Man who allegedly faked his own death for insurance money returned to Taiwan
(CAN)-- A man who was accused of faking his own death and that of his wife in 2001 to collect NT$64.82 million (US$2.20 million) in life insurance was escorted back to Taiwan from China by police Sunday.
Hsu Wen-tung, 66, was found when his wife died of a heart attack in Jiangsu Province, China in May this year and their children tried to have the body returned to Taiwan for burial, the police said.
After almost five months of negotiations with Chinese law enforcement authorities, Taiwan police were able to bring Hsu back to Taiwan at 3:45 p.m. Sunday.
Hsu and his wife allegedly fled to China with fake passports and had been living there under false identities since 2005 after defrauding an insurance company of a huge sum of money.
The couple used to run a construction business that accumulated tens of millions of Taiwan dollars in debt.
During a typhoon in July 2001, they faked a car crash on the northeastern Coastal Highway toward Yilan and were reported missing, with the help of their children, according to police.
Their wrecked car was found the next day off the roadway, apparently having fallen from the highway at the 84 kilometer mark, but there were no bodies in the vehicle, police said.
Police said the couple hid in a rented flat in New Taipei for four years before fleeing to China.
Meanwhile, their three children, listed as beneficiaries on the couple's life insurance policies, sought to have their parents legally declared dead and to claim the insurance payments for accidental death.
Cathay Life Insurance Co., which had sold the couple the policies in 1993, sued the children for fraud, citing weather data, eyewitness reports and police evidence.
The courts, however, ruled in favor of the children, saying the two bodies may have washed into the ocean after the car crash, and instructed the company to pay the claims of NT$64.82 million.
Questions:
1. What do you think about this false insurance claim?
2. What do you think about insurance fraud cases in Taiwan? (Ex: cutting fingers, fake car accidents)
3. What is the easiest quickest way to get money legal or illegal?
4. What do you do if you were in debts and you have no money to pay back a debt? Where to get help?
5. What happens if you get into an accident and don't have insurance?
What happens if you don't buy life insurance?
6. How to handle insurance frauds, if you were the man who is in charge of insurance claims in an insurance company?
7. What kinds of insurance do you need? And do you buy any kind of insurance?
狗仔隊與台灣宣傳
Filmmakers,
public blast Taiwan media for hounding on Luc Besson film
(Focus Taiwan Christie Chen)
Taipei, Oct. 28 (CNA) Taiwanese filmmakers
and members of the public have expressed disappointment with local media after
news that French director Luc Besson may cut short filming in Taipei for his
new movie "Lucy" due to repeated disturbances by media workers.
"The media and public should show
their love for Taiwan... If Luc Besson is scared away, would other foreign
directors be willing to shoot films in Taiwan?" veteran director Chu
Yen-Ping was quoted in the China Times Monday.
In a United Daily News report the same day,
producer Lee Lieh said that films, especially Hollywood films, are the best way
to advertise Taiwan, urging the media to recognize that "Taiwan needs this
kind of publicity."
Academic and former senior reporter Liu
Huei-ling explained the aggressive approach of media workers as a symptom of a
highly competitive industry that has caused reporters to lose sight of what is
and is not appropriate.
Meanwhile, thousands of furious Taiwanese
haven taken to the Internet to condemn the behavior of reporters and
photographers, which they labeled paparazzi, for hounding Besson and his
cast and crew.
"Paparazzi, please stop shaming the
Taiwanese," read a comment by a Web user calling himself Weizai on a
report that Besson plans to cut shooting, including planned shots at landmarks
like Longshan Temple, due to harassment.
On another report, a user calling himself
Max wrote that the media "do not represent Taiwan, but if you and I chose
to remain silent and let them get away with it without saying anything, we are
choosing to hurt Taiwan." The comment received hundreds of
"likes" from other users.
Besson's crew reported to police Friday a
near-collision when their cars were almost hit by pursuing media workers,
according to the Taipei City Government. In a separate incident, photographers
reportedly surrounded and banged on the windows of a car carrying Scarlett
Johansson, the film's female lead, when it stopped at a red light.
Questions:
1. Should celebrities be more protected
from the media?
2. Why photographers are chasing celebrity?
Do the paparazzi go too far?
What do you think about paparazzi?
3. Do you agree that “Hollywood films are
the best way to advertise Taiwan " and Taiwan needs this kind of
publicity?
4. In your opinion, is there any other ways
to advertise Taiwan?
Last week in Jinan, China, more than 1,300
women wearing exquisite make-up and elegant dresses were asked to iron, cook,
and tie a necktie. The goal: to qualify for a competition that will match 50
women with 50 millionaires for a blind date this July.
The men's identities are kept secret, but
their net worth isn't. Organizers say they're worth an average of $25 million
each.
In addition to being judged on their looks
and cleaning ability, the women were asked to draw a picture for psychologists
to evaluate. Organizers also interviewed their friends and colleagues to assess
their associates and connections.
While the women spared no efforts to show
that they would make perfect wives, the millionaires were not at the scene.
Only when the field has been whittled down to 50 women will the millionaires
show up for a final party.
A report from Capgemini and RBC shows 12
million millionaires worldwide, whose fortunes grew 10 percent to a record $46
trillion, reports CNBC's Robert Frank. Janet Engles, RBC Wealth Management,
weighs in.News and photos of the event have triggered heated debate on Weibo,
China's Twitter-like service. Although it wasn't the first time a pageant-style
matchmaking gig created controversy, many micro-bloggers bitterly denounced the
Jinan event as a sign of money worship, a serious social illness in China, they
argued.
One Weibo user wrote: "Are we going
backward to the feudal society where the emperor held mass-selection to choose
his concubines? What a lamentable society, all about money, all after money, do
the women still have their self-esteem?''
Cheng Yongsheng, the CEO of the Chinese
Entrepreneurs Club for Singles (CECS), which has organized the blind date for
four times since May 2012, defended the event by saying that it serves a real
need that rich people have.
"I had the idea of creating CECS in
2012 originally because one of my friends who is also a millionaire told me how
he is frustrated about finding a wife. It struck me for the first time that
even these seemingly omnipotent rich guys have their weaknesses and
vulnerabilities just like normal people," Cheng said.
Moreover, Cheng believes it is even harder
for millionaires to find wives because they are not as resourceful and sociable
as people assume. More importantly, they are so engaged with their work that
they don't have the time and energy to go on dates.
Questions:
1. Will you marry a billionaire?
Would you marry a super rich, ugly
billionaire Arab prince?
(or a super rich, but ugly woman)
2. How to marry a billionaire?
3. Do smart women marry money?
What you think women marry the rich people?
4. Are Chinese people rich?
What is your impression of the rich people
in china?
5. Would you choose to marry for love or
money?
6. Is it harder to find future spouse in
our society?
7. What do you think of blind dates?
Will you join to the blind day to find future partner?
中藥&針灸
Traditional Chinese medicine (Wikipedia)
Traditional Chinese medicine is a broad range of medicine practices sharing common concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 5,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage (Tui na), exercise (qigong), and dietary therapy.
The doctrines of Chinese medicine are rooted in books such as the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon and the Treatise on Cold Damage, as well as in cosmological notions like yin-yang and the five phases. Starting in the 1950s, these precepts were modernized in the People's Republic of China so as to integrate many anatomical and pathological notions with modern scientific medicine. Nonetheless, some of its methods, including the model of the body, or concept of disease, are not supported by modern evidence-based medicine.
TCM's view of the body places little emphasis on anatomical structures, but is mainly concerned with the identification of functional entities (which regulate digestion, breathing, aging etc.). While health is perceived as harmonious interaction of these entities and the outside world, disease is interpreted as a disharmony in interaction. TCM diagnosis includes in tracing symptoms to patterns of an underlying disharmony, by measuring the pulse, inspecting the tongue, skin, eyes and by looking at the eating and sleeping habits of the patient as well as many other things.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a collection of procedures involving penetration of the skin with needles to stimulate certain points on the body. In its classical form it is a characteristic component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It has been categorized as a complementary health approach.[1] According to traditional Chinese medicine, stimulating specific acupuncture points corrects imbalances in the flow of qi through channels known as meridians.
Questions:
1. What you think about Chinese traditional medicine?
2. Do you trust in Chinese traditional medicine?
Do you trust in herbal medicine of Chinese?
Are Chinese herbs safe to use?
3. What is the effectiveness of Chinese medicine vs western medicine in treating?
4. Do you think western medicine more effective than Chinese medicine?
Forget the stars, palmistry, crystal gazing, tarot cards or even tea leaves. It seems your characteristics, career, health, marriage, fate and luck are all actually flowing through your veins.
Whether you are friendly, aloof, considerate, industrious, prone to worrying, cynical, good in bed or in the right job is, a growing number of personality analysts say, all in the blood.
They claim the blood type you were born with has just as much influence over your character and fate as the signs of the zodiac.
In fact, many personality analysts say it could be a more accurate guide because your blood type is determined by the genes of your parents and through it you inherit all their ancestral traits. You then develop the traits that are best suited to your personality.
Big in Japan
The Japanese, who have always placed a lot of importance on ancestry and blood lines, are so certain of the links between biochemistry and personality that magazines and newspapers carry the week’s fortunes for each blood type.
It is estimated that as many as 75 per cent of Japanese people believe there is a connection between blood type and personality. The vast majority of their lonely hearts advertisements include blood type. Nearly everyone in Japan knows their blood group and they take the idea very seriously.
The four main blood types are O (the most common), A, B and AB.
If you are a blood donor, you will know that type O can give blood to any type, but can receive from only type O, and are called universal donors.
Type A individuals can give blood safely to A and AB types. B types can give to B or AB.
Blood lines
According to the believers, all these different combinations play a part in passing on particular talents and qualities through generations.
The world’s leading proponent of blood-typing is undoubtedly Japan’s Toshitaka Nomi, who is following in the footsteps of his late father, Masahiko, who first published books on the blood-typing theory in 1971.
Between them father and son have produced more than 60 books, which have sold more than six million copies and have helped bring the Japanese ideas and beliefs about blood-type psychology to a wider audience.
This is what their studies have to say about how our blood type influences the way we are likely to behave and the path we are most likely to follow…
Blood group diet
More recently, research into blood types and diet has been carried out by an American naturopathic doctor, Peter D’Adamo. He believes our blood type determines what we should eat.
Questions:
Do you believe in blood type characters?
Do you believe the blood type determine a person' character?
Does your blood type affect your diet?
Does the eat right for your blood type diet really work?
The importance of blood type in Taiwanese culture?
Do you believe “the Success depends on blood group”?
假油/食品安全/太空旅行
1. Flavor Full fined NT$8 mil. in oil scandal
Flavor Full Foods (富味鄉食品公司) yesterday admitted to adding cottonseed oil to 24 cooking oil products sold in Taiwan, New Taipei City's Department of Health (DOH) announced yesterday.
Q:
What do think about fack cooking oil case?
2. Premier gives 6-point order for handling cooking oil
Premier Jiang Yi-huah on Thursday issued a directive aimed at improving six aspects of food safety, after it was found that various edible oil products sold under the Tatung brand had been adulterated with cheap cottonseed oil as a way to boost profits.
Q:
What do you think about food safety in Taiwan?
3. Balloons: the new vehicle for space tourism?
The latest space tourism venture depends more on hot air than rocket science. World View Enterprises announced plans Tuesday to send people up in a capsule, lifted 19 miles (30 kilometers) by a high-altitude balloon. Jane Poynter, CEO of the Tucson, Arizona-based company, said the price for the four-hour ride would be US$75,000.
Q;
What you think about space tourism?
Court awards insurance payment on dead couple found hiding
Taipei, Oct. 24 (CNA) The Cathay Life Insurance Co., Ltd. on Thursday lost its lawsuit against three siblings to whom it had paid accidental death benefits of NT$64.82 million (US$2.21 million) after their parents disappeared in a car accident, as Taiwan's Supreme Court ruled against the company in the case of alleged insurance fraud.Q:
The
Tikker: a 'death watch' that counts down how long you have left to live (James Vincent)
Running late? With Tikker you always are.
This so-called “death watch” provides the ultimate momento mori: a no-frills
LCD screen that counts down exactly how long you have left to live.
Built by a group of “designers,
free-thinkers, lovers and life-afficionados” the concept behind the Tikker is
to remind wearers of the important things in life. Never has the Tikker’s
slogan – “make every second count” – been applied more appropriately.
Fredrik Colting, the watch’s creator, says
the idea came to after his grandfather passed away: "It made me think
about death and the transience of life, and I realized that nothing matters
when you are dead. Instead what matters is what we do when we are alive,” says
Colting on the Kickstarter page for the watch.
It seems that a lot of people agree with
Colting. Funding for the watch began last month and the Tikker has already
collected more than double its $25,000 goal, with over 1,300 individuals
coughing up $39 for the watch.
As well as the timepiece itself, the Tikker
comes with a simple actuarial quiz that provides users with a (very) rough
estimate of their time left on Earth. Users punch this number into the Tikker
and then, without ceremony, the watch begins its final countdown.
“All
we have to do is learn how to cherish the time and the life that we have been
given,” says Tikker’s Kickstarter page, “ And the best way to do this is to
realize that seconds, days and years are passing never to come again.”
Questions:
1. What do you think about the death watch?
Is it a good idea that having a Tikker
"death watch" reminds every second?
2. Do you care how long will you live?
3. How does your parents' lifespan affect
your lifespan?
4. In you opinion, what factors make people
live longer? People in which countries would live longer?
5. How to extend your life expectancy?
Ways to add years to your life?
6. “The death watch” is a new invention, if
you want to invent something,
What would you like to invent?
7. What happens when the average lifespan
is 150 years?
8. What do you think about death?
金錢與智力
Poverty Stress Weakens Brain Power
New research finds a link between poverty and poor decision making. The findings were reported in the journal Science. They may help explain why poor people sometimes make bad choices that prolong their economic hardship. Jim Tedder reports.
Earlier studies have found that poor people are less likely to take care of their health. Studies have shown they also do worse with their finances, and pay less attention to their children than do richer people. All of these actions make the poor less likely to escape poverty, research suggests.
But there has been little research on why the poor make decisions that make their lives harder. Until recently, it was economists who studied poverty, not psychologists. Eldar Shafir is a psychologist with Princeton University in New Jersey. He says now scientists from both fields work together.
“And in the last few years the two disciplines sort of combined forces. And we just became interested in cognitive function and its impact when people struggle with not having enough.”
Mr. Shafir and his team did two experiments. One took place at a shopping center in New Jersey. Another was carried out among sugar cane farmers in rural India.
The New Jersey experiment involved individuals with low paying jobs and others said to belong to the middle class. All the volunteers were asked what they would do if their cars needed repairs. The researchers then performed tests for reason, such as choosing which shape fits in a pattern of shapes.
The volunteers were given two possible imaginary situations. In the first, the car repairs cost $150. In the second, the repairs cost $1,500.
“And what we found is, when we looked at the cases where the financial scenario in the background was not too challenging, the poor and the rich performed equally well on all the cognitive tests.”
Not so when the researchers raised the repair costs to $1,500.
“Once we tickled their minds with financially more challenging problems, now the poor performed significantly worse.”
The study showed the poorer individuals lost about 13 intelligent quotient, IQ, points on average. This is about the loss experienced when a person has not slept for one night.
The scientists then wondered if they would see the same result outside the controlled environment of a New Jersey shopping mall. And they wanted to know if the same person reacted differently when he was rich and when he was poor.
That is where the Indian sugar cane farmers came in. They earn most of their money once a year, when the harvest comes in. But the money often does not last through the year.
“So they find themselves basically rich after the harvest when the income comes in and poor just before the harvest.”
The researchers gave them tests similar to the ones taken by the people in New Jersey. They tested the Indian farmers before the harvest and after.
And the results were much the same as with the mall shoppers.
“They performed much more slowly and with many more errors when they were poorer than when they were richer.”
Questions:
1. Do you think poverty makes people less
intelligent?
How a lack of money could make people less
intelligent?
2. Rich people are smarter than poor
people?
3. Do you think that smart people usually
are rich?
4. Do billionaires have higher IQs? Are
rich people smarter than you?
5. Do wealthy people work harder? Are poor
people lazy?
6. How to become a billionaire in 5 to 10
years? Ways to be a billionaire?
7. How do we lessen the gap between the
rich and the poor?
Forget the stars, palmistry, crystal
gazing, tarot cards or even tea leaves. It seems your characteristics, career,
health, marriage, fate and luck are all actually flowing through your veins.
Whether you are friendly, aloof,
considerate, industrious, prone to worrying, cynical, good in bed or in the
right job is, a growing number of personality analysts say, all in the blood.
They claim the blood type you were born
with has just as much influence over your character and fate as the signs of
the zodiac.
In fact, many personality analysts say it
could be a more accurate guide because your blood type is determined by the
genes of your parents and through it you inherit all their ancestral traits.
You then develop the traits that are best suited to your personality.
Big in Japan
The Japanese, who have always placed a lot
of importance on ancestry and blood lines, are so certain of the links between
biochemistry and personality that magazines and newspapers carry the week’s
fortunes for each blood type.
It is estimated that as many as 75 per cent
of Japanese people believe there is a connection between blood type and
personality. The vast majority of their lonely hearts advertisements include
blood type. Nearly everyone in Japan knows their blood group and they take the
idea very seriously.
The four main blood types are O (the most
common), A, B and AB.
If you are a blood donor, you will know
that type O can give blood to any type, but can receive from only type O, and
are called universal donors.
Type A individuals can give blood safely to
A and AB types. B types can give to B or AB.
Blood lines
According to the believers, all these
different combinations play a part in passing on particular talents and
qualities through generations.
The world’s leading proponent of
blood-typing is undoubtedly Japan’s Toshitaka Nomi, who is following in the
footsteps of his late father, Masahiko, who first published books on the
blood-typing theory in 1971.
Between them father and son have produced
more than 60 books, which have sold more than six million copies and have
helped bring the Japanese ideas and beliefs about blood-type psychology to a
wider audience.
This is what their studies have to say
about how our blood type influences the way we are likely to behave and the
path we are most likely to follow…
Blood group diet
More recently, research into blood types
and diet has been carried out by an American naturopathic doctor, Peter
D’Adamo. He believes our blood type determines what we should eat.
Questions:
Do you believe in blood type characters?
Do you believe the blood type determine a
person' character?
Does your blood type affect your diet?
Does the eat right for your blood type diet
really work?
The importance of blood type in Taiwanese
culture?
Do you believe “the Success depends on
blood group”?
假油/食品安全/太空旅行
1. Flavor Full fined NT$8 mil. in oil
scandal
Flavor Full Foods (富味鄉食品公司) yesterday admitted to
adding cottonseed oil to 24 cooking oil products sold in Taiwan, New Taipei
City's Department of Health (DOH) announced yesterday.
Q:
What do think about fack cooking oil case?
2. Premier gives 6-point order for handling
cooking oil
Premier Jiang Yi-huah on Thursday issued a
directive aimed at improving six aspects of food safety, after it was found
that various edible oil products sold under the Tatung brand had been
adulterated with cheap cottonseed oil as a way to boost profits.
Q:
What do you think about food safety in Taiwan?
3. Balloons: the new vehicle for space
tourism?
The latest space tourism venture depends
more on hot air than rocket science. World View Enterprises announced plans
Tuesday to send people up in a capsule, lifted 19 miles (30 kilometers) by a
high-altitude balloon. Jane Poynter, CEO of the Tucson, Arizona-based company,
said the price for the four-hour ride would be US$75,000.
Q;
What you think about space tourism?
Court awards insurance payment on dead couple found hiding
Taipei, Oct. 24 (CNA) The Cathay Life Insurance Co., Ltd. on Thursday lost its lawsuit against three siblings to whom it had paid accidental death benefits of NT$64.82 million (US$2.21 million) after their parents disappeared in a car accident, as Taiwan's Supreme Court ruled against the company in the case of alleged insurance fraud.Q: