Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 15.

There were even more calamitous results in the Middle East in November, with Kuwait almost reaching double digits in a 9-0 thumping in Kuwait City, while Jordan won 5-0 in Amman.

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title: EU agreements to remain applicable to post-Brexit UK

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The logo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is pictured at the ministry in Taipei on March 3 last year.Photo: Lu Yi-hsuen, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s agreements with the EU remain applicable to the UK until the end of this year, while Taipei would continue strengthening partnerships with the UK after Brexit takes effect, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

The UK at 11pm yesterday ended its 47-year membership in the EU following a June 2016 referendum in which 51.9 percent of Britons voted to leave the bloc.

To ensure a smooth Brexit, the EU has notified Taiwan and other partners that it has reached an agreement with the UK on a “transition period,” which ends on Dec. 31 and during which EU regulations would continue to apply to Britain, the ministry said in a statement.

To ensure that Taiwan-UK interactions are not affected by Brexit, the ministry had consulted with relevant agencies and obtained the Executive Yuan’s approval to make Taiwan-EU agreements, memorandums of understanding and other arrangements applicable to the UK during the 11-month period, it said.

Britain is Taiwan’s third-largest trading partner in Europe and its fifth-largest source of foreign investment, while British businesses have invested in Taiwanese industries in the fields of offshore wind power, green energy and financial technology, the ministry said.

Based on their shared values of democracy and freedom, Taiwan and the UK have maintained close collaboration in areas such as human rights, public health, democratic establishments and press freedom, it said.

In view of the post-Brexit situation, Taiwan would continue strengthening bilateral partnerships with the UK, and jointly make concrete contributions to the stability, prosperity and protection of human rights in the Asia-Pacific region, it added.

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title: Virus Fears: WHO declares global emergency

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Public security volunteers guard the entrance to their community to register the personal information of people returning from abroad in Beijing yesterday.Photo: EPA-EFE
The WHO declared the outbreak sparked by a new virus in China that has spread to more than a dozen countries a global emergency after the number of cases spiked more than 10-fold in a week, including a record number of deaths in 24 hours reported yesterday.

China counted 9,692 confirmed cases with a death toll of 213, including 43 new fatalities. The vast majority of the cases have been in Hubei Province and its provincial capital, Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. No deaths have been reported outside China.

The WHO defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.

China first informed the WHO about cases of the new virus in late December. Eighteen other countries have since reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.

Experts have said there is significant evidence that the virus is spreading among people in China and have noted with concern instances in other countries — including the US, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea and Vietnam — where there have also been isolated cases of human-to-human transmission.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the worrisome spread of the virus between people outside China.

“The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries,” he said. “Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, which are ill-prepared to deal with it.”

“This declaration is not a vote of non-confidence in China,” he said. “On the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.”

A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but could also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. The announcement also imposes more disease reporting requirements on countries.

In the wake of numerous airlines canceling flights to China and businesses, including Starbucks and McDonald’s, temporarily closing hundreds of shops, Tedros said that the WHO was not recommending limiting travel or trade to China.

“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” he said, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had committed to help stop the spread of the virus beyond China’s borders.

On Thursday, France confirmed that a doctor who was in contact with a patient with the new virus later became infected. The doctor is now being treated in an isolated room at a Paris hospital.

Outbreak specialists worry that the spread of new viruses from patients to health workers can signal that the virus is becoming adapted to human transmission.

Russia announced that it was closing its 4,185km border with China, joining Mongolia and North Korea in barring crossings to guard against the outbreak.

The border had been de facto closed because of the Lunar New Year holiday, but Russian authorities said that the closure would be extended until March 1.

Meanwhile, the US and South Korea confirmed their first cases of person-to-person spread of the virus.

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Virus Fears: Authorities start questioning over outbreak rumors

FIGHTING PROFITEERING:The Ministry of Justice said that prosecutors’ offices and judicial agencies would work with police to inspect stores and warehouses for hoarding
Yunlin County Councilor Lin Yueh-chang, back row left, Yunlin County Commissioner Chang Li-shan, back row second left, county government officials and students hold boxes of masks during an inspection of Jhennan Elementary School in the county’s Douliou City yesterday. The masks were purchased by the county government using funds from the Air Pollution Control Fund.Photo: CNA

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A number of people have been summoned for questioning as the judiciary cracks down on online rumors regarding the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.

People must fact-check and verify with local health authorities when discussing information on the outbreak, Criminal Investigation Bureau officer Chen Pei-te (陳培德) said yesterday, adding that circulating misinformation is punishable by fines of up to NT$3 million (US$99,174).

A Yunlin County woman surnamed Shih (施) was summoned for questioning for claiming on Facebook that the hospital to which she took her baby for a vaccine had a confirmed 2019-nCoV patient, Chen said.

“Shih was asked by a friend, whom she told that the patient with the ‘Wuhan virus’ was at Chiayi Christian Hospital. This was not true, resulting in an investigation by Yunlin prosecutors,” Chen said.

In another case, people disseminated online that Taichung’s China Medical University Hospital had three confirmed 2019-nCoV patients who were under medical quarantine and that hospital staff were hiding the information from the public, bureau officials said.

Two people who shared the stories with their friends on social media were summoned for questioning by Taichung prosecutors yesterday, after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) verified that there were no such patients at either hospital and deemed them rumors, Chen said.

As of press time last night, the CDC and local health authorities nationwide had filed reports with the bureau and other law enforcement agencies regarding 12 cases of misinformation or rumors about the outbreak. Investigators have identified eight people for questioning and investigation by public prosecutors.

These people could have contravened the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), Article 63 of which stipulates that “persons who disseminate rumors or incorrect information concerning epidemic conditions of communicable diseases, resulting in damages to the public or others, shall be fined up to NT$3 million.”

As of press time, there were 10 confirmed 2019-nCoV cases in Taiwan, the CDC said.

Separately yesterday, the Ministry of Justice said in a statement that all prosecutors’ offices and judicial agencies have been ordered to collaborate with local police to conduct checks of stores and warehouses to ensure there is no hoarding of masks or other medical items.

Article 61 of the act stipulates that during epidemic situations, “individuals who hoard resources that the competent authorities have already started to requisite for purposes of price speculation or to force up prices under serious circumstances” could face a jail term of up to seven years and fines of up to NT$5 million, it said.

People who have been infected must follow orders from health authorities to prevent transmission to other people, it added, citing Article 62 of the act, which stipulates that failure “to comply with instructions by the competent authorities and have thus infected others shall be sentenced to imprisonment for up to three years, criminal detention, or a fine up to NT$500,000.”

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Virus Fears: Plane leaves Wuhan with 110 Britons, foreigners

An airplane carrying 83 British and 27 foreign nationals yesterday flew out from China’s central city of Wuhan, the center of a virus epidemic that has killed more than 200 people and infected more than 9,000, the British government said.

The civilian aircraft chartered by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office left Wuhan at 9:45am, the government said in a notice on its Web site.

It was scheduled to arrive in Britain at 1pm yesterday, before continuing on to Spain, where the home countries of EU citizens would take responsibility for the remaining passengers.

“We know how distressing the situation has been for those waiting to leave,” British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Dominic Raab said in the notice.

“We have been working round the clock to clear the way for a safe departure,” he added.

The flight had been expected to depart Wuhan on Thursday morning with about 150 British citizens and 50 non-British nationals, but its departure was blocked by Chinese officials.

The reasons for the delay and the fewer-than-expected passengers were not immediately clear.

The British embassy in Beijing and the office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Some British citizens have reportedly said they were told that they could not take family members with Chinese passports out of the city.

Those returning to Britain are to be quarantined for 14 days at a British National Health Service facility.

A British government spokesman said that any citizens who were eligible for the flight would be given a seat, but nationals already infected would not be allowed to leave Wuhan.

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Blond ambition of Japan’s history making chef

Kei Kobayashi just picked up a coveted third Michelin star, the first for a France-based Japanese chef
Chef Kei Kobayashi is speaking his mind — something he says it took moving to France to learn.

Less than 24 hours after he became the first ever Japanese cook to win the maximum three Michelin stars in France, the phones are ringing off the hook at his Paris restaurant, Kei.

The last of the lunchtime diners are skipping out of his minimalist dining room not far from the Louvre, grinning from ear to ear.

They have just eaten a piece of history, and at 58 euros (US$63) for a set lunch, a bargain into the bag.

Kobayashi is holding forth in his clinically clean kitchen as his small team scurry around him.

“Japanese people are usually very quiet. But you cannot survive in France like that,” he said.

The dozen or so other Japanese chefs who have been making waves in the rarefied world of French haute cuisine over the last few years are usually meekness incarnate.

They bow, say a few humble halting words of thanks and are off.

Not Kobayashi. The first thing that the 42-year-old said after getting his third star was how difficult and demanding he was.

With his gelled bleached blond hair, there is something of the showman about the young blade who readily admits to driving his cooks ferociously hard.

But it was not always so, he insisted, claiming France has changed him.

‘I SAY WHAT I MEAN’

“I am direct now. Like the French, I say what I mean,” he said.

“I am a very difficult guy,” he added, as he barked out an order in his small but perfectly designed kitchen. “Working with me means lots of stress. I watch and check everything.”

“Compared to a French chef” — who are not renowned for being touchy-feely — “I am probably more difficult,” he smiled.

But Kobayashi was careful not to ruffle feathers when asked if he and other young Japanese were beating the French at their own game and in their own back garden.

“France has accepted us and given us a place, so I thank France,” he said, adding that the Japanese cooks have been trained in the French tradition for nearly 150 years.

And indeed, it was watching a documentary about the nouvelle cuisine pioneer Alain Chapel that inspired Kobayashi to follow his father — a chef specialising in traditional Japanese kaiseki cuisine — into the kitchen.

Like his compatriot Yosuke Suga — who topped the La Liste’s ranking of the world’s best restaurants this year with his tiny Tokyo table, Sugalab, and who is only a few months his senior — Kobayashi decided to learn at the feet of his French heroes.

While some French gastronomes have implied that Kobayashi’s restaurant was not quite grand enough for the culinary holy grail of three stars, even the Michelin guide’s worst enemy believes its inspectors got it right.

French chef Marc Veyrat, who lost his third star last year and took Michelin to court in the notorious “Cheddargate” case, tipped his toque to him.

CRITICS ‘TRANSPORTED’

“I say ‘Bravo!’,” Veyrat said. “It’s great that people like him are coming here.”

Kobayashi, who was born in Nagano, opened his Paris restaurant nine years ago with his wife Chikako after working under a series of legendary French three-star chefs including Alain Ducasse, one of his mentors.

His pastry chef Toshiya Takatsuka — who has also been making a name for himself in France — said he decided to move to Paris to work under Kobayashi after eating at Kei in 2013.

“I could immediately feel the spirit of the chef, the concentration — everything was so absolutely right,” he said.

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Facebook is to begin removing false claims and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus from its social media platform, stepping up efforts to fight the spread of misinformation about a viral outbreak that has killed at least 200 people.

The spread of the virus is the latest test of social networks’ ability to rein in false and dangerous claims.

Facebook cited the drinking of bleach as one spurious cure claim that has been circulating, saying that it would “start to remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them.”

The company has an existing policy of removing content deemed a threat to users’ physical health and has used that policy in the past to remove vaccine-related misinformation, although in rare cases.

The novel coronavirus is taking on a life of its own on the Internet, once again putting US-based social media companies on the defensive about their efforts to curb the spread of false information.

Researchers and journalists have documented a growing number of cases of misinformation about the virus, ranging from racist explanations for the disease’s origin to false claims about miracle cures.

Aside from expanding its removal policy, Facebook said that it is doing its usual fact-checking with independent third-party partners, notifying users who might have shared inaccurate prevention tips and disseminating verified advice.

The company is “conducting proactive sweeps to find and remove as much of” the misleading content as it can, and it would block or restrict hashtags on Instagram that might be used to spread falsehoods, Facebook head of health Jin Kangxing (金康新) said.

Facebook is putting prompts and modules in its News Feed designed to steer users to accurate information, and it is also taking guidance from the WHO.

“When people search for information related to the virus on Facebook or tap a related hashtag on Instagram, we will return a dedicated information module with credible information,” Jin said.

Free advertising credits have been provided to health organizations looking to run coronavirus education campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.

The third prong to Facebook’s response is a partnership with National Tsing Hua University and Harvard University’s School of Public Health, which the company is providing with “aggregated and anonymized mobility data and high-resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models.”

The company might expand its academic partners, Jin said, but added that “not all of these steps are fully in place” and that the rollout of all of Facebook’s measures would take time.

Twitter’s efforts in tackling the issue include directing users to reliable sources, prompting those who search for “coronavirus” to visit the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site.

The company has not seen an uptick in disinformation since the coronavirus became a worldwide problem, a spokeswoman said.

Twitter has a policy against people trying to mislead others with “deceptive activity.”

Google has launched one of its so-called “SOS Alerts” for the coronavirus crisis, partnering with the WHO to issue news updates and resources to anyone searching about it. The alert would be the top result anyone sees, offering safety tips and the latest updates from the WHO.

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references: Facebook Twitter

title: Virus Fears: Facebook to address misinformation


title: Thinking big with booze

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Community sustaining beverage. Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your healthPhoto: EPA-EFE
Napa Valley whiz winemaker Dave Phinney thinks big. Very big.

Premium red-blend trendsetter? Check. Megahit brand builder for labels such as Orin Swift and the Prisoner? Ditto. Iconoclastic entrepreneur in a dozen wine regions around the globe? Yes.

So far, Phinney, 46, has made more than US$150 million from selling those ventures. Now he’s taken on spirits with his Savage & Cooke Distillery, which led to a partnership with billionaire Gaylon Lawrence to transform the San Francisco Bay Area’s Mare Island into a hip booze destination and a sustainable community for 75,000 people.

“Designing a city from scratch is a little surreal,” he admits over lunch on a cold and sunny day at a Yonkers, New York, restaurant overlooking the Hudson River. “At heart I’m still a winemaker.”?

Combining a laid-back Napa wine guy look — close-cropped beard, quilted vest, jeans and checked shirt — with the intense focus of a business mogul on a tight schedule, Phinney dives into the backstory of how it all went down.

AN ABANDONED NAVAL BASE

Phinney was looking for a winery space in 2015 when someone suggested he take a look at the abandoned historic brick buildings on Mare Island, once home to the first US naval base on the West Coast. The island (actually a peninsula) is linked by a causeway to the city of Vallejo on San Pablo Bay, an 80-minute ferry ride from San Francisco and a 20-minute drive from the city of Napa.

When the US Navy purchased the island in 1853, Commodore David Farragut (famous for shouting: “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!”) took charge. The last of the clipper ships were repaired in its yard. Its 18-hole golf course is the oldest west of the Mississippi. But in 1996, Congress shuttered the base. The island fell on hard times.

Smitten by the colorful history, Phinney began leasing buildings in 2016 and decided that instead of housing a winery, they might be better suited for a distillery. Wine distributors had long suggested he could make lots of money with a spirits brand.

“But I’m not that motivated by money,” he says with a shrug.

The idea gained steam because he’d discovered in 2014 that his 300-acre farm in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley had amazing natural springs — “like something pumping out of a hose.”

A blind water tasting and scientific analysis showed its high mineral content was ideal for spirits.

“I started thinking,” he says. “What if we finish whiskey in wine barrels? What if we used heirloom varieties of grain? What if we take a wine approach to spirits?”

What to call the brand? Looking through old Navy files on Mare Island, two names popped out to him: “Savage” and “Cooke.”

HISTORY OF GOOD TASTE

Phinney certainly had the startup funds.

What made him famous was the Prisoner, an outsider, zinfandel-based lush-textured red blend that made its debut in 2000 with a grim label from a Goya etching showing a shackled prisoner. By 2003 it had a cult following, and in 2010, Phinney sold the brand for US$40 million to Huneeus Vintners (which flipped it six years later for $285 million).

But he first made his name with wine brand Orin Swift, which he founded in 1998 and sold to E & J Gallo in 2016 for a reported $100 million. In 2018, Gallo also snapped up his Locations wines — good-value US$20 blends from different countries. Phinney still makes the wines, as well as Orin Swift’s.

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Virus Fears: Viral outbreak could benefit US, Ross says

‘RIDICULOUS’:The US secretary of commerce’s comments drew criticism, given the difficulty of relocating production and the high cost of labor in the US versus Asia
US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Thursday suggested that a new coronavirus outbreak in China might offer an unexpected benefit for the US economy: It could encourage US manufacturers in China to return home.

“I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America. Some to US, probably some to Mexico as well,” Ross told Fox Business Network.

Novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) has paralyzed business in China. The industrial hub of Wuhan and other Chinese cities are on lockdown.

The crisis has also begun to ripple through US companies with operations in China.

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook has said that the company’s suppliers in China have been forced to delay reopening factories that closed for the Lunar New Year holiday. More than half of Starbucks’ stores in China are now closed. McDonald’s has closed several hundred restaurants in China.

Ross said that he did not “want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease.”

However, he added: “The fact is, it does give businesses yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain.”

Even before the 2019-nCoV outbreak, many US and other foreign companies had been rethinking their presence in China and considering their options for relocating elsewhere, possibly elsewhere in Asia.

That is partly because US President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on US$360 billion of Chinese imports in a dispute over Beijing’s economic policies, and partly because Chinese labor and other costs have been rising.

However, skeptics doubt that many US companies with deep roots in China might abandon the country purely over the virus.

For one thing, no one knows how long the viral outbreak would last or how much damage it might inflict, and it takes significant time for companies to choose suppliers or locations for their factories.

Rosemary Coates, whose Blue Silk Consulting firm helps companies make such decisions, said it was “ridiculous” to think the viral outbreak would result in a significant return of business to the US.

“You can’t snap your fingers,” she said. “It can take 18 months or two years to find another supplier. It isn’t easy. It’s complicated.”

Wuhan, a center of China’s steel industry, has attracted General Motors Co and many other foreign manufacturing giants.

“You can’t just say General Motors is going to pick up and move away,” Coates said. “They have a manufacturing plant there and expertise there. Their supply chain runs through there.”

US direct investment in China, which includes factories, continued to rise even after the SARS outbreak disrupted the Chinese economy in 2003. Moreover, labor costs would continue to remain far higher in the US than in China and other Asian countries such as Vietnam.

“Companies that are leaving China are not coming to the US,” said Coates, who is also executive director of the Reshoring Institute, a nonprofit that researches issues surrounding corporate decisions on whether to return to the US.

“They’re going to other Asian countries .... If low cost is the only goal, then the US is not the answer,” she said.

After Ross’ comments drew criticism, the commerce department issued a statement: “As Secretary Ross made clear, the first step is to bring the virus under control and help the victims of this disease.”

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Filip Forsberg and Matt Duchene on Thursday scored in a shoot-out for the visiting Nashville Predators, who outlasted the New Jersey Devils for a thrilling 6-5 victory in Newark, New Jersey.

It was a record-breaking 1,507th win (regular season and playoffs) for the Predators’ David Poile as club general manager, breaking a tie with Glen Sather for the most by any general manager in NHL history.

Predators head coach John Hynes also won his first game against the Devils since New Jersey fired him on Dec. 3 last year.

The Predators’ Forsberg scored twice in regulation, including the goal that forced overtime midway through the third period.

Duchene, Mattias Ekholm and Nick Bonino also scored for the Predators, who are 5-4-0 under Hynes, while goalie Pekka Rinne made 27 saves.

Pavel Zacha had two goals, while Nikita Gusev, Jesper Bratt and John Hayden scored once apiece for the Devils, who are 9-11-4 since Hynes was replaced by Alain Nasreddine. Goalie Mackenzie Blackwood recorded 25 saves.

CANADIENS 3, SABRES 1

Ilya Kovalchuk and Brendan Gallagher each scored second-period goals as the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Buffalo Sabres for their third straight road win.

Kovalchuk, playing his 10th game since joining Montreal, tied the game at 1-1 early in the second period with his fifth goal in seven games, while Gallagher returned from a six-game absence due to a concussion to score his 16th goal for the lead less than three minutes later.

Jack Eichel secured his first 30-goal season, while becoming the first Sabres player with at least 30 goals and 30 assists since Jason Pominville (30 goals, 43 assists) in the 2011-2012 season.

KINGS 3, COYOTES 2 (OT)

Alex Iafallo scored 24 seconds into overtime to help the Los Angeles Kings end a five-game losing streak and beat the Arizona Coyotes in Glendale, Arizona.

Iafallo finished with a hat-trick, scoring the game’s first goal and tying it at 2-2 with 2:54 to play in regulation before his game winner. Anze Kopitar assisted on two goals, while Jack Campbell saved 26 shots in goal.

Nick Schmaltz and Christian Dvorak scored for the Coyotes, who are 1-5-2 in their past eight games.

Coyotes goalie Adin Hill, pressed into service with All-Star Darcy Kuemper still not ready to return from a lower-body injury, stopped 35 shots.

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title: Predators finally subdue Devils 6-5 in wild shoot-out


title: World Business Quick Take

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UNITED STATES

GDP growth misses target

The economy last year missed the 3 percent growth target of the administration of President Donald Trump for a second straight year, posting its slowest annual growth in three years as a slump in business investment deepened amid damaging trade tensions. The 2.3 percent expansion last year reported by the Department of Commerce on Thursday suggested the White House and Republicans’ massive US$1.5 trillion tax cut package had provided the economy only a temporary boost. Moderate growth undercuts the argument by Trump and his fellow Republicans that strong growth would pay for the tax cuts, which are expected to help push the federal budget deficit to US$1.02 trillion this year. Growth last year was the slowest since 2016 and followed the 2.9 percent notched in 2018.

AUTOMAKERS

VW offers Navistar US$2.9bn

Volkswagen AG (VW) offered to buy the rest of Navistar International Corp in a US$2.9 billion bid to secure a bridgehead in the the US’ heavy-truck market and step up its challenge to global rivals Daimler AG and Volvo AB. Volkswagen’s Traton SE unit has offered Navistar holders US$35 a share in cash, 45 percent higher than its Thursday closing price. Navistar, which builds International-brand trucks, school buses, defense vehicles and engines, said its board would review the proposal, adding that there is no assurance the deal would take place. Volkswagen already owns a stake of almost 17 percent.

RETAIL

Perssons get fortune boost

Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) chairman Stefan Persson just received a hefty retirement gift from investors. Persson, who on Thursday announced he is stepping down in May, added US$1.4 billion to his fortune, as the clothing retailer’s shares rose 9.4 percent in Stockholm. His son Karl-Johan, the CEO, is to take over as chairman and hand the CEO role to chief operating officer Helena Helmersson, making her the first woman to run H&M. The jump in share price reinforces the Perssons’ standing as Sweden’s richest family,with a fortune of more than US$20 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Stefan Persson, 72, said it was a “natural change” to hand control to his son after two decades as chairman. He said the family, which owns about half of the business, would remain committed owners of the world’s second-largest garment retailer.

MACROECONOMICS

France, Italy post declines

The French and Italian economies unexpectedly shrank at the end of last year, casting a shadow over expectations the eurozone was on a firmer footing. The French economy contracted 0.1 percent amid a decline in exports and a huge drag from companies using up stocks rather than increasing production. All of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted growth. Without the inventory effect, growth would have been about 0.3 percent, according to Bloomberg Economics. Italy’s GDP fell 0.3 percent, the most in almost seven years. Neighboring Spain fared significantly better at the end of last year, reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s outperformers. Faster-than-anticipated growth of 0.5 percent was driven by buoyant exports and a strong increase in services. France’s unexpected contraction is a sting for French President Emmanuel Macron, who is already facing mass protests and strikes against his pension reforms that have disrupted household spending.

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title: Los Angeles Clippers honor Bryant

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Los Angeles Clippers forward Maurice Harkless has messages commemorating Kobe Bryant on his shoes as he warms up for their NBA game against the Sacramento Kings at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, on Thursday.Photo: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY
De’Aaron Fox on Thursday scored a career-high 34 points as the Sacramento Kings beat the Los Angeles Clippers 124-103 in the first game at the Staples Center since Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash.

Paul George narrated a heart-warming two-minute video tribute shown before the contest, while Bryant’s retired No. 8 and No. 24 Los Angeles Lakers jerseys were left uncovered in the upper left corner of the arena.

“I’m really proud of the way our guys played,” said Kings coach Luke Walton, a teammate of Bryant’s on the Lakers. “We came in down and tired after playing last night, and then came into an emotional situation in what has been a very tough week.”

The Clippers played without Kawhi Leonard after the All-Star forward was scratched due to back pain.

Buddy Hield added 19 points off the bench for the Kings, who set a franchise record with 21 three-pointers.

Clippers guard George managed just eight points on two-of-10 shooting.

In Cleveland, Ohio, newly named All-Stars Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam combined for 42 points, as reigning NBA champions the Toronto Raptors won their ninth straight game with a 115-109 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Lowry scored 14 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter, while Siakam added 19, as the visiting Raptors extended their season-best winning streak.

Lowry, who is headed to the All-Star Game for the sixth straight season, was named as one of seven reserves from the Eastern Conference to join teammate Siakam, who was chosen as a starter last week.

Serge Ibaka scored a team-high 26 points in the win, as the Raptors completed a three-game sweep of the season series with the Cavaliers.

“That was anybody’s game from start to finish, to be honest,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “You’ve just got to grind it out and find a way.”

Norman Powell scored eight of his 16 points in the final 62 seconds of the game for Toronto to help blunt a rally by the Cavaliers, while Fred VanVleet had eight points and a season-best 12 assists in the win.

Kevin Love and Collin Sexton scored 23 points each for the Cavaliers, while Darius Garland had 16 points and eight assists, Kevin Porter and Larry Nance added 13 points each, and Tristan Thompson had two points and 12 rebounds.

The Raptors took a 10-point lead on a clutch three-point basket with 5:41 remaining, but the Cavaliers went on a 9-0 run. Love’s three-pointer cut the lead to one point with just under four minutes left in the fourth quarter, 100-99.

Powell followed with a three-pointer and then a dunk with 35 seconds left to give the Raptors a six-point lead. He then added two free throws to get the lead back to six with 20 seconds left.

Also on Thursday, it was:

‧ Nuggets 106, Jazz 100

‧ Celtics 119, Warriors 104

‧ Hawks 127, 76ers 117

‧ Wizards 121, Hornets 107

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content_text:
Mass tourism sparking ire in Europe’s historic cities

Angry protests among residents in popular areas are forcing city hall officials to bolster regulations and raise taxes on visitors
By Jon Henley, and Guardian correspondents Stephen Burgen, Angel / The Guardian
Across Europe, historic cities are buckling. Mass tourism, encouraged by cash-hungry councils after the 2008 crash and fueled by the explosion of cheap flights and online room rentals, has become a monster.

However, the backlash has begun.

In the past decade, the number of low-cost airline seats available each year in Europe has risen by more than 10 percent annually, more than doubling to more than 500 million.

Meanwhile Airbnb, the biggest, but far from only holiday lettings platform, has reported triple-digit growth in several European cities over the past five years, driving 10 of them to ask the EU for help.

The cities have between 10,000 and 60,000 listings each.

The net result is that over the course of a year, popular short-break destinations such as Amsterdam and Barcelona host upward of 18,000 visitors for each inhabitant, prompting angry protests from locals and forcing city halls to take action.

However, it is not always evident what that action should be or if it will work. The trade-off between the revenue and jobs generated through tourism, and quality of life is a tricky one.

So the idea is not discouragement, but management, city halls say.

AMSTERDAM

Too much tourism in the historic center of Amsterdam had gone beyond the already extreme nuisance of drunken visitors vomiting nightly on 17th-century doorsteps and urinating copiously in canals, city hall says.

With more than 19 million tourists in 2018 thronging a warren of narrow streets and alleyways that are home to 850,000 people, it was getting dangerous.

“At times there was a real safety concern,” said Vera Al, of the Amsterdam Department of Financial and Economic Affairs.

The most-crowded parts of the city — the red-light district, and the main nightlife areas of Rembrandtplein and Leidseplein — were becoming unlivable; in the old center, shops selling wooden tulips, vacuum-packed cheese or cannabis seeds were replacing chemists, greengrocers and hairdressers. Doctors could no longer find surgery space.

More than 60,000 jobs in Amsterdam are directly linked to tourism and visitors to the city spend more than 6 billion euros (US$6.62 billion) annually.

However, over the past two years, the council has adopted tough measures. Tour coaches have mostly been banished to the outskirts, and new shops catering solely to tourists have been outlawed by rewritten zoning regulations.

There will be no new hotels once developers have exhausted existing licenses. Pending a possible outright ban in some neighborhoods, Airbnb-style lets must sleep no more than four and cannot be let for more than 30 days a year.

A tourist tax has been launched: 3 euros per person per night, on top of a 7 percent levy on each hotel room (10 percent on accommodation booked person-to-person online).

“Tourists increase the cost of policing and cleaning the public space,” said Al, who works with Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Victor Everhardt. “We say it’s only fair they should contribute to them.”

Some of the worst excesses, such as beer bikes — a pedal-powered mobile bar group of drinkers — have been outlawed in the city center. Tours of the red-light district’s windows, running once every couple of minutes, are to be banned from April 1, when all guided tours of the old center will also require permits.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema has even tabled four possible options for the historic sex workers’ district, known as De Wallen. These include relocating all or part of it to other parts of the city, which would be a big call, politically, for part of the fabric of old Amsterdam.

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title: Taipei’s Circular Line open and free

people: 侯友宜 柯文哲

taiwan-subdivisions: 板橋 新莊 坪林 新店 中和

content_text:
Taipei’s Circular Line open and free

OFFICIALLY RUNNING:At the opening ceremony, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi said the extended network would pave the way for further development in the city
The first section of the Taipei MRT metropolitan rail system’s Circular Line yesterday officially began operations and is offering free rides to the public through Feb. 29.

The Yellow Line, as it is also called, operates from 6am to midnight daily, connecting Dapinglin (大坪林) to the New Taipei Industrial Park in New Taipei City via Sindian (新店), Jhonghe (中和), Banciao (板橋) and Sinjhuang (新莊) districts, making it unnecessary to pass through Taipei, officials said.

At the ceremony, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said they hoped that the extended MRT network, totaling 131 stations, would make travel in the two cities more convenient.

The new line, which has been eagerly awaited by New Taipei City’s 4 million residents, is likely to pave the way for further development in the city, Hou said.

Travelers departing from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport can check in and drop off luggage at New Taipei Industrial Park Station, the Yellow Line’s transfer station to the Taoyuan Airport MRT, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said yesterday.

New Taipei Industrial Park Station operates the service — previously only available at Taipei Main Station — from 6:15am to 9pm daily, the airport operator said.

The service is initially only available to those traveling on China Airlines, EVA Airways and their respective subsidiaries, Mandarin Airlines and UNI Airways, it said, adding that the check-in and drop-off must be completed three hours before departure.

The Yellow Line’s 14 stations should ease congestion at existing transfer stations, as people traveling through the city’s southwest can bypass downtown, instead of heading there to transfer, officials said.

This month, people taking the Circular Line are to travel the first section free, but would be charged the regular fare when they transfer to and from other lines, they said.

The new section links passengers to the Songshan-Sindian Line (Green Line), the Jhonghe-Sinlu Line (Orange Line) and the Bannan Line (Blue Line) on the Taipei MRT system.

Transfer to the high-speed rail and Taiwan Railways Administration lines is available at Banciao Station.

The first section, also called the Jhong Huan Section (中環, central circle), is the line’s only elevated segment. The other three are to be underground.

Construction has not yet started on the other sections, namely the Nan Huan Section (南環, south circle), the Bei Huan Section (北環, north circle) and the Dong Huan Section (東環, east circle).

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content_text:
Yageo tops compensation to directors

‘FAT CATS’:A total of 96 listed companies raised compensation for board directors in 2018, despite posting losses that year, Taiwan Stock Exchange statistics showed
Yageo Corp (國巨) topped the list of average compensation to board directors for a second straight year based on 2018 financial results, the latest statistics released yesterday by the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed.

Directors at the world’s third-largest passive component supplier received an average of NT$114.27 million (US$3.78 million) in compensation, the data showed.

However, that was markedly lower than the average of NT$1.03 billion it gave out for 2017.

CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) again placed second, with its directors receiving an average of NT$54.29 million in compensation for 2018.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, came in third, with its directors receiving an average of NT$40.14 million.

Hiwin Technologies Co (上銀科技), the nation’s leading machinery maker, was fourth, with an average compensation of NT$29.03 million, while camera lens modules supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) ranked fifth, with NT$25.64 million.

Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), the nation’s largest food and beverage conglomerate, placed sixth, paying out an average of NT$24.64 million.

Another passive components maker, Walsin Technology Corp (華新科), ranked seventh, with its directors receiving an average of NT$23.52 million.

It was followed by Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), with an average compensation of NT$19.05 million, and vehicle distributor Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), with NT$18.78 million.

Rounding up the top 10 is polyester and textile maker Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀), with its board directors receiving NT$18.18 million each.

While a high compensation might be indicative of high profits, the same cannot be said for electronics and home appliances conglomerate Tatung Co (大同), which booked losses of NT$10.64 billion for 2018, but paid out an average of NT$2.87 million for its directors, up 9.5 percent from 2017.

Far from being the only loss-making company to bump up the pay of its directors, Inventec Corp (英業達) subsidiary BESTA Co (無敵) more than tripled the compensation for its board directors to NT$1.22 million, although it posted losses of NT$29.31 million over the same period.

A total of 96 companies listed on the main bourse increased compensation to directors, despite booking losses for 2018.

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title: Yageo tops compensation to directors


content_text:
While the landmark Enforcement Act of Judicial Yuan Constitutional Interpretation No. 748 (司法院釋字第748號解釋施行法) — passed by the Legislative Yuan in May last year — made Taiwan the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage, a loophole in the act makes it the only country where a citizen’s right to marry a same-sex partner depends on their nationality.

“Of the 27 countries that have passed same-sex marriage, Taiwan is the only one that requires both parties to come from a country where same-sex marriage is legal,” Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights board member Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) said.

While the law was drafted to comply with the Council of Grand Justices’ Interpretation No. 748, which stipulates that the right to same-sex marriage is guaranteed by the Constitution, the loophole means that Taiwan’s marriage laws remain “unconstitutional,” she said.

Kris from Taichung and her partner, Yan, from Hong Kong are among the hundreds of transnational same-sex couples who cannot marry due to the loophole.

Since the two began a serious relationship last year, they have been flying to visit each other at least once every couple of months, despite the airfare being a constant financial burden, Kris said.

“Things like getting off work together and eating together ... which are completely normal to most people, are like a dream for many transnational same-sex couples like us,” she said.

A major legal obstacle to transnational same-sex marriage is the Act Governing the Choice of Law in Civil Matters Involving Foreign Elements (涉外民事法律適用法), which stipulates that whether a marriage can be established depends on the laws in the countries where the two people are from, attorney Daniel Chen (陳明彥) said.

The situation is further complicated by immigration regulations that require foreign spouses from 21 countries to be married abroad and pass an interview at a nearby Taiwan representative office before their marriage can be registered in Taiwan, he said.

The rule creates “yet another obstacle” for same-sex couples because the 21 countries, including Thailand and Vietnam, have not legalized same-sex marriage, he said.

Although the law does not apply to cross-strait marriages, a Chinese spouse must be married in China and pass an interview at an aiport in Taiwan to obtain marriage-based residency in Taiwan, he said.

“This does not work for same-sex couples at all, because they are prohibited from registering to marry in China,” he said.

The alliance has since October last year been working with several transnational same-sex couples to file administrative appeals against the government, he said.

If successful, the court cases would establish a precedent that could be applied to other transnational same-sex couples, or even push the legislature or Judicial Yuan to amend the law, he said.

If they lose, the alliance would consider seeking a constitutional interpretation to legalize all transnational same-sex marriages, he said.

Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan deputy convener Teng Chu-yuan (鄧筑媛) said that legislators were well aware of the loophole when reviewing the same-sex marriage bill last year.

“When we were lobbying for same-sex marriage, problems like transnational marriage and joint adoption had already been noticed, but they were not dealt with because anti-LGBT camps kept stoking fear among the public by spreading false rumors,” she said.

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title: FEATURE: Same-sex marriage depends on nationality