‘BREACH OF DEMOCRACY’: Legislation is to prevent Chinese firms from using local partners to broadcast content, which could be used to further ‘united front’ efforts

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 24, 2020
By: Sean Lin and Shelley Shan / Staff reporters

The government is to introduce legislation to prevent Chinese media outlets from exploiting a legal loophole to illegally operate over-the-top (OTT) services in Taiwan, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said yesterday, amid reports that China Central Television (CCTV) could soon begin services in the nation.

The Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Wednesday reported that CCTV plans to follow the model of Chinese OTT service providers iQiyi (愛奇藝) and Tencent Video (騰訊視頻), and begin operations in Taiwan.

The companies have been able to skirt a rule banning Chinese OTT service providers from operating in Taiwan without permission by contracting local distributors and platform providers, the Liberty Times said.

Asked to comment on the report, Kolas described the model as a “breach of democracy,” whose existence the government would not sit back and tolerate.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 22 April, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

Taiwan's railway company to clean stations using machines[/caption] Taiwan’s railway company is getting tough on COVID-19 with a new measure designed to ensure that its train stations are thoroughly disinfected.

To fight COVID-19, the Taiwan Railways Administration is turning to help from machines. A cleaning company is providing the railways administration with specially-designed cleaning devices to ensure that passengers and staff stay safe.

Different machines are designed to do different jobs- for instance, clean escalator railings. This job had been done by cleaning staff once every few hours, but for now, the machines will take over.
[FULL  STORY]

Army Recognition
Date: 22 April 2020

According to a tweet released by Kevin McCauley, the Taiwanese armed forces (also called the Republic of China Army or RoCA) have started training with the new CM-34 8×8 IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) at the RoCA's Southern District Joint Test Centre.

In January 2019, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense has announced that Taiwan will begin mass production of its indigenous CM-34 "Clouded Leopard" 8×8 armored vehicles. It is planned to build 284 vehicles.

The design of the vehicle is very similar to the previous version of wheeled armored vehicle CM-32 also produced locally by the Taiwanese defense industry. The CM-34 is based on the 6×6 CM-31 designed by Timoney Technology Limited of Ireland and is also manufactured locally by the Ordnance Readiness Development Centre.

The hull of the CM-34 protects the crew against the firing of small arms 7.62mm around the vehicle while the frontal arc withstands 12.7 mm AP rounds. It has a V-shaped hull that provides protection against mine blast and can withstand 12 kg of TNT under any wheel.

The CM-34 is divided in three main parts with the driver sits at the front of the vehicle on the left side and has a single-piece hatch cover that opens to the rear. The engine is to the right of the driver with the air inlet and outlet louvers in the top of the hull. The vehicle is fitted with a two-man turret armed with Orbital ATK Mk 44 Bushmaster II 30 mm dual-feed automatic cannon. The second armament includes one coaxial machine gun mounted to the right of the main armament and one 7.62mm machine gun mounted on the roof of the turret. Six smoke grenade launchers are mounted on each side at the front of the turret.    [FULL  STORY]

Trail leads to top of mountain where visitors can admire sprawling green ridges

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/22
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Forestry Bureau will begin to take crowd control measures at the Marian Hiking Trail (聖母登山步道) in Jiaoxi Township, Yilan County for fear that the popular trail could become a virus hotbed after the attraction saw an tremendous influx of hikers on recent weekends, CNA reported on Wednesday (April 22).

The trail leads to the top of a mountain where visitors can admire sprawling green mountain ridges, leading to its being nicknamed the “Green Tea Mountain” by hikers.

The steep trail is 1.63 kilometers in length, but to reach the trailhead hikers have to walk over a 3.7-kilometer linking road from the bottom of the mountain.

The Luodong Forest District Office said on Wednesday that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the public has avoided overseas travel and instead turned to outdoor activities on the island. Unbelievable crowds were seen on the Marian Hiking Trail last weekend, when the weather was perfect.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/22/2020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, April 22 (CNA) Taiwan confirmed one new case of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections in Taiwan to 426 since the pandemic began late last year, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The latest case was the 28th resulting from a cluster infection on the "Panshi" fast combat support ship that was part of a three-ship flotilla that visited Palau in mid-March, said Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the CECC, at a daily press briefing.

The flotilla left Taiwan in early March, stopped in Palau from March 12 to 15, and returned to Taiwan on April 9 but the people on board could not disembark until April 14 and 15 because of quarantine regulations.

The patient is a male cadet in his 20s, who first developed a fever and cough and lost his sense of taste on March 23 while still at sea, the CECC said.    [FULL  STORY]

TRAINING EXERCISE? Asked about media speculation that the ‘Friendship Flotilla’ might have made other stops, Tsai Ing-wen said that Palau was its only destination

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 23, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday apologized for the handling of a cluster of COVID-19 cases on board a navy ship that has left 28 crew infected, saying that as commander-in-chief, she holds ultimate responsibility for the military.

In an address at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Tsai acknowledged that the outbreak on the supply ship Panshih (磐石) has drawn a great deal of attention from the public.

As commander-in-chief, “the military’s business is my business,” Tsai said.Although the military has done much to bolster Taiwan’s disease prevention efforts, it made many errors in its handling of the Panshih case, she said, apologizing for those errors causing a public health risk.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 21 April, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

Taiwan is about to roll out another way to buy face masks. Beginning Wednesday, they can be ordered during certain time frames at convenience stores. Taiwan's convenience stores are known to offer a variety of services including buying train tickets, paying bills and picking up online orders. 

The first frame for convenience store mask purchases will be 8am on Wednesday, April 22 to 8pm on Friday, April 24. People must bring their national health card and order through the self-service kiosks at the more than 10,000 Family Mart, 7-Eleven, OK Mart, and Hi-Life stores.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s minister of health makes the case for the country’s inclusion in the WHO.

OPINION

The Diplomat
Date: April 21, 2020
By: Chen Shih-chung

The threat of emerging infectious diseases to global health and the economy, trade, and tourism has

never abated. Pandemics can spread rapidly around the world because of the ease of international transportation. Among the most salient examples are the Spanish flu of 1918, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003, and the H1N1 influenza of 2009. Intermittently, serious regional epidemics, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and the Zika virus in Central and South America in 2016, have also reared their heads.

Today, a novel form of pneumonia that first emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 and has since been classified as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a global pandemic. As of April 20, 2020, World Health Organization data showed that 2.24 million people had been confirmed as having the disease, with 152,551 deaths in 211 countries/areas/territories. Taiwan has not been spared.

In the 17 years since it was hit hard by the SARS outbreak, Taiwan has been in a state of constant readiness regarding the threat of emerging infectious disease. As a result, when information concerning a novel pneumonia outbreak was first confirmed on December 31, 2019, Taiwan began implementing onboard quarantine of direct flights from Wuhan that same day. On January 2, 2020, Taiwan established a response team for the disease and activated the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on January 20 as a level 3 government entity, upgrading it to level 2 and level 1 on January 23 and February 27, respectively. The CECC is able to effectively integrate resources from various ministries and invest itself fully in the containment of the epidemic. As of April 20, Taiwan had tested a total of 55,476 persons showing 422 confirmed cases of COVID-19, of which 55 were indigenous, 343 imported, and 24 are Navy members currently serving in the fleet. Taiwan has reported just six deaths; 203 people have been released from the hospital after testing negative. Despite its proximity to China, Taiwan ranked 123rd among 183 countries in terms of confirmed cases per million people. This has shown that Taiwan’s aggressive efforts to control the epidemic are working.    [FULL  STORY]

Goodwill Fleet Commander Chen Tao-hui and Naval Fleet Commander Kao Chia-pin will both be assigned to other posts

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/21
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) held a press conference on Tuesday evening (April 21), releasing a report on the ministry’s initial investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak on one of the Goodwill Fleet vessels — aboard which 27 crew members were diagnosed with the disease.

Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa (嚴德發) first apologized to the infected soldiers and their families and the nation for the trouble the infection has caused. The minister said he asked President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for a reprimand, adding that the Goodwill Fleet mission was approved by him.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:\ 04/21/2020
By: Chen Wei-ting and Chiang Yi-ching, CNA staff writers

Within an hour of being informed on March 21 that she had tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, Schoko was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital, carrying some hastily packed clothes, a boxed lunch, and a cup of bubble tea.

It was her first trip in an ambulance and the first time she was being hospitalized, she told CNA in a phone interview.

"I felt like I was in a spaceship, being transported to an alien planet," said Schoko, a Taiwanese in her 30s, who asked to withhold her proper name.

When she arrived at the hospital in New Taipei, she was allowed to walk on her own to a negative pressure isolation room, followed by two cleaners in full protective gear, disinfecting everything in her wake.    [FULL  STORY]