US President Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law on Wednesday. It bans the export of certain non-lethal munitions to Hong Kong police. “Now is the time for the Western world to stand with Hong Kong,” he said. Some urged Washington to penalize Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) over the government’s handling of the crisis. While the KMT supports freedom of speech for Hong Kongers, violent acts by “rioters” should not be validated, Huang said.

Reuters, TOKYOJapan’s retail sales last month tumbled at their fastest pace in more than four-and-a-half years as a sales tax hike prompted consumers to cut spending, raising a red flag over the strength of domestic demand. However, some analysts have warned the tax hike, previously postponed twice, could leave the economy without a growth driver amid a slump in exports and production, and as other factors drag on the consumer sector. “Incomes haven’t been rising originally, so consumption hasn’t been growing since before the sales tax hike.”The slump was also sharper than the declines reported after the previous two sales tax hikes, in 1997 and 2014, suggesting other factors are dragging on consumption. Seasonally adjusted retail sales dropped 14.4 percent month-on-month last month, the data showed. Others also noted more structural pressures faced by retailers even before the sales tax hike, such as the prolonged decline in real wages.

By Ann Maxon / Staff reporterChinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Simon Chang (張善政) yesterday apologized for saying that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) would end up back in a hospital if he kept criticizing the KMT. Chang yesterday said he was sorry if his remarks made Su or his family uncomfortable. He had meant to urge Su to stop criticizing others and do his work as premier, Chang said. Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said that as a former premier, Chang should always speak the truth and not allow elections to lead him astray. Asked if she would press charges against Chang, Su Chiao-hui said that the harm done by his remark cannot be undone.

By Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporterAerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空工業) yesterday signed a letter of intent with state-owned China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) as it moves to diversify its business into aircraft seating and components maintenance. AIDC, the nation’s largest civil and military aircraft manufacturer, can now provide commercial airline seats after it received a letter of design approval in May from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its three-abreast seats, AIDC chairman Hu Kai-hung (胡開宏) told reporters. AIDC would work hard on a bid for about 600 economy-class seats that CAL needs as it retrofits two older Boeing 747s it plans to sell, Hu said. Although the revenue generated by the CAL seating deal would not be much, it would demonstrate AIDC’s ambition to enter this market, Hu said. The company would also discuss what maintenance services it could provide to CAL, even though the airline has its own maintenance department, he said.

Reuters, SHANGHAIChinese state media has released trial footage it says proves that a Chinese defector seeking asylum in Australia is a convicted criminal with a history of fraud. However, China accused the 26-year-old man of being an unemployed fraudster and fugitive. Shanghai police said an investigation was launched in April after Wang was allegedly involved in automobile import fraud in February totalling 4.6 million yuan (US$653,836). He had been given a suspended 15-month prison sentence in 2016 in a separate fraud case, police added. “Certain Australian media and institutions have been creating and hyping up ‘Chinese espionage’ and ‘Chinese infiltration’ with all kinds of false exaggeration and bias,” the spokesman said.

Staff writer, with CNA, WashingtonUS Senator Ted Cruz is soon to propose a bill that would reverse a ban on Taiwanese diplomats and military personnel displaying Taiwan’s national flag on US government property. “Cruz is working on legislation with his colleagues that would allow diplomats and service members in the Taiwanese military to display their flag and wear their uniforms while in the US on official business,” a spokesman for the US senator said on Monday. In effect, it directs the US Department of State to remove US government guidelines from 2015 that prohibit all symbols of Taiwan sovereignty from being displayed on US premises, the source said. The policy has been interpreted by the US Department of Defense to include military uniforms that include Taiwan’s flag or the name “Republic of China.”The 2015 guidelines stemmed from an incident in January of that year when Taiwan’s representative office in the US raised Taiwan’s flag at Twin Oaks Estate, the former residence of Taiwanese ambassadors to the US. The flag-raising ceremony was the first one held in public since Taiwan and the US ended official diplomatic relations in 1979.

In an international survey on how people evaluate their own sense of humor, Italians found themselves to be the most humorous, while Taiwanese ranked only 15th out of 25 nations and regions, Chen said. Taiwan presented the biggest differences between men and women on self-perceived humor, with male respondents saying that they use more corrective humor, while female respondents leaned toward benevolent humor, he said. In another survey of only Taiwanese, Chen’s team divided humor into four types — self-promoting, self-deprecating, compassionate and sarcastic — and used fMRI data to measure respondents’ brain activity. Women were found to use compassionate humor more than men, perhaps because they are more empathetic and care more about interpersonal relationships, he said. Meanwhile, people with Asperger syndrome can tell jokes, but they have difficulty doing so without hurting others’ feelings, he added.

The Guardian, TOKYOA manga depicting the plight of a Uighur woman who was detained and tortured in China has racked up millions of views and spawned versions in several languages. Media organizations this week revealed that China is holding more than 1 million people from the Uighur community and other Muslim minorities without trial. Shimizu’s short manga, which has been translated into English, Chinese, Uighur and other languages, tells the story of Mihrigul Tursun, a Uighur woman who was detained three times by Chinese authorities on returning from Egypt. Shimizu’s manga has attracted about 2.5 million views and has been shared more than 86,000 times since it appeared on Twitter in August, Kyodo news agency reported. Telling people about them through manga is my mission,” Shimizu told Kyodo.

By William Hetherington / Staff writer, with CNATaiwanese-Canadian model and actor Godfrey Gao (高以翔) died yesterday after experiencing sudden cardiac arrest while filming a reality show in China’s Zhejiang Province. Gao was unconscious for about three minutes before people realized that his heart had stopped, a source familiar with the matter said, asking to remain anonymous. Participants in the show, produced by Zhejiang Television (浙江衛視), must run through Ningbo’s central business district at night, while being chased. Several camera operators focused on Gao after he collapsed, as they initially thought that Gao’s collapse was planned content for the episode, the report said. Asked for more information, Zhejiang Television told Tencent Holdings (騰訊) and Sina Corp (新浪) — which manage Weibo — that it would update them when more information was available.

This year’s Lowy Institute Global Diplomacy Index maps the size and reach of 61 diplomatic networks around the world by embassies, consulates, permanent missions and other diplomatic posts. “It is — by a wide margin — the most important place for countries to locate their diplomatic posts ... China is a distant second.”China continues to expand its diplomatic footprint — it has added five posts in the past two years — while the US’ footprint has shrunk. Staff vacancies nearly three years into Trump’s term are concerning, but the US’ diplomatic influence, developed over decades, would not be unwound in a single presidential term, Bley said. “Instead, President Trump’s abrupt abandonment of multilateral initiatives — the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement — is a greater threat to enduring US diplomatic influence,” she said. Australia’s diplomatic footprint ranks 27th in the world.

Fears about climate change are prompting worldwide action, but one knock-on effect in the United States is mounting anxiety about everything from plastics to class-based environmental disparities. “Climate anxiety counseling, 5 cents. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said Americans can be broken into six categories based on their reaction to climate change, ranging from alarmed to dismissive. “The common wisdom is that only upper-middle-class, white, well-educated, latte-sipping liberals care about climate change. Psychological responses to climate change such as “conflict avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness and resignation are growing,” according to a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica.

Although Wang did not mention any specific Taiwanese media outlets, Vision Times, a New York-based weekly newspaper, accused EBC, CtiTV and CTV of accepting funding from China. “We of course are concerned about the development of these allegations. The report should be uploaded to its Web site for the public to view, the commission said. “He also required that guests invited on political talk shows must be from diverse backgrounds,” he said. It also ruled that TVBS should submit a statement about the two men’s job descriptions.

Ye Yuan-zhi (葉元之), the spokesman for Han’s campaign headquarters, yesterday denied that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate’s wife had evaded taxes. Lee’s accountant had calculated the taxes differently from the National Taxation Bureau, Ye said. If what Lee did should be described as evading taxes, then President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) brother would be worse, he said. “That is what you should call deliberately evading taxes,” he said. Han’s campaign office on Nov. 16 released a list of six homes that the couple purchased after reports that they bought multiple homes.

Authorities are to start enforcing an amendment to Article 103-1 of the rules, which was announced in June, after giving Uber drivers a five-month grace period that included a two-month extension. From Sunday, vehicle rental operators working with Uber drivers offering taxi services would be fined NT$9,000 to NT$90,000, the ministry said. Uber drivers who have not become legal taxi drivers may continue to provide vehicle rental services, provided that they charge customers hourly or daily rates, it said. “We have encouraged Uber drivers to obtain business registration certificates by passing the taxi drivers’ exam. It added that it worked with the National Police Agency to increase the number of exam sessions so that more Uber drivers can obtain business certificates.

By Chien Hui-ju and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writerTaiwanese fruit exports to Malaysia and Indonesia are expected to exceed NT$44.8 million (US$1.47 million) by Sunday, the Council of Agriculture said in a report on Saturday. The forecast came after the council commissioned the Commerce Development Research Institute to hold a “Taiwanese Produce and Halal Food” exhibition, which ends on Sunday, at the Mercato Supermarket in the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur shopping center in Malaysia. The department said that it has invited a renowned local chef, Collin Edward Lim, to create Malaysian dishes using Taiwanese produce. The project provides participants with an export platform and assists them with expanding their market share based on their order niche points, Tang said. The council said that it would continue to invest in and assist program participants, vowing to introduce the excellence of Taiwanese agricultural products to Malaysia and other Muslim-majority countries.