content_text:
李姓國中男班導師當年關懷14歲女學生取得信任，竟在校內、住處等地4度性交得逞，學生隱忍直到上大學，念法律系，靠自己勇敢提告並求償；刑事部分，一審判狼師2年6月，民事部份，因被害人超過2年才求償判免賠，但父母獲判賠100萬元，全案確定。（情境照）

2020-04-03 00:10:28

〔記者楊國文／台北報導〕新北市李姓國中男班級導師當年發現14歲女學生小珍（化名）對住校生活不適應，多次關懷取得信任，竟在校內、住處等地4度性交得逞，小珍難忘陰影，隱忍直到上大學，念法律系，靠自己勇敢提告並求償；一審依4個「與少女性交罪」判李姓狼師2年6月，民事部份，高院因小珍超過2年才求償，判李免賠，她的父母獲判賠100萬元，全案確定。

判決指出，李男自小珍就讀國中一年級起即是她的班級導師，因為小珍對住校不大適應，李男藉機關懷，拉近兩人關係。不久，小珍升上三年級後，李男竟利用晚自習名義，或要求她幫忙拿東西至沒有人的教室、生物實驗室、其住處等地，和她4度性交。

小珍國中畢業後，一直因此事心中有陰影，直到考進大學法律系後，得知李男所為乃犯罪行為，才向同學李女吐露心事，並在李女建議下告知父母，對李男提告，並要求賠償她300萬元、父母各200萬元。

小珍好友李女出庭證稱，小珍為了講出這件事，承受很大壓力，也做惡夢，每次跟她講這件事時都情緒崩潰、大哭、發抖，這種事對女生很丟臉，也是一個人生污點，「她沒有必要說謊話讓父母傷心」。

基隆地院刑事庭為查明此事，也對李男、小珍測謊，結果對於有無性交等關鍵問題，李男有不實反應，小珍則沒有，加上李男和李妻事後有向小珍、其父母道歉頻稱「對不起」，甚至登門下跪求原諒，因此判李男犯行明確，判2年6月徒刑，可上訴。

民事求償部分，李男庭訊仍否認和小珍性交，但高院認為，小珍和李男無怨無仇，她庭訊時曾一度感謝李男當年頗照顧而有恩於她，可見並無誣啗的動機和意圖，考量小珍至今每次回憶此事，都會出現嚴重的「創傷後壓力症候群」反應情形，及一審刑事判決李男涉嫌和她4度性交等結果，足以認定小珍身心遭受重大創傷。

高院認定，小珍於2016年初即提出刑事告訴，卻直到2018年中才提出附帶民事求償，已逾2年追訴時效，判李男免賠，另外須賠償小珍父母各50萬元確定。

taiwan-subdivisions: 基隆 新北市

title: 14歲慘遭色班導4度性侵 她苦讀法律系提告獲判賠100萬


title: 「星宇航空」全線停飛　張國煒淪為家政婦「手握一根黑又粗」猛吸

references: 網友 臉書

content_text:
▲ 星宇航空董事長張國煒淪為家政婦。（圖／星宇航空提供，下同）

記者郭世賢／綜合報導

隨著全球新冠疫情發展不斷升溫，才開航的星宇航空受到嚴重衝擊，原本3條航線，如今落到完全無航班可飛的情況，可是感覺沒事幹的董事長張國煒，如今在幹嘛呢﹖星宇公司小編回答網友打到手軟，乾脆洩漏公司最高機密，然後說「請大家攏麥來問阮，恁去問我家董仔...」

2020年3月初張國煒笑著說：「我們其實很幸運，在於跟機隊陣容龐大的中華航空、長榮航空相比，星宇航空的機隊相對小，災情也相對小兒科。」可是現在K董的動向到底為何？眾多網友非常好奇，星宇小編1日上午在臉書公布貼出2張照片，讓網友笑翻，直呼真的跪了；原來照片中，張國煒化身「清潔小弟」，雙膝跪地拿著吸塵器，認真清潔辦公室每一個角落。

▲ 小編使出殺手鐧表示，「請大家攏麥來問阮，恁去問我家董仔...」。

星宇航空1日上午在臉書PO文，表示近日大家很關心，不斷私訊「恁家董仔最近攏底肋無閒什麼？」、「星宇航空開航不久就受到疫情影響，是不是很慘 ？」、「張董最近都在幹嘛？」，為此小編回答打到手軟，只好使出殺手鐧表示，「請大家攏麥來問阮，恁去問我家董仔...」

K董勤奮背影貼文PO出，馬上湧入大量星宇航空迷紛紛留言，「吸塵男孩的梗，知道都上年紀了！」、「K董在研發新的吸塵器，噓！別吵他」、「吸塵男孩穿襪子打掃、掃完看襪子髒不髒？檢查概念，讚！」、「K董是處女座，好男人、好代表」、「140億的吸塵男孩！」、「K董，校長兼校工，好榜樣！」、「K董果然是處女座的龜毛行為！」

星宇航空 STARLUX Airlines：https://www.facebook.com/starluxairlines/

「時間存在的意義就是襯托妳的美麗」

▲ 星宇航空董事長張國煒。

▲ 張國煒淪為家政婦「手握吸塵器管」猛吸。


content_text:
其實看完 Hanne 還真的有一點心動了 XD

微軟先前推出了以 Chromium 為架構的新版 Microsoft Edge 瀏覽器，為了擺脫大家以往對 IE 瀏覽器的負面印象，還改變了瀏覽器的圖示，不過 Edge 瀏覽器的確因為介面和功能的調整，讓一些使用者逐漸從 Chrome 瀏覽器轉移到 Edge，微軟先前也列出了十項你必須換成 Edge 瀏覽器的理由，可以說是對自家的 Edge 非常有自信，完全從 IE 的陰影走出來了啊！

1.「Collections 收藏夾」幫助管理搜尋網站內容

在 Edge 瀏覽器右上角有一個「Collection 收藏夾」的選項，能幫助用戶管理自己的瀏覽網站，可以新增不同的分類，並直接把不同網站上的資訊、文字、圖片等等拖曳到「Collection 收藏夾」裡，而且還能夠把「Collection 收藏夾」輸出成 Word 檔或 Excel 檔

title: 真的不一樣！微軟列出10個你必須換成「 Edge 」瀏覽器的理由


content_text:
Scientists on Wednesday offered more evidence that COVID-19 is spread by seemingly healthy people who show no clear symptoms and the US government issued new guidance warning that anyone exposed to the disease can be considered a carrier.

A study by researchers in Singapore became the latest to estimate that about 10 percent of new infections might be sparked by people who carry the virus, but have not experienced its flu-like symptoms.

In response to that study and others, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed how it defined the risk of infection.

The agency’s new guidance targeted people who have no symptoms, but were exposed to others with known or suspected infections. It essentially says that anyone might be a carrier, regardless of any symptoms.

The findings increase the challenges of containment measures, the researchers wrote, but added that the magnitude of the effects depends on the extent and duration of transmissibility while a patient is pre-symptomatic, which has so far not been clearly established.

The findings complicate efforts to gain control of the pandemic and reinforce the importance of “social distancing” and other measures designed to stop the spread, experts said.

“You have to really be proactive about reducing contacts between people who seem perfectly healthy,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied coronavirus transmission in different countries.

The newest research was published online on Wednesday by the CDC in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

It focused on 243 cases of coronavirus reported in Singapore from mid-January through the middle of last month, including 157 infections among people who had not traveled recently.

Scientists found that so-called pre-symptomatic people triggered infections in seven disease clusters, accounting for about 6 percent of the locally acquired cases.

One of those infections was particularly striking. A 52-year-old woman’s infection was linked to her sitting in a seat at a church that had been occupied earlier in the day by two tourists who showed no symptoms, but later fell ill, investigators said after they reviewed closed-circuit camera recordings of church services.

An earlier study that focused on China, where the virus was first identified, suggested that more than 10 percent of transmissions were from people who were infected, but did not yet feel sick.

The seemingly healthy people who can transmit the virus are believed to fall into three categories: pre-symptomatic, who do not have symptoms when they spread, but develop the illness a couple of days later; asymptomatic, who never develop symptoms; and post-symptomatic, who get sick and recover, but remain contagious.

The Singapore and China studies focused on pre-symptomatic infections.

It remains unclear how many new infections are caused by each type of potential spreader, said Meyers, who was not involved in the Singapore study, but was part of the earlier one focused on China.

In the initial months of the pandemic, health officials based their response on the belief that most of the spread came from people who were sneezing or coughing droplets that contained the virus.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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title: Virus Outbreak: Healthy can spread virus: study


title: Virus Outbreak: Nation, EU ‘strong together’

content_text:
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen yesterday thanked Taiwan for a donation of masks, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the gratitude and echoed her “Stronger together” sentiment amid the pandemic.

Appreciative postings from foreign representative offices in Taiwan have been popping up on social media since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday announced that Taiwan would donate 10 million masks — nearly the nation’s one-day production capacity — to countries hit hard by the pandemic.

European Economic and Trade Office Director Filip Grzegorzewski on Wednesday wrote on Twitter: “#Taiwanhelps is the new hashtag.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives a news conference after a video conference on COVID-19 with EU leaders at the European Council Building in Brussels on March 17.
 Photo: AFP

“The European Union thanks Taiwan for its donation of 5.6 million masks to help fight the #coronavirus. We really appreciate this gesture of solidarity,” Von der Leyen wrote on Twitter yesterday. “Acts like this show that we are #StrongerTogether.”

Taiwan and the EU have been like-minded partners, and the EU has been supporting Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO, the ministry said in a statement yesterday.

The EU has been hit hard by the pandemic, so Taiwan is offering a timely helping hand and supporting the EU with concrete action, demonstrating the reality of “Taiwan can help and Taiwan is helping” and the benefits of being “Stronger together,” it added.

Taiwan and European countries are also benefiting from each other’s experience in coping with COVID-19, including best practices in disease prevention, and research and development on rapid test reagents, vaccination possibilities and effective drugs, it said.

“Hopefully, Taiwan and the EU will be able to speed up cooperation on producing medical resources for disease prevention, which would further benefit people of both sides,” it said.

Asked about Taiwan’s donation of masks, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) on Wednesday said that as the US is faced with a severe outbreak, some local governments and businesses in China have offered as much help as they can to Americans.

If Taiwan is able and willing to offer help, China is glad to see the outcome, she said, but added that Taiwan be wary of any Taiwanese aiming to use the pandemic as an opportunity for political plotting.

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title: Lawmaker pushes animal protection police proposal

content_text:
By Liu Pei-fen and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) on Wednesday urged the Council of Agriculture (COA) to push forward with a proposal to establish an “animal protection police.”

The proposal was first raised in December last year and supported by 13 legislators across party lines, but has since stalled after discussions with the National Police Agency (NPA) and animal rights groups concluded that the proposal would be impractical given a lack of human and financial resources.

Taiwan Animal Protection Monitor Network secretary-general Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) has continued to push the idea, saying the nation urgently needs a dedicated animal protection police force for five reasons: current animal protection officials do not have the authority to obtain search warrants and lack knowledge about animal protection; they do not do shift work, so they cannot promptly deal with cases that occur at night; they do not have judicial authority and cannot arrest people suspected of animal abuse; police officers are already overworked; and even when animal abuse cases are handled by the police, they are ultimately sent to animal protection authorities for follow-up.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yeh Yu-lan waves to reporters outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Feb. 1.
 Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times

Yeh asked COA Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee which agency — the council or the police — is in charge of animal abuse cases.

Chen said they were the responsibility of animal protection officials, but that police would be called in if it is deemed a criminal offense.

Yeh said the process is inefficient, as it involves multiple government agencies.

“Although these animal protection officials are public servants, their lack of power to enforce the law means that people might question their authority,” she said, adding that animal rights groups support the establishment of an animal protection police force.

The council should be in charge of hiring and training police officers to gain knowledge and skills in animal protection, she said.

To solve the personnel problem, Yeh suggested that the council hire the nearly 5,000 examinees who had passed the Grade Three Special Examination for Police Personnel prior to 2011, but are ineligible for Grade Three or higher police positions because they are not graduates of the Central Police University — a policy that the constitutional Interpretation No. 760 issued on Jan. 26, 2018, has said is unconstitutional.

The council should push for a legislative amendment to allow it to proceed with the idea, she added.

Chen said the council would discuss the proposal.

“As someone who has taught at the police college, Yeh is very familiar with police training. She also knows that police are not knowledgeable in all areas,” Ho said.

Only officers specialized in animal protection can deal with such issues, he said.

The NPA could first train a small number of officers to handle animal abuse cases, and then establish an animal protection police force after they have gained experience, he said.

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title: Insurers drop declared rates on policies

content_text:
Major life insurance companies have lowered the declared interest rates for their New Taiwan dollar-denominated policies to 2 percent and US dollar policies to 3 percent on expectations of reduced returns on investment in a low-interest rate environment.

Life insurers announce each month the declared interest rates, which are used to calculate the size of policyholders’ distributions.

Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), the nation’s second-largest life insurer with a market share of 17.2 percent, said it has slashed the rates for its 101 NT dollar-denominated products by 25 basis points — the same as the central bank’s March 19 rate cuts — to between 1.05 and 2.25 percent.

It cut the rates for its US dollar policies by 40 basis points to a range from 2.7 to 3 percent, Fubon said.

Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), the third-largest insurer with a market share of 13.39 percent, cut its rates by 25 basis points for its 90 NT dollar products to between 1.9 and 2.05 percent, as well as 50 basis points for its 70 US dollar products to between 2.85 and 3 percent, it said in a statement.

Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), the fourth-largest insurer with a market share of 9.18 percent, reduced rates by a range of 8 basis points to 45 basis points for its NT dollar products and a range from 5 basis points to 45 basis points for its US dollar policies.

As a result, the maximum declared interest rates for the company’s NT dollar and US dollar policies were 2.05 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.

However, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest life insurer with a market share of 19.45 percent, only cut rates by 5 basis points for its 54 US dollar products to a range of between 2.25 and 3.4 percent, and reduced between 6 and 15 basis points rates for its NT dollar products to between 0.52 and 2 percent.

“We slashed the rates less than our peers in the hope of generating good interest income,” Cathay Life executive vice president Lin Chao-ting (林昭廷) said by telephone, adding that the company is still confident that its declared interest rate could be more than 3 percent for this month.

“The revision in declared interest rates does not always correspond with the change in the benchmark rates, as they are primarily based on companies’ investment performance,” Lin said.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Taiwanese businesspeople in Philippines give masks

Two Taiwanese groups in the Philippines have donated urgently needed masks to local healthcare efforts in a bid to help contain COVID-19.

The Taiwanese Compatriot Association on Wednesday gave more than 5,000 masks to the Philippines Department of Health, association supervisor Edison Lin (林坤城) said.

The association has pledged to donate 10,000 masks to the Philippines, Lin said, adding that because of supply issues, the donation would be divided into two batches.

The masks would help the Philippines battle the coronavirus, as well as promote goodwill between Taiwanese and Filipinos, Lin added.

The virus has had a considerable effect on people in the Philippines, including Taiwanese businesspeople, especially in Metro Manila, association vice president Jack Hsieh (謝嘉卿) said.

“Everyone is confined to their homes due to the community quarantine measures,” said Hsieh, who runs a Taiwanese fast food chain in the Philippines. “We can’t work. Workers who receive their salary on a weekly basis and have no savings might soon run short of cash.”

Taiwanese businesspeople are doing their best to help, Hsieh said.

“For example, our firm distributed packages of food and other necessities to our employees,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Taiwanese Association in the Philippines, a group of Taiwanese businesspeople, donated 10,000 masks to Philippine General Hospital, one of the medical facilities designated by the Philippine government as a COVID-19 treatment center.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: NHRI announces test kit; CDC to work on approval

The National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) yesterday said it has developed a rapid-testing kit that can screen people for SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, while the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said that such products have to be approved.

NHRI vice president Sytwu Huey-kang (司徒惠康) said that after more than a month of research, it has been shown that antibodies for SARS can also be used in the screening process for SARS-CoV-2.

The results can be produced in 10 to 15 minutes, Sytwu said.

An illustration obtained on Feb. 27 courtesy of the National Institutes of Health taken with a scanning electron microscope shows the SARS-CoV-2 virus in yellow.
 Photo: AFP / National Institutes of Health

The NHRI is testing a number of coronaviruses to determine whether the reagent could be an exclusive test for COVID-19, he said.

The institutes next week would hold a meeting with businesses to discuss trial production of the kits, he said.

However, it is still uncertain when the kits might be ready for clinical use, he said.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) told the CECC’s daily news briefing yesterday that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would have to verify the NHRI’s product, as well as others introduced by private companies abroad.

The CDC would help accelerate commercialization if they prove effective, said Chen, who also heads the CECC.

In other developments, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) posted on Facebook yesterday that US biotechnology company Gilead Sciences began clinical research collaboration with experts in Taiwan on potential treatment options.

The AIT did not name any drug in the post, but the company is known for developing remdesivir, a drug hoped to be a treatment for COVID-19.

“Gilead’s clinical trials in Asia are also taking place in China, Japan, S[outh] Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Last week, AIT and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced enhanced efforts to cooperate on addressing the spread of COVID-19. Scientific cooperation like this is one of the great examples of how we #StriveTogetherThriveTogether,” the AIT wrote.

Additional reporting by Lin Chia-nan

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content_text:
BEIJING REACTS:
 The Chinese foreign ministry called on Washington to ‘stop this purposeful slandering and ... do more for the cooperation between our two sides’

US President Donald Trump’s administration is tightening rules to prevent China from obtaining advanced US technology for commercial purposes and then diverting it to military use, sources said.

Three measures agreed to by senior US officials in a meeting on Wednesday last week, but not finalized, would introduce hurdles that could be used to stop Chinese companies from buying certain optical materials, radar equipment and semiconductors, among other things, from the US.

The moves are advancing as relations between the US and China, a key customer for US technology, sour over the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in Wuhan, China, and tit-for-tat expulsions of journalists from each country.

They are also a sign of growing nervousness within the US government over China’s “civil-military” fusion promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), which aims to build up its military might and supercharged technological development in tandem.

Some US officials have said that it is time to update the rules in light of the Chinese policy, as some US shipments abroad are authorized based in large part on whether they would be used for civilian or military applications.

Since “the Chinese have said to us: ‘Anything you give to us for a commercial purpose is going to be given to the military,’ what point is there in maintaining a distinction in our export control regulations?” said former White House official Tim Morrison, who was involved in drawing up the changes, which have been in the works since at least last year.

It was not clear if Trump would sign off on them, despite the decision last week to press ahead with their rollout.

Industry fears that the new rules, which include withdrawing license exceptions, could drive Chinese consumers into the arms of foreign rivals.

“There’s a chilling effect when they start taking away the availability of these license exceptions for particular exports,” Washington trade lawyer Eric McClafferty said. “It makes people more nervous to export to China.”

The White House and the US Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.

“We urge the US to stop this purposeful slandering and look at China’s policy in an objective way and do more for the cooperation between our two sides,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) told a daily briefing yesterday when asked about the plans for tighter restrictions.

One change would do away with the civilian exemption, which allows for the export of certain US technology without a license, if it is for a nonmilitary entity and use, sources said.

The exception, which eases the export of items such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated circuits, would be eliminated for Chinese importers and Chinese nationals.

FPGA circuits are made by several US companies, including Intel Corp and Xilinx Inc.

“Xilinx is aware of the proposed increased export restrictions to China and is monitoring the situation closely,” a Xilinx spokesperson said in a statement.

“We will comply with any new US Department of Commerce rules and regulations if/when they are enacted,” the company said.

Intel declined to comment.

Doug Jacobson, another Washington lawyer who specializes in trade, said that several of his clients were concerned about the elimination of the civilian exemption, mainly companies involved with electronics.

“It could be significant for certain companies,” Jacobson said.

“In terms of whether that would lead to [license] denials, who knows? But it would be an additional hurdle to jump through for a US company to sell to commercial end users in China,” he said.

Another change would stop China’s military from obtaining certain items without a license even if they were buying them for civilian use, such as scientific equipment like digital oscilloscopes, airplane engines and certain types of computers.

If implemented, the measure could block certain shipments to Chinese military importers like the People’s Liberation Army, even if they said the item would be used in a hospital, for example.

A final change would force foreign companies shipping certain US goods to China to seek approval not only from their own governments, but from the US government as well.

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title: US to tighten China exports rules: sources


people: 陳時中 陳宗彥

content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Ten new cases confirmed, for a national tally of 339

IN PRINCIPLE:
 The Central Epidemic Command Center began yesterday to ban visits to hospitalized patients, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday announced 10 new COVID-19 cases — eight imported and two locally transmitted — bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 339.

The imported cases involved six men and two women, all Taiwanese, who had traveled to Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Indonesia, countries in Latin America, the UK or the US before arriving back in Taiwan between March 6 and Tuesday, center data showed.

Among them, patient No. 338 was part of a tour group that traveled to Austria and the Czech Republic, and has resulted in an infection cluster of five cases, including the group’s guide, a man in his 40s who passed away on Sunday, the center said.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung speaks during the Central Epidemic Command Center’s daily news conference in Taipei yesterday.
 Photo provided by the Central Epidemic Command Center via CNA

The two locally transmitted cases, a man and a woman, are in their 50s, it said.

Neither had traveled abroad recently, but the man had contact with a previously confirmed case, it said, adding that the source of the woman’s infection remains unclear.

The woman worked as a security guard at an apartment complex and the center is tracing her contact history there, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.

Asked if people would be blocked from having contact with the complex, Chen said that the center has asked the building managers to inform residents that they should avoid contact with outside people.

The process of disinfecting the complex was begun yesterday morning, he added.

Asked for the complex’s location, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said that it is in northern Taiwan.

As of yesterday, the nation had five coronavirus-related deaths, while 50 people had been discharged from quarantine facilities, center data showed.

The center began yesterday — “in principle” — to ban people from visiting patients in hospitals, except for in emergencies, Chen said, adding that hospitals across the nation have been informed.

In addition, as of today, all inbound passengers who have developed suspicious symptoms in the 14 days prior to arriving are to be transported to a government-designated quarantine facility by the taxi service for quarantined travelers, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), deputy head of the center.

As often as possible, people would be taken to the facility nearest the airport they arrived at: Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) or Kaohsiung International Airport, he said.

Inbound travelers would not be charged to stay at a government-designated facility, the center said, adding that those testing positive would be hospitalized, while those testing negative could quarantine themselves at home or quarantine hotels.

By Wednesday, the number of people arriving in Taiwan had fallen to nearly 1,500 — 81 of whom had suspicious symptoms, he added.

India on Wednesday last week implemented a lockdown, but 12 Taiwanese were able to take a Japan Airlines fight to Tokyo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Some were able to return to Taiwan yesterday, while the others would arrive later, the ministry said, expressing its thanks to agencies in India and Japan for their assistance.


title: Virus Outbreak: Economic stimulus package expanded

people: 鄭麗君 沈榮津 朱澤民 蘇貞昌 林佳龍

content_text:
TRILLION PROPOSED:
 The premier said the goal was to keep ‘businesses solvent, the unemployment rate down, transportation and logistics going, and cash flowing’

The Executive Yuan yesterday announced an expanded economic stimulus package totaling NT$1.05 trillion (US$34.64 billion), including NT$81.6 billion in subsidies for employers to prevent a spike in unemployment.

The increased budget comprises a special budget of NT$210 billion, up from the NT$60 billion already passed by the Legislative Yuan; NT$140 billion — up from NT$40 billion — to be appropriated from the general budget; and NT$700 billion in loans to industries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei.

The NT$150 billion increase in the special budget is to be paid for by increasing national debt by NT$100 billion in the current fiscal year and NT$50 billion in the next, Chu said.

Premier Su Tseng-chang, center, speaks at a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday as Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lee Meng-yen, right, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin, second left, and Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai, left, look on.
 Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times

The NT$700 billion in loans, double what was originally planned, is to be provided by the central bank and state-owned banks, as well as Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政), he said.

Overall, the package is to make up about 5.4 percent of this year’s nominal GDP, he said.

As a proactive measure to prevent the unemployment rate from soaring, the government is to inject NT$81.6 billion to help about 1.92 million people, or 16.6 percent of the nation’s working population, keep their jobs, Minister Without Portfolio Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said.

That includes NT$39.6 billion in wage subsidies that the Ministry of Economic Affairs would give to about 660,000 people in the manufacturing and service industries, as well as NT$8.4 billion that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) is to give to about 140,000 people in the tourism and transportation industries, Kung said.

The transportation ministry plans to give the nation’s approximately 92,000 taxi and 16,000 tour bus drivers NT$10,000 per month for three months, while the economic ministry would issue a monthly subsidy of NT$10,000 to about 1 million self-employed people for three months, he said.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is to spend an additional NT$12.7 billion to compensate people placed under quarantine, as well as to procure medical supplies and bail out medical facilities, he said.

The health ministry would be given NT$8.7 billion to cover a three-month NT$1,500 increase in the monthly subsidy to elderly people and children with disabilities, he said.

The MOTC would provide NT$50 billion in loans to six airlines, which have borne the brunt of the pandemic’s effects, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said.

The ministry would reach out to the six airlines to simplify the procedure for them to secure loans, Lin said, adding that the process is expected to be completed by the end of next week.

Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said that the budget for planned coupons to stimulate consumption when the pandemic situation improves has been increased to cover a 25 percent discount when people use mobile payments and discounts for elderly people who pay with smartcards.

The Ministry of Culture is to receive an additional NT$4.5 billion to help movie theaters and performance groups cover their overhead and payrolls.

Despite being allowed to maintain normal operations, as long as audiences do not exceed 100 people, many of them have reported situations “equivalent to shutting down,” Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said.

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) approved a draft amendment to the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例) to accommodate the increase in the special budget.

Su asked agencies to vigorously communicate with the four legislative caucuses to facilitate the swift passage of the amendment.

The government’s overarching goal is to keep “businesses solvent, the unemployment rate down, transportation and logistics going, and cash flowing,” he said.

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title: Virus Outbreak: Second bailout may aid tour guides

content_text:
FINANCIAL LOSSES:
 The Travel Bureau said that it is considering giving self-employed tour guides monthly subsidies of NT$10,000 for three consecutive months

Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it is considering including self-employed tour guides in a second bailout package for tourism industry workers.

The Tourism Bureau is studying the feasibility of the proposal after Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) on Wednesday met with representatives of travel and tour guide associations to discuss how the ministry could help them as their businesses suffer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry said.

Tour guides have also experienced financial losses, as travel agencies have stopped organizing overseas tour groups or hosting tourists from other nations, the bureau said.

Apart from subsidizing workers of travel agencies, the bureau said that it is also considering giving self-employed tour guides monthly subsidies of NT$10,000 (US$330) for three consecutive months.

Lin said that the bailout package should help those who are really in need, and self-employed tour guides might have other jobs.

To ensure that the subsidies are used to help those whose main source of income is guiding tours, the bureau is stipulating that the ministry determine how the subsidies should be distributed.

The bureau said that it would not be difficult to ascertain whether someone is a certified, self-employed tour guide and has led tours before, as it can search its database.

What is difficult is verifying whether they have more than one source of income, it said, adding that it would quickly stipulate criteria and make them public.

The ministry said that it hopes to give out subsidies as quickly as possible so that workers in the travel industry can receive the funds by the middle of this month.

The ministry was allocated an additional NT$27.5 billion from the government’s second bailout package, of which NT$12.57 billion would be used to bolster the tourism industry.

The additional funds are to be used to increase subsidies for travel service operators so that they can pay workers’ salaries, the ministry said, adding it would allocate NT$1 billion from the fund to subsidize hotels assisting in the government’s disease-prevention efforts.

Separately yesterday, the ministry said that its policy requiring train, high-speed rail and inner-city bus passengers to wear masks has a legal basis.

The Central Epidemic Command Center has recommended that people using public transport wear masks, because they cannot maintain a distance of 1.5m from others when they are on board, the ministry said, adding that the center has also clarified that people do not have to observe “social distancing” indoors if they all wear masks.

Both the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例) and the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) authorize the center, as well as administrative agencies, to enforce measures as they see fit to control the spread of an epidemic, it said.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Death tolls surge in Spain and NY, world count passes 47,000

The COVID-19 death toll in Spain yesterday surged past 10,000 after a record 950 deaths in 24 hours, while New York rushed to bring in an army of medical volunteers as the statewide death toll grew to more than 2,190.

The global number of people diagnosed with the illness edged closer to 1 million yesterday.

Spain has the world’s second-highest death toll after Italy, with the virus so far claiming 10,003 lives, although the rate of new infections and deaths continued its downward trend, Spanish Ministry of Health figures showed.

“The data show the curve has stabilized” and the epidemic has entered a “slowdown” phase, Spanish Minister of Health Salvador Illa said.

In the US, the nation’s biggest city was the hardest hit, with bodies loaded onto refrigerated morgue trucks by forklifts and gurneys outside overwhelmed hospitals.

The wail of ambulances in the otherwise eerily quiet streets of the city became the heartbreaking soundtrack of the crisis.

“It’s like a battlefield behind your home,” said 33-year-old Emma Sorza, who could hear the sirens from severely swamped Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.

“How does it end? And people want answers,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday. “I want answers. The answer is nobody knows for sure.”

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that a federal stockpile was nearly depleted of personal protective equipment used by doctors and nurses, and warned of trying times to come.

“Difficult days are ahead for our nation,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a couple of weeks, starting pretty much now, but especially a few days from now that are going to be horrific.”

Altogether, close to 940,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, according to a tally being kept by Johns Hopkins University. More than 47,280 people have died from the virus, which emerged in China late last year.

The real figures are believed to be much higher because of testing shortages, differences in counting the dead and large numbers of mild cases that have gone unreported.

European nations facing high demand for intensive care beds were putting up makeshift hospitals, unsure whether they would find enough healthy medical staff to run them.

London is days away from unveiling a 4,000-bed temporary hospital built in a huge convention center.

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content_text:
PROCESSOR PIONEER:
 The chipmaker was the first to market the clock speed of its products, which was standard practice until the industry shifted to multicore designs

Intel Corp is trying to sell its new laptop chips in an old way — by emphasizing their speed.

The world’s biggest chipmaker is touting the clock speed of its new H line of processors, citing their ability to process data at more than 5 gigahertz (GHz), or 5 billion cycles per second.

“Frequency is the thing we’ve optimized for... These are the first mobile processors to break 5GHz,” Intel general manager Fredrik Hamberger said.

Laptops based on these new 10th-generation Core design chips are to start appearing this month.

The top-of-the-range part can count as fast as 5.3GHz when operating in “Turbo Boost” mode, Intel said.

That targets video gamers and professional content creators, who often influence what is considered the best PC hardware.

The new products are being rolled out as Intel faces rising threats to its industry leadership. Smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) started fielding more competitive chips about two years ago.

Intel pioneered the sale of processors based on clock speed.

In 2001, then-Intel president Paul Otellini promised that Intel’s Pentium design would scale all the way to 20GHz.

However, the firm’s engineers underestimated how much power was needed, and how much heat would be generated by such chips.

As the new century progressed, laptops became more popular, and those slim designs could not handle power-hungry, hot processors as well as desktop machines. So Intel and the industry started making multicore semiconductors that combined several processors into one.

Performance is now measured by the ability to run different workloads at the same time, rather than pure speed.

AMD sells new processors that have more cores than Intel chips, garnering praise from gamers and PC reviewers. That has helped the smaller company take market share from Intel.

Intel has also struggled to maintain its lead in manufacturing technology.

AMD outsources manufacturing to specialists such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which has production technology that is well ahead of Intel’s.

The new H range of Intel chips are made with 14-nanometer production technology.

The company originally planned to upgrade to 10-nanometer in 2017, but that is only beginning to happen in mass volume this year.

AMD’s latest processors use TSMC’s 7-nanometer capabilities.

Intel has said that most video games do not take advantage of multicore chips and are best served by higher clock speeds.

About 60 percent of the new models in the H range would be capable of hitting 5GHz or higher, it said.

That speed is only achieved in short bursts on a limited number of cores, or just a single core in a “turbo” mode that shuts down other cores.

The base rate, the normal operating speed of the chips, is between 2GHz and 3GHz, where most of the industry’s products have been for more than a decade.

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title: Intel emphasizing chips’ top-end speed


content_text:
Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) on Wednesday reported a record profit for last year, despite being barred from selling investment-linked policies as of September.

Net profit last year grew 28 percent year-on-year to NT$33.9 billion (US$1.12 billion), thanks to stable growth of interest income and high capital gains from investments in stocks and bonds, the insurer said in a statement.

Earnings per share were NT$2.81, up from NT$2.35 the previous year, it said.

The company’s financial statement showed that investment gains advanced 10.95 percent annually to NT$182.23 billion, boosted by a 5 percent increase in interest income to NT$132.62 billion and a 50 percent hike in realized gains to NT$38.91 billion.

Gains from real-estate investments fell 11 percent to NT$3.22 billion, while net foreign-exchange losses were NT$42.59 billion, compared with net foreign-exchange gains of NT$57 billion in 2018, company data showed.

Nan Shan’s compensations and payments to policyholders totaled NT$313 billion, up 22 percent from the previous year, while commission fees to salespersons totaled NT$19.83 billion, down 2 percent, data showed.

First-year premiums (FYPs) retreated for the first time in three years — down 16 percent to NT$167.1 billion — as Nan Shan halted sales of investment-linked policies due to a Financial Supervisory Commission ban over an information technology system malfunction, data showed.

Nan Shan, which had the second-highest for FYP income among its peers in 2018, was third last year, behind Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) with NT$206.3 billion and Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) with NT$201.1 billion, data showed.

Nan Shan last year ranked first in sales of accident and health policies, spillover insurance products and long-term care insurance, with its market share at 18 percent, 46 percent and 88 percent respectively.

The company’s total assets expanded 11 percent to NT$4.9 trillion and its net worth jumped 163 percent to NT$368.1 billion due to booming global financial markets last year, it said.

While Nan Shan said it would continue to provide new products to satisfy consumers’ protection and money management needs, the sector’s growth prospects have been dented by the COVID-19 pandemic, volatility on global markets and an economic slowdown.

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title: Nan Shan posts record profits despite ban


title: Asian stocks mixed amid virus fears

content_text:
Equity markets in Asia were mixed yesterday, but the COVID-19 pandemic is keeping traders on edge as it sweeps the planet, with infections approaching 1 million and nations forced to tighten already strict lockdown measures.

Oil soared 10 percent on hopes for a US intervention to end a Saudi Arabia-Russia price war, with US President Donald Trump saying that he expected the two to resolve the row, while dealers were also cheered by China’s decision to enter the market.

After two weeks of much-needed gains fueled by trillions of US dollars in stimulus and widespread monetary easing, focus has returned to the devastation wrought on populations and the long-term effects of the pandemic.

A man walks past an electronic board displaying trading on the Hang Seng outside of a bank in Hong Kong yesterday.
 Photo: AP

Trump’s COVID-19 task force has said that the US could see almost 250,000 deaths and the president warned of a “horrific” couple of weeks ahead.

His sobering comments came as a number of nations said that they would extend lockdowns, which have already gouged economies worldwide.

Adding to the unease on trading floors was a report saying that Beijing had masked the true extent of the virus in China, which is just coming out of an extended shutdown.

“The incremental news on the virus in the last 24 to 48 hours has been disappointing,” Mellon Investments Corp’s John Porter told Bloomberg TV.

“The global economy has hit a wall, there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and that’s contributing to the volatility in the markets and the downward trajectory we’ve seen the last few days,” Porter said.

US and European markets on Wednesday fell about 4 percent, with investors ignoring data showing far fewer private-sector jobs were lost last month than expected.

The selling extended into Asia early on, but investors managed to pare the losses, with some markets moving into positive territory.

Tokyo ended down 1.4 percent, while Sydney and Kuala Lumpur shed 2 percent apiece and Singapore dropped 0.2 percent. There were also losses in Wellington and Manila.

“Concerns are growing as infection cases are rising in Japan, as well as in the US and Europe,” Rakuten Securities Inc chief strategist Masayuki Kubota said.

“Japan at one point was considered a nation that was succeeding in containing infections, but the recent acceleration has prompted serious concerns,” he said.

“We assume that only the Bank of Japan has been buying massively this week,” he added.

Hong Kong shares yesterday reversed early losses to end on a high, adding 0.84 percent, while Shanghai rallied 1.7 percent.

Seoul and Bangkok both rose more than 2 percent and Jakarta put on more than 1 percent.

Taipei was closed due to the four-day Tomb Sweeping Day weekend.

“With the global economy in free fall, markets have gone back to risk-off mode ... as investors are struggling to look through President Trump’s ominous forecast suggesting Americans could keep dying into June,” AxiCorp Financial Services Pty market strategist Stephen Innes said.

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title: Scooter sales rise as people look to avoid public transit

content_text:
MRT TRAVEL FALLS:
 In February, ridership on the Taipei MRT System fell 8.96 percent from an average of 2.01 million per day in January

Scooter sales jumped 13 percent last month as more commuters turned to two-wheelers to avoid public transportation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest statistics showed.

Sales expanded to 74,493 units last month, compared with 65,913 units in February, statistics released on Wednesday by Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽工業) and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications showed.

In the first quarter, aggregate sales slid 0.51 percent year-over-year to 186,627 units, from 187,580 units, data showed.

Kwang Yang, the nation’s biggest scooter manufacturer, continued to lead the market by selling 24,136 vehicles last month, growing 6.12 percent from 20,785 units in the previous month, while electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) saw the fastest monthly growth at 40.06 percent to 8,619 units, up from 6,154 units in February, statistics showed.

“Some people did change how they commute by purchasing private vehicles because of the pandemic. The effect also reflected on overall scooter sales in March,” Gogoro said in a statement on Wednesday.

Combined electric scooter sales from the “Powered by Gogoro Network” rose 45 percent from a month earlier to 10,038 vehicles last month, Gogoro said.

Gogoro makes electric scooters for its network members, such as Aeon Motor Co (宏佳騰), Yamaha Motor Co, Suzuki Motor Corp and Motive Power Industry Co (摩特動力).

Statistics from Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (台北大眾捷運), which runs the mass rapid transport system in the capital, show a decline in average travelers per day.

An average of 1.8 million people per day rode the Taipei MRT system during the first half of last month, compared with 1.83 million in February, the company’s statistics showed.

The monthly reduction was more marked when stretching the period to all of February, which showed a monthly reduction of 8.96 percent from an average of 2.01 million per day in January, data showed.

“We did feel that consumers are concerned about taking public transit as the virus spreads. They are assessing whether it will be safer to drive themselves,” Aeon electric scooter chief executive officer Tony Lin (林東閔) said on the sidelines of a news conference last week. “We are monitoring whether this mindset will benefit local car and scooter [sectors].”

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content_text:
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the nation’s leading PC vendor, yesterday launched its first dual-screen gaming laptop powered by Intel Corp’s latest central processing units (CPUs).

The PC manufacturer’s announcement closely followed the US chipmaker’s unveiling of its 10th Generation Core H-series, the fastest commercial mobile processors with speeds of up to 5 gigahertz.

Although Asustek’s Zephyrus Duo 15, the highlight of its Republic of Gamers line, is not the company’s first laptop with two screens, it is its first designed specifically for gaming.

Nestled between the primary display panel and the keyboard, the secondary display, which Asustek calls the ScreenPad Plus, is angled for better viewing and cooling when the laptop is unfolded, it said.

The ScreenPad Plus can be used to expand the main display for a more immersive experience, or it can serve as a multi-tasking tool to display real-time gaming statistics or for streaming content while playing a game on the primary display, the company said.

Asustek said it is working with video game developers to adapt game interfaces to fit the secondary panel.

The Zephyrus Duo 15, which is to go on sale next month, is equipped with Nvidia Corp’s newest graphics processing units (GPUs) — GeForce RTX 2080 Super — based on the company’s Turing architecture.

Industry peer Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday revealed its premium Predator Triton 500 laptop, as well as a mid-range Nitro 5 unit, both of which are to be released next month.

The laptops also feature Intel’s new CPUs and the latest RTX GPUs from Nvidia.

New Taipei City-based gaming PC specialist Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星科技) also announced that its new gaming laptops — GS66 and GE66 — are outfitted with Intel’s H-Series processors and Nvidia’s latest GPUs.

MSI, which has recently set its sights on the growing content creation market, has further equipped its Creator 17 laptop, the first on the market to feature a mini LED display, with Intel and Nvidia’s new chips.

Its new offerings are to hit global markets later this month.

Meanwhile, PC maker Gigabyte Technology Co Ltd (技嘉) yesterday introduced new laptops from its gaming AORUS product line, as well as its content creation series AERO.

Gigabyte’s newest arrivals — AORUS 15G, 17G and 17X, and AERO 15 and 17 — all feature Intel and Nvidia’s latest chips and are already available for pre-order, with shipping to start on April 15.

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title: Asustek rolls out first dual-screen gaming laptop


title: Oil price plunge to benefit some Asian currencies: analyst

content_text:
The currencies of Asian energy importers are surfacing as a recovery play in emerging markets on the premise that an oil price slump and lower production costs will outlast the COVID-19 pandemic.

The currencies of Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines are positioned to benefit from the collapse in oil prices this year, once the world conquers the coronavirus, Credit Agricole CIB head of emerging markets research Sebastien Barbe said.

“There could be more discrimination around the story of oil,” France-based Barbe said in an interview. “Right now, all EM FX [emerging markets foreign exchange] has already suffered because of the COVID crisis. The reason why Asian FX have suffered is the virus, not oil.”

Lower crude prices have halved Asia’s oil bill on average and would facilitate the recovery in the region, “which is already leading the rest of the world in terms of health dynamics,” Barbe wrote in an earlier report.

Even if Saudi Arabia and Russia patch up their dispute, which triggered the oil slump, prices would be capped by weak global demand, he said.

The MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index last quarter dropped 6 percent, the most since September 2015, as lockdowns triggered by the pandemic crippled the global economy and oil prices cratered.

The currencies of oil exporters Russia, Colombia and Mexico, all of which last quarter tumbled at least 19 percent, would remain under pressure, Barbe said.

Barbe predicted a different outcome for Asian energy importers after this price slump compared with 2014 to 2016, when lower oil prices triggered sales of “risky” assets, including emerging market currencies.

“Highlighting Asia’s likely outperformance makes sense,” Barbe said.

Asian currencies would get additional support from the resilience of the yuan, as China seeks to keep its currency stable in uncertain times, Barbe said.

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title: Moody’s lowers outlook on Asian banks to ‘negative’

content_text:
Moody’s Investors Service yesterday lowered its outlook from “positive” to “negative” on banking systems in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan, as the COVID-19 pandemic constrains business activity and increases their asset risk.

Moody’s expects the operating environment for these systems to deteriorate significantly as a result of virus-related disruption, it said, adding that widespread business defaults and restrictions on social interactions would drive the global economy into a contraction.

Moody’s also expects the hotel, restaurant, airline, automotive and retail sectors to be the most severely hit, and that small and medium-sized enterprises would be particularly vulnerable.

If disruptions from the outbreak extend beyond the first half of this year, the credit effects on banks could be material, it said.

Although governments have introduced measures to shore up affected businesses and mitigate the negative effects on employment and households, Moody’s said it did not think the measures would be sufficient to fully offset the adverse effects of the virus-induced downturn on banks.

The economic and market upheaval caused by COVID-19 would depress business activity and increase banks’ asset risk, while credit costs would rise, it said.

As a result, bank profitability would decline, partly weighed by lower interest rates, it added.

Moody’s already had a “negative” outlook on banking systems in Hong Kong and Japan, which remain, it said.

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content_text:
China Fineblanking Technology Co (和勤精機), a manufacturer of metal stamping products, reported that revenue last month dropped as supply chain disruptions negatively affected clients’ orders, which also dragged first-quarter revenue to less than a year earlier.

The company said that it expected revenue to climb in the coming months as shipments would return to normal seasonal patterns from this month, given anticipated orders from a major US electric vehicle brand and Chinese automakers.

However, the company said that it has growing concerns over end demand in the European and US markets, as the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a significant blow to the global economy.

Revenue last month fell 7.21 percent year-on-year to NT$148.62 million (US$4.9 million), lowering the firm’s combined revenue in the first three months of this year by 1.54 percent to NT$418.81 million, the company said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.

“Due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, shipments in the first quarter were partially deferred to later dates, but they would return to the original growth trajectory from the second quarter,” the company said.

“As the pandemic has not been contained, we will continue to pay close attention to the developments related to the disease and take timely response measures,” it said.

China Fineblanking’s products consist of auto parts, which last month accounted for 60.91 percent of total revenue, and voice coil motor (VCM) plates for hard-disk drive applications, which contributed 35.78 percent.

Chinese automakers last month gradually resumed full production and their orders are predicted to return to normal levels this month, while shipments of electrical equipment bases and related components for the US electric vehicle brand are also expected to increase steadily in the second quarter, it said.

As for shipments of VCM plates, the virus outbreak could have a positive effect on the company, as the growing trends of remote working, online education and videoconferencing services would boost demand for cloud-based servers and data centers, China Fineblanking said.

The company’s board of directors has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$0.06 per share and a stock dividend of NT$0.48 per share, based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$0.26.

Net profit last year plunged 80.33 percent annually to NT$20.06 million and revenue dropped 14.7 percent to NT$2.09 billion, which the company attributed to declining vehicle sales in China and production adjustments at companies producing hard-disk drives.

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title: China Fineblanking sees revenue drop with orders


title: Older Amis singer records album of traditional songs

content_text:
By Hua Mang-Ching and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writer

An 81-year-old Amis woman has recorded an album of traditional Amis songs in an effort to preserve Amis music.

The album, titled Radiw Sanay, meaning “just sing” in Amis, features 18 traditional songs sung by Chien Yen-chun (簡燕春), also known as Osay Hongay, who said that she learned the songs when she was 17 from an elder and is now passing them down to the younger generation.

Chien said she felt “very shy” and “very excited” when she debuted the album on Saturday last week for the Tavalong community in Hualien County, where she shared the stage with young people from the tribe to perform the songs.

Eighty-one-year-old Amis woman Chien Yen-chun, foreground, sings traditional songs in Hualien County on Saturday last week.
 Photo: Hua Mang-Ching, Taipei Times

The album’s producer, Weng Yan-ting (翁嬿婷), a former documentary filmmaker, said that Chien is a wonderful singer; a member of the tribal organization Sisakawihay, which means “people gifted with spiritual powers;” and a leader when the community sings ritual songs for ancestral offerings.

Before soundtracks of ritual song performances were collected, Chien would let ancestors know through a divine ritual called Mifetik to show awe and respect for them, Weng said.

During the album’s production, Chien sometimes had to identify which songs were authentic and belonging to the Tavalong from recordings made up to 60 years ago, Weng said, adding that not only was she up to the task, she could even name the singers.

Chien said that she agreed to sing and help with collecting the soundtracks for the album because such cultural heritage would go extinct if no one listens to and learns from them.

Contributors include several young people from the community who conducted field surveys, recorded sounds and organized workshops on traditional Amis songs, she said.

Due to a limited budget, the 18-month production involved efforts such as fundraising and building a recording studio from scratch, with the final product consisting of 18 non-ritual songs and three remixed pieces featuring young singers from the community, she added.

Chien said that she was once approached by a record label to record albums because of her beautiful voice.

However, as the eldest daughter, she had to look after her younger siblings and perform work around the house, she said, adding that because she had not gone to school, she was illiterate, so she turned down the offer.

Now 81, Chien is realizing her childhood dream and making the most of her talent, Weng said.

Ho Chia-jung (何嘉榮), also known as Kaniw, a 23-year-old who last year moved back to Hualien after graduating from university, learned how to sing traditional songs from Chien in a workshop and contributed to the album.

“My community no longer has any elders who can sing these traditional songs,” said Ho, who is from the Fahol community, which neighbors the Tavalong, adding that he cherished the opportunity to help preserve traditional culture and encouraged more young people to learn about it.

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title: Global economy could shrink 1 percent

content_text:
‘BOLD POLICY’ NEEDED:
 The UN said that fiscal stimulus packages should prioritize health spending to contain the virus and provide income support to those most affected

The global economy could shrink almost 1 percent this year due to COVID-19, a sharp reversal from the pre-pandemic forecast of 2.5 percent growth, the UN said on Wednesday.

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs warned in a report that the decline could be even deeper if restrictions on economic activities extend into the third quarter of the year and if fiscal stimulus efforts do not support income and consumer spending.

By comparison, the world economy contracted 1.7 percent during the global financial crisis in 2009, it said.

A person passes through an ozone-based sanitation tunnel installed at the Guadalajara Central de Abastos market in Guadalajara, Mexico, as a preventive measure against the spread of COVID-19, on Wednesday.
 Photo: AFP

“Fears of the exponential spread of the virus — and growing uncertainties about the efficacy of various containment measures — have rocked financial markets worldwide, with market volatility surpassing its peak during the global financial crisis and equity markets and oil prices plunging to multi-year lows,” the report said.

In the best-case scenario, moderate declines in private consumption, investment and exports would be offset by increases in government spending in the seven major industrialized nations and China, leading to global growth of 1.2 percent this year.

In the worst-case scenario, global output would contract 0.9 percent, “based on demand-side shocks of different magnitudes” to China, Japan, South Korea, the US and the EU, as well as a 50 percent decline in oil prices, it said.

This scenario “assumes that wide-ranging restrictions on economic activities in the EU and the United States would extend until the middle of the second quarter,” the report said.

Increasing restrictions on the movement of people and lockdowns in Europe and North America “are hitting the service sector hard, particularly industries that involve physical interactions such as retail trade, leisure and hospitality, recreation and transportation services,” it said.

Those sectors account for more than a quarter of all jobs in those countries, and as these businesses lose revenue, unemployment is likely to increase sharply.

The report said that the negative effects of current economic restrictions in richer developed nations would soon spill over into developing countries, which would see lower trade and investment.

The severity of the economic impact — “whether a moderate or deep recession” — would largely depend on the duration of restrictions on the movement of people and economic activities in major economies and on the size and impact of fiscal responses, it said.

“Urgent and bold policy measures are needed, not only to contain the pandemic and save lives, but also to protect the most vulnerable in our societies from economic ruin and to sustain economic growth and financial stability,” UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Liu Zhenmin (劉振民) said.

The report said that fiscal stimulus packages should prioritize health spending to contain the spread of the virus and should provide income support to households most affected by the pandemic.

However, the outlook remains gloomy.

“A sharp decline in consumer spending in the European Union and the United States will reduce imports of consumer goods from developing countries,” the report said. “In addition, global manufacturing production could contract significantly, amid the possibility of extended disruptions to global supply chains.”

It said that several automakers have announced large-scale production suspensions in Europe and the US and many firms worldwide especially in the auto, consumer electronics and telecommunications industries “are facing shortages of intermediate components as exports from China contracted at an annual pace of 17.2 percent in the first two months of the year.”

“More severe and protracted production disruptions would affect a large number of developing economies that are deeply integrated in global supply networks,” it said.

Developing countries, particularly those dependent on tourism and commodity exports, also face heightened economic risks, including an increasing likelihood of “debt-distress” for many commodity-dependent economies, it said.

The report said that the collapse in global commodity prices is compounding the bleak fiscal outlook for many of these countries, which have not fully recovered from the aftereffects of sharp commodity price declines in 2014 to 2016.

The report said that the worsening pandemic is increasing deep-seated economic anxiety.

“Even in many high-income countries, a significant proportion of the population does not have enough financial wealth to live beyond the national poverty line for three months, causing many to fear for their economic security,” it said.

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title: More than 10,000 rare salmon recorded

content_text:
FORMOSAN LANDLOCKED SALMON:
 Conservation efforts have restored populations of the endangered species in several mountain creeks, the Shei-Pa National Park said

The nation has 10,532 Formosan landlocked salmon in several mountain creeks, a field survey by the Shei-Pa National Park administration showed.

This was the first time that the number of the endangered species had exceeded 10,000 since the park administration started its field surveys in 1999.

The salmon, which is also known as a “national treasure fish” or Taiwanese salmon, is endemic to Taiwan and at one point was close to extinction.

Formosan landlocked salmon are pictured in Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli Township in an undated photograph.
 Photo courtesy of Shei-Pa National Park Headquarters via CNA

By the time the park agency was established in 1992, the number of Formosan landlocked salmon had dwindled to about 200.

The park said it spent last year surveying the number of Formosan landlocked salmon and released the results this week.

Specifically, the largest group of Formosan landlocked salmon, numbering 5,392, was found in the Cijiawan Creek (七家灣溪) in Taichung. The creek has already been identified by researchers as a natural habitat of the species.

Another 1,126 were found in the Rahao Creek (羅葉尾溪) and 121 in the Arikatsu Creek (有勝溪), in the upper reaches of Taichung’s Dajia River (大甲溪), and 136 in the Leshan Creek (樂山溪).

Nantou County also hosts large numbers of the fish, with 3,757 found in the Hehuan Creek (合歡溪).

Salmon in these creeks were growing naturally and steadily, the park said, adding that there is no need to raise the fish in hatcheries and release them into creeks.

The park attributed the success in restoring the natural growth of the species to a clear conservation policy that was established following a seminar hosted in 2000, which set a goal of restoring the Formosan landlocked salmon in Dajia River’s five creeks within 30 years.

The park spent the first four years trying to raise farmed Taiwanese salmon to ensure that the original genes of the species could be preserved.

It then worked to restore growth in the Cijiawan Creek by improving its five check dams and expropriating 8.1 hectares of private farmland to ensure sufficient waterflow and help preserve the forests, the park said.

Wuling Farm was asked to reduce its arable land to 5 hectares, it added.

In addition to the Cijiawan Creek, the park released salmon from the hatcheries into creeks that records show used to host the species.

Since 2000, the park and the Atayal community have been patrolling these creeks to protect these farmed salmon, it said.

The agency has set new conservation goals: From now to 2022, it would restore the population of salmon in the Sijielan Creek (司界蘭溪) and Nanhu Creek (南湖溪), and by 2022, traces of the salmon should be found in all five major tributary creeks of the Dajia River.

Salmon from the hatcheries are to be released every August, instead of March, it added.

To raise their survival rate, the fish should be at least 10cm long and released every 100m along the same creek, it said.

The check dam at the intersection of the Skitlan and Ikawan creeks has been damaged, which should raise the water level in both creeks, it said.

However, this should improve the natural habitats for the salmon, it said.

The park is also working with the Taroko National Park Administration by entrusting the latter with the task of monitoring the salmon released in the creeks.

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title: Couple who sold two children get five-year jail terms

content_text:
A husband and wife in Yunlin County on Wednesday were each sentenced to five years in prison by the local district court for selling two of their children.

The verdict can still be appealed.

Although the couple, both in their 30s, claimed that they sold the children because they were poor, they were found guilty and handed a three-year prison sentence for one child and a four-year sentence for the other, the court verdict said.

However, after taking their economic difficulties into consideration, the court ruled that the couple should serve only five years in prison.

The money they made from selling the children would be confiscated, it said.

A man identified as Kuo Chen-kang (郭鎮綱), who brokered the sale of the two children to a man surnamed Lin (林), received a two-year jail sentence, suspended for four years.

He was also ordered to pay NT$200,000.

The charges against Lin were dropped as he had since passed away.

The couple led a hard life, with the husband doing errands to support the family, presiding Judge Wang Shao-ming (王紹銘) said.

They had four children, two girls and two boys, and were listed as a low-income family in 2015, Wang said.

They had a fifth child, a boy, in 2016, who Kuo helped them sell to Lin for NT$500,000, with the process being legally ratified as an adoption.

After Lin expressed an interest in buying a second child, Kuo approached the couple and asked them to have another child for a payment of NT$800,000.

Lin also agreed to pay the wife NT$20,000 a month while she was pregnant.

She gave birth to a girl, who Lin also adopted.

Although the couple can appeal their sentence and the wife has said that she plans to seek the return of the children, the two adoptees were to remain in the custody of Lin’s wife.

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title: Death row inmate Weng executed

content_text:
FAMILY FEUD:
 Weng Jen-hsien, who was convicted of killing six people in 2016, was the second prisoner to be executed since President Tsai Ing-wen took office

A death row inmate was executed on Wednesday, less than a year after he was convicted of killing six people by setting fire to his home.

Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that he signed the order and the death sentence was carried out on Wednesday afternoon in New Taipei City.

The Supreme Court on July 10 last year sentenced 53-year-old Weng Jen-hsien (翁仁賢) to death after he was convicted of killing his parents, niece, nephew and nephew’s wife and his parents’ caregivers.

Weng set fire to his home in Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭) on Feb. 7, 2016, after a family feud and the six died in the blaze, while four other relatives sustained injuries, the court said.

There are now 39 inmates on death row in Taiwan. The last execution before Weng’s was on Aug. 31, 2018.

It was Taiwan’s second execution since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party took office in 2016.

Prior to that, in the eight years former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in office, 33 death row inmates were executed.

Separately on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced four men and a woman to life in prison for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl in May 2015.

The girl, a junior-high school student from Hsinchu County surnamed Chiu (邱), reportedly had a verbal dispute with a 27-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃).

Furious about the way Huang was treated, her boyfriend, surnamed Lin (林), led three other men in abducting 14-year-old Chiu.

They took her from an Internet cafe to a riverside park, where they raped her and left.

Two of the men later returned to the site and found the girl dead. They subsequently notified the other three and burned Chiu’s body.

Lin had twice been given the death penalty before the High Court ruled that the five be handed life sentences.

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the High Court decision.

Wednesday’s ruling is final.

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people: 馬英九 蔡清祥 蔡英文


content_text:
A specialist in helping victims of sexual abuse on Sunday urged the public to take male rape seriously after a Taiwanese comedian and a Taipei city councilor both shared about being raped when they were children.

Because of gender stereotyping, people tend to view males as strong, and not susceptible to rape or sexual violence, Garden of Hope Foundation executive director Wang Yue-hao (王玥好) said.

Rape and sexual assault are not issues that only affect females, she added.

Just because males can be taller or stronger does not mean that they cannot be verbally or physically intimidated or threatened, said Wang, who has three decades of counseling experience, including counseling male victims of sexual attack.

The percentage of males reporting sexual assault has increased significantly over the past decade, she said, citing Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics.

Ten years ago, only about 3 to 5 percent of reported sexual assaults were perpetrated against male victims, but the number last year rose to about 10 percent, she added.

The rising number of male victims reporting sexual abuse might also indicate that males are becoming more willing to seek help, Wang said.

To meet the rising demand, her foundation has set up a hotline for males seeking counseling, she said.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage for male victims of sexual abuse to seek help or share their pain with family and friends, Wang said, urging people in contact with male victims to believe their stories and show them compassion.

Family and friends should avoid sharing intimate details of the victims’ experiences with others, which could further traumatize them, she added.

Wang made the comments following a disclosure by Taiwanese stand-up comedian Brian Tseng (曾博恩), who revealed that he was raped multiple times in elementary and secondary school.

Tseng did not share whether the perpetrators were men or women, or provide further details.

As a victim of rape, Tseng said that he believes one can let go of the painful past and move on.

In a show of support for Tseng, Taipei City Councilor Chiu Wei-chieh (邱威傑) — better known as YouTuber “Froggy” — on Saturday last week said that he, too, had been a victim of rape when he was 10 years old.

The incident took place at a hospital, Chiu wrote on Facebook, adding that his attacker was a man at least twice his age at the time.

Chiu said that he did not share his experience with anyone until years afterward, because Taiwanese traditionally do not think that men can be the victim of a sexual assault.

A sexual assault is when one person coerces another to engage in a sexual act against their will, and it is a painful experience whether the victim is a man or a woman, he added.

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title: Rape and sexual assault also male issues: specialist


title: Paul Chiang retrospective on at TFAM

content_text:
A retrospective of more than 200 works by Paul Chiang (江賢二) is now open at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), his first solo exhibition at the museum.

Art critic Jason Wang (王嘉驥), who has curated more than 40 exhibitions, including the inaugural Taiwan Biennial in 2008 and the Taiwan pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, was invited to be the guest curator of the exhibition, the museum said.

The works in “Paul Chiang: A Retrospective” (江賢二:回顧展) span Chiang’s 55-year career from the mid-1960s to today, the museum said.

Artist Paul Chiang speaks at a news conference at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum on Sunday about an exhibition of his work entitled “Paul Chiang: A Retrospective.”
 Photo: CNA

Born in 1942 in what is now the special municipality of Taichung, Chang graduated from National Taiwan Normal University in 1965 before moving abroad., it said.

He studied and lived in Paris and New York from the late 1960s to the 1980s, it said.

Early in his career, he would shut the windows in his studio and paint in the absence of natural light, it said.

The series Hundred Year Temple (百年廟) includes some of the first works that Chiang painted after returning to Taiwan in the 1990s, the museum said.

Like his earlier series Notre Dame de Paris (巴黎聖母院), painted when he lived in the French capital, Hundred Year Temple uses somber images to capture the spiritual experience of religious sites, it said.

Chiang moved to Taitung County in 2008, where he has since created the Pisilian (比西里岸之夢) series, among other works, it said.

There, “the window that the artist had kept shut for years finally opened,” the museum said, adding there is a colorfulness in Chiang’s later paintings not found in his early works.

Chiang’s works also pay homage to classical music, which he has loved from an early age, and is “spiritual food” in his daily life, it said.

The retrospective, which opened on Saturday last week, runs through June 14.

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title: Commercial property deals retreat 60%

taiwan-subdivisions: 北投 信義 南港

content_text:
HOLDING OUT:
 Sellers struggling to stay afloat and buyers waiting for price corrections remain on the sidelines to see how the COVID-19 crisis turns out for the property market

Commercial property transactions last quarter totaled NT$12.9 billion (US$425.63 million), declining 60 percent from the same period last year, as buyers turned conservative amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest data released by property brokers showed.

Industrial properties accounted for 80 percent of transactions, followed by offices at NT$1.34 billion, Colliers International Taiwan (高力國際) said in a quarterly survey yesterday.

However, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan (戴德梁行) data showed that overall deals totaled NT$9.51 billion, representing a 61 percent retreat.

“The market might see a panic sell-off if the outbreak persists beyond this quarter,” Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) told an online news briefing last week.

Yen compared the COVID-19 pandemic to a black swan that has not only sickened people worldwide, but also snapped an expected recovery for the local property market.

Sellers are struggling to stay afloat, while buyers are waiting for price corrections, Yen said, adding that both sides prefer to stay on the sidelines to see how the global health crisis pans out.

Pent-up demand could evolve into a protracted recession if the disease drives up business closures and pushes a large number of people out of work, he said.

Colliers Taiwan said the outbreak has prompted companies in the region to slow expansion plans, with the effects most evident at retail stores, hotels and restaurants.

Travel restrictions and “social distancing” recommendations make operating those establishments difficult, Colliers said.

Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport last month saw an average of between 2,000 and 3,000 passengers per day, a 90 percent decline from a year earlier, government data showed.

In February, restaurant sales shrank 30 percent year-on-year, while revenues at department stores tumbled 36 percent, defying cutthroat discounts to attract customers, Colliers said.

Land deals appeared unaffected by the virus, given record first-quarter volume of NT$84.2 billion.

The superficies right to regenerate the former site of the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 3 in the prime Xinyi District (信義) made a substantial contribution of NT$31.28 billion.

Sharp competition for the lot from domestic life insurance companies reflected keen interest in regular rental income from properties in central business districts, Colliers said.

It would take several years for Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽), which bought the rights, to develop the complex, which is next to Taipei 101.

A positive long-term profitability outlook also accounted for active land trading in Taipei’s second-tier Beitou (北投) and Nangang (南港) districts, as well as in Taichung, Colliers Taiwan said.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Psychiatrist spurs people to seek help for mental health

A Kaohsiung psychiatrist has urged people to seek help for any mental health problems they face amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Chen Feng-wei (陳豐偉), a psychiatrist based in Fongshan District (鳳山), said that financial pressure caused by the effects of the pandemic on business has resulted in some people experiencing low moods.

Several people who have recently sought psychiatric help are workers in the travel or restaurant industry, as well as taxi drivers, he said.

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread, people should seek help for anxiety, sleeping difficulties and other mental health issues, he added.

They could visit a psychiatrist, ask friends, family members or local representatives for help, seek out government resources or turn to religious or charitable organizations, Chen said.

Do not try to tough it out alone, he said.

Chen said that the pandemic has caused some patients he had not seen recently to return for appointments, adding that some whose conditions had been stable have needed the dosage of their medication increased.

About 10 percent of recent visits by patients have been related to the pandemic, he said.

In one patient, a 60-year-old woman, symptoms of anxiety were exacerbated because she was worried that her child, who was studying abroad, would be infected on their way back to Taiwan, Chen said.

Chen said that in such cases, he might prescribe medications to help patients relax and remind them not to be overly anxious.

He said that he would remind them to wear masks and maintain a safe distance from others, and reassure them that their child would make the necessary preparations.

Parents should protect themselves as well, he added.

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content_text:
新冠肺炎疫情導致許多人在家上班上課、影片會議平台需求增加，Zoom 3月用戶數因而暴增，幾乎是勁敵微軟線上會議系統Teams的三倍。

路透報導，據研究業者Apptopia統計，Zoom光是30日每日用戶數就增至空前的484萬人，主因為全球上百萬名學童轉向虛擬學習計畫，企業也要求員工在家上班，以遏制疫情。以商用為主的Teams同日用戶數為156萬人；Slack為不到50萬人。

若看整個3月，Zoom活躍用戶數比一年前平均增加151%。然而，用戶數成長卻不見得推升Zoom的營收增加。

Zoom財務長斯特克伯格表示：「我們用戶數確實有所成長，但絕大多數都使用免費版。」

Zoom在學校和學生中擁有大量的追隨者，該公司日前解除提供給學校的免費帳戶40分鐘會議限制，以幫助推動線上課程。

投資銀行D.A. Davidson分析師賈陸利亞表示：「首先，就軟體而言，Zoom最大的優勢是可依需求調整、便於操作且可適用於各種裝置。其次，Zoom有免費增值（freemium）的模式，讓企業能在大規模採用前可以先試過水溫。因此，才這麼容易擴大版圖。」

疫情
 新冠肺炎
 投資銀行

title: 視訊平台大戰…Zoom用戶比微軟多兩倍


title: 視訊軟體Zoom因疫情火紅 NASA等機構禁用

content_text:
2019年冠狀病毒疾病（COVID-19，新冠肺炎）大流行，讓視訊會議軟體Zoom使用激增。但美國包括NASA與SpaceX基於「重大隱私及安全疑慮」，要求不得使用這款App。

美國國家航空暨太空總署（NASA）發言人謝爾霍茲（Stephanie Schierholz）也表示，已禁止員工使用Zoom。美國執法部門也對Zoom的安全性提出警告。

根據美國約翰霍普金斯大學（Johns Hopkins University）最新統計，美國的新型冠狀病毒確診人數為21萬6515人，為全球最多。為防堵疫情擴大，許多美國人被要求在家隔離，Zoom及其他視訊軟體的使用急遽上升。

根據路透社掌握的文件內容，太空探索科技公司（SpaceX）於3月28日發出的電子郵件中告訴員工，即日起不能使用Zoom。SpaceX在信中表示「我們了解到，許多員工利用這項工具來舉行會議」，要求員工使用電子郵件、簡訊及電話來替代。

太空探索科技公司是電動車大廠特斯拉（Tesla）執行長馬斯克（Elon Musk）旗下的私人火箭公司。

美國聯邦調查局（FBI）波士頓辦公室3月30日發佈有關Zoom的警示，呼籲Zoom用戶不要在公共或是共享網域內舉行視訊會議。FBI先前已接獲2起通報，有不明人士入侵學校的視訊會議。這類駭客入侵線上會議的現象被稱為zoombombing。

調查報導類的新聞網站「攔截」（The Intercept）3月31日報導，Zoom的視訊會議並非在所有會議參加者間（end-to-end）加密傳輸，Zoom本身也可看到用戶的會議內容。

Zoom未立即對此做出回應，但過去已建議用戶開啟平台上所有隱私權的功能。（譯者：侯姿瑩/核稿：陳亦偉）1090401

太空
 SpaceX
 FBI

events: COVID-19 新冠肺炎 冠狀病毒


title: 亞馬遜砸重金進軍電玩業  首款原創遊戲5月推出

content_text:
紐約時報報導，電子商務巨人亞馬遜（Amazon）在數位娛樂市場爭霸戰中又開啟新的戰線，正投資數億美元開發電玩遊戲，第一款原創遊戲「Crucible」預定下月推出，希望躋身頂尖電玩遊戲開發商之林。

亞馬遜砸重金開發的「Crucible」是一款野心勃勃的科幻小說式組隊射擊作戰遊戲，上市時程因新冠肺炎疫情攪局而屢次延後，如今預計5月上市。此外，亞馬遜也在開發一個全功能的雲端遊戲平台，代號「Tempo計畫」，並且著手開發新的休閒遊戲，讓旗下高人氣串流平台Twitch的用戶能即時廣播、觀看。

紐時報導指出，這是繼亞馬遜過去十年來躍為串流影集和電影製作者之後，該公司最重大的原創娛樂事業投資，目標是迎戰Google和微軟等策略性競爭對手也在積極擴充的電玩服務。

贏得這一役的獎品很豐盛：吸引數百萬計的消費者加入亞馬遜的服務生態系。過去十年來，電玩遊戲業已茁壯成世上人氣最旺、利潤也最豐厚的娛樂類型之一。

分析師預估，2020年遊戲業營收可望超過1,600億美元，市場規模將是全球錄音音樂工業（約190億美元）與全球電影票房（約430億美元）加總之後的兩倍多。

如今，隨著新冠肺炎疫情迫使世界各地民眾居家避疫，電玩遊戲更熱門了。

新冠肺炎
 疫情

events: 新冠肺炎 發電


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FILLING UP:
 Beijing has started buying up cheap crude for its strategic reserves, which has helped oil prices that have fallen to as low as US$10 per barrel in some regions

Oil yesterday rebounded strongly in Asian trade on hopes for a US intervention to end a Saudi Arabia-Russia price dispute amid the coronavirus pandemic.

However, analysts said that the market remained hobbled by low demand because of business shutdowns, the grounding of air travel and other social distancing measures put in place to contain the outbreak.

In afternoon Asian trade, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading 7.14 percent higher at US$21.76 a barrel.

International benchmark Brent crude advanced 8.21 percent to US$26.77 a barrel.

Both benchmarks on Monday fell to their lowest levels in 18 years, with WTI briefly dipping below US$20 a barrel.

“Oil prices are higher on news that [US] President [Donald] Trump will hold a round table discussion with the country’s top oil executives,” AxiCorp Financial Services Pty global market strategist Stephen Innes said.

The meeting is “presumably to discuss possible coordinated production curtailment measures in an attempt to buy some time for the struggling US shale industry,” he said in a note.

Innes said that Trump’s “acknowledging of the problems in the oil patch is critical” as he could be instrumental in resolving the price war that has led to the supply glut.

Phillip Futures Ltd in Singapore said oil prices were also supported by “reports that Russia does not want to boost its crude oil production in the current environment” and traders expecting US shale producers to “come under pressure to cut production.”

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) said that US crude prices were also being bolstered by reports that the US energy department might rent space in the country’s emergency oil reserves to local producers.

“This would help drillers store excess crude,” ANZ said.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, on Wednesday ramped up its price war with Russia, boosting crude oil supply to record levels.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco) offered 18.8 million barrels on a single day, despite pressure from Washington.

Oil also surged as China planned to start buying up cheap crude for its strategic reserves, adding to tentative signs of growing risk appetite across financial markets that is propelling prices higher.

Futures extended gains as Beijing instructed government agencies to start filling state stockpiles after oil plunged 66 percent over the first three months of the year.

Dated Brent, the benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s physical supply, was assessed at US$15.135 on Wednesday, the lowest since at least 1999. Crude has slipped below US$10 in some areas including Canada and shale regions in the US, while some grades have posted negative prices.

China’s purchases are likely to help soak up some excess oil as the market faces an unprecedented collapse in consumption.

Top trader Vitol SA said demand would be destroyed by as much as 30 million barrels a day this month.

In addition to state-owned reserves, Beijing might use commercial space for storage, while also encouraging companies to fill their own tanks, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The initial target is to hold government stockpiles equivalent to 90 days of net imports, which could eventually be expanded to as much as 180 days when including commercial reserves.

“The oil price roller coaster hasn’t stopped,” Vanda Insights founder Vandana Hari said. “Any sense of stabilization is likely to prove fleeting until we’re past the coronavirus peak in the US and worst-hit countries of Europe.”

Additional reporting by Bloomberg

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title: Oil rebounds on hopes of US help


title: EDITORIAL: Taiwanese need to chill out online

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Burger King Taiwan on Wednesday last week posted an update on Facebook advertising a new “Wuhan pneumonia” (武漢肺炎) home delivery meal, catering to customers hankering for a Whopper, but who wished to avoid visiting one of its outlets.

“Wuhan pneumonia” is the term commonly used in Taiwan to describe COVID-19.

Beijing has been waging an extensive propaganda campaign against the use of the words “Wuhan” or “China” in reference to the novel coronavirus, calling it racist and discriminatory. Meanwhile, Chinese officials have claimed that the coronavirus might have originated in the US.

The intention is obvious: to distract attention from the Chinese Communist Party’s cover-up and epic mismanagement of the outbreak.

Burger King China on Sunday posted an apology on Sina Weibo (it could not post on Facebook as the social media site is blocked in China).

“Burger King Taiwan Region used the phrase ‘Wuhan pneumonia’ in a post on Facebook. Although Burger King China and Burger King Taiwan Region are separate companies, we would like to express our anger at the inappropriate language,” it said.

Burger King Taiwan then decided to remove its post and substituted any previous mention of “Wuhan pneumonia” with “novel coronavirus.”

Furious Taiwanese immediately plastered the page with a torrent of invective.

The BBC on Thursday last week published a report that quoted the mother of a British woman who was quarantined in Taiwan.

The mother claimed that her daughter was being kept “in prison-like conditions” in a “filthy” room with no hot water and nowhere to wash her clothes.

Taiwanese expressed their anger on social media and it was not long before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was pressed into action.

The ministry sent the BBC a lengthy rebuttal, which was added to the report on the BBC News Web site. Several hours later, photographs showing a spotless room and a wide, airy balcony also appeared.

Taiwanese social media users this week criticized the government’s donation of masks to nations most severely affected by the pandemic, even though the recipient nations used Twitter to publicly thank Taiwan, some including the ministry’s #Taiwanhelps hashtag in their posts.

All of this was reminiscent of a special Taiwan edition of Japanese men’s magazine Brutus in 2017, which featured a photograph of a typical night market scene in Tainan on its cover.

While many Taiwanese would presumably be delighted at the positive coverage of their nation, some criticized the magazine online, saying that the image was “insufficiently beautiful.”

Before reaching for their keyboards, Taiwanese should take a moment to consider whether their actions are causing more harm than good.

Expressing dissatisfaction with “negative coverage” that “spoils Taiwan’s image” runs the danger of making Taiwanese appear thin-skinned and churlish.

Taiwanese complain about their nation’s diminished international profile, but now that more attention is being focused on the nation — the vast majority of it extremely positive — Taiwanese need to learn to take the rough with the smooth.

There cannot be many nations whose foreign ministries rebut such trifling news reports.

As for Chinese interference, the school bully analogy is appropriate: just ignore it. Reacting simply emboldens the bully.

Instead of complaining, Taiwanese should get behind the government’s attempts to help other nations in their battle to contain the pandemic, and take pride in and promote their nation’s achievements in disease prevention.

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