’DISMAYED’: Premier Su Tseng-chang said the interior minister should have spoken to him if he was dissatisfied with the NPA head, instead of reporting him to prosecutors

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2020
By: Chien Li-chung and Sean Lin / Staff reporters

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that the public is likely unimpressed with Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) on Friday asking prosecutors to investigate National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Chen Ja-chin (陳家欽) over three promotions he approved. Su called on Chen to continue serving in his position steadfastly while waiting for the judiciary to prove his innocence.

Hsu had forwarded a case involving Chen, NPA Department of Human Resources Director Chang Shu-fang (張淑芳), as well as NPA Director-General’s Office coordinators Wu Cheng-chieh (吳正杰), Chu Cheng-tzu (渠正慈) and Wang Wen-chu (王文助), to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office.
[FULL  STOR8Y]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 27 March, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

President Tsai Ing-wen has praised a group of hospital workers for their work to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

While meeting with the group Friday, Tsai commended the hospital workers for their sacrifices, giving up time with their families and giving up leave time to do their part. Tsai said that she has seen their hard work to protect the health and safety of Taiwan’s people.    [FULL  STORY]

USNI News
Date: March 26, 2020
By: Ben Blanchard, Yew Lun Tian

TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has signed into law an act that requires increased U.S. support for Taiwan internationally, prompting a denunciation by China, which said it would strike back if the law was implemented.

China claims democratic and separately ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and regularly describes Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in its ties with the United States.

While the United States, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, the Trump administration has ramped up backing for the island, with arms sales and laws to help Taiwan deal with pressure from China.

The Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act, signed by Trump into law on Thursday with strong bipartisan support, requires the U.S. State Department to report to Congress on steps taken to strengthen Taiwan’s diplomatic relations.    [FULL  STORY]

Allegations related to appointment of 3 secretaries to Criminal Investigation Bureau

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/27
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — For the first time in Taiwan’s history, a national police chief was referred to prosecutors for an investigation, after accusations of forgery in connections with appointments Friday (March 27).

The Ministry of Interior and the Control Yuan, the country’s top government watchdog, received allegations that National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Chen Chia-chin (陳家欽) officially transferred three secretaries to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), but that they were actually still working at his office, CNA reported.

He also used a doctored selection process to promote the three secretaries, according to the allegations, while in a separate case, he recruited a confidant once involved in a drunk driving case.

After looking into the matter, the Ministry of Interior referred the case to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, which entrusted the Agency Against Corruption (AAC) at the Ministry of Justice with continuing the investigation.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/27/2020
By: Chen Yun-yu and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, March 27 (CNA) The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) will deny NT$28,000 (US$930) in subsidies to a quarantined couple after the BBC reported they were dissatisfied with their conditions, even if neither of the two were cited directly in the report.

The story, which went viral on social media after its publication Thursday, was pulled without explanation Friday amid a strong backlash on social media.

In a press release, the CECC said the BBC report misrepresented the couple's treatment while in quarantine at a repurposed school dormitory in Hualien that began on March 15 and had damaged Taiwan's international standing.

The report also mislead the public, affecting people's willingness to cooperate with quarantine measures, and thereby impeding Taiwan's COVID-19 response efforts, the CECC contended.
[FULL  STORY]

UNFIT TO LEAD? The WHO head blamed Taiwan for attacks on his person and said that the nation’s bid to join had an ‘ulterior political motive,’ a report said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 28, 2020
By: Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus should not allow politics to supersede professionalism, Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said yesterday after it was reported that Tedros had complained about Internet commentary that he was pro-China and unfit to continue in his position.

The Chinese-language report by Up Media on Thursday cited a source familiar with Taiwanese foreign affairs as saying that Tedros blamed Taiwan for attacks on his person and that the nation’s bid to join the WHO had an “ulterior political motive.”

While Chang said he could not be certain what Tedros had said, regardless of the comments, his allegations were not true.

“The truth is that an increasing number of nations doubt the WHO’s ability to handle the pandemic and had the WHO been more deft in its handling of the outbreak, the number of lives lost could have been reduced,” Chang said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 26 March, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

A spate of COVID-19 cases brought in from overseas has quickly driven up the number of active cases in Taiwan over the past few weeks. Most of the new patients are young people returning from study in other parts of the world.

Even if these young people do get sick, their health is generally good, and so is the prognosis. The trouble may be that they unwittingly infect other, more vulnerable people.

At Taiwan’s airports these days, one of the few signs of life are the young Taiwanese students that have been passing through in large numbers. They’re coming home after the COVID-19 pandemic put their study abroad programs on hiatus. And with their full protective gear, they make for quite an eye-catching sight.

They are right to be careful: a large number of the most recent COVID-19 cases in Taiwan are people under 40 who recently returned from abroad.

These young people have less to worry about than most when it comes to COVID-19. They sometimes develop only mild symptoms or show no signs of illness at all. The trouble, experts say, is that they can still contract the disease and pass it on to others- often older people for whom COVID-19 can be a serious matter indeed.    [FULL  STORY]

Epoch Times
Date: March 26, 2020
By: David Kilgour;, Susan Korah

Commentary

Like the Titanic striking a massive iceberg in 1924, a deadly novel coronavirus, later named COVID-19, struck the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. First revealed by local doctors in early December, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus spread like a global tidal wave and has now infected people in 152 of the 193 U.N. member-countries.

Amid the gloom and doom scenarios painted by some media—both traditional and social—the world’s policy makers, as well as individual citizens, must pay close attention to what some governments did to restrain the pandemic, and to examine why in others it took such a heavy toll.
[FULL  STORY]

US expert says Taiwan and the U.S. need to prepare for the consequences of pandemic

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/26
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic might see Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) trying to deflect public anger by moving against Taiwan, while a United States weakened by the virus would also imply dangerous times ahead for the island nation, according to Michael Mazza of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In a report on the AEI website published Wednesday (March 25), the Asian defense expert presents four scenarios that might affect cross-strait relations if and when the epidemic fizzles out.

While U.S.-China tensions have intensified during the pandemic, a failed recovery from the virus in China might see Xi warding off pressure from inside the Communist Party and anger from the public by trying to divert attention. In this case, “Taiwan might well look like an appetizing target,” according to Mazza.

Under the second scenario, China would recover but the rest of the world would not, causing a sharp drop in exports and grumbling about the government’s role in neglecting the outbreak at the outset. Xi might also try to test U.S. readiness to defend Taiwan by manufacturing a crisis, such as engineering a collision between Chinese and Taiwanese warplanes or ships, or by replaying the 1996 missile crisis.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/26/2020
By: Chen Wei-ting, Chang Chi, Tzeng Yi-shiuan and Emerson Lim

Taipei, March 26 (CNA) Taiwan government officials said Thursday that a British woman who is in quarantine in Taiwan due to COVID-19 coronavirus control measures has not been "incarcerated," as has been reported by the BBC.

At a press conference, Hualien County Health Bureau Director Chu Chia-hsiang (朱家祥) said the woman Natalie Dawson, along with her Australian partner Rohan Pixley, are in quarantine at a facility in Hualien, which was once a school dormitory.

They each have a single room of about 26 square meters, which is equipped with internet, a reading desk, chair, bed, and other basic necessities, and they have access to the bathrooms that are on each floor of the building, Chu said.

Dawson and Pixley have also been receiving three meals a day during their quarantine, which started shortly after they arrived in Taiwan on March 14, according to Chu.   [FULL  STO-RY]