HOLIDAY TOURS: The Tourism Bureau said it told travel agents to be aware of guests’ health, and to take them to hospital if they have a fever and any flu-like symptoms

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2020
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

About 10 percent of Taiwanese with plans to travel in China during the Lunar New Year holiday have

expressed a desire to cancel their tour or switch to a tour in a different country as a viral outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus escalates, local travel agencies have said.

In less than a month, the outbreak has spread from Wuhan, China, to Beijing, Shanghai and Guandong Province.

Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Thailand have also reported people contracting the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has urged travel agents to avoid arranging tours to Wuhan or surrounding areas to lower the risk of travelers contracting the virus.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 21 January, 2020
By: Paula Chao

We’re celebrating the Year of the Rat in this week’s Taiwan Insider! We begin with an explainer about why the rat is the first sign in the Chinese zodiac, and why there’s no Year of the Cat. We have some tips on how to buy the freshest New Year’s goods and flowers with a special message. And finally, in Hashtag Taiwan, Leslie Liao shares some savvy ways to respond to nosy relatives who grill you during your New Year feast!    [FULL  STORY]

The Moodie Davitt Report
Date: January 2020
By: Colleen Morgan

TAIPEI. Ever Rich Duty Free has shown its support for minority groups in Taoyuan City in the lead-up to Chinese New Year on 25 January.

A team of executives and staff members, led by Ever Rich Duty Free Chairman Simon Chiang, donned yellow vests to become “love delivery men” during visits to a home for the elderly and to an orphanage on 18 January.

As reported, Chairman Chiang featured in The Moodie Davitt Report’s People of the Year for 2019. The list recognises individuals who by their deeds, attitudes and behaviour have most advanced the travel retail industry’s cause and reputation.

Ever Rich’s ‘Be a Giver’ day was inspired by its chairman’s belief that the ability and capability to help people is a blessing.

According to Ever Rich, Chairman Chiang hopes that not only his staff members are givers but that Ever Rich’s efforts will encourage vulnerable people to lend a hand as well. “Ever Rich wishes to convey the concept that they should not pity themselves; they have power to do many things,” the company said.    [FULL  STORY]

Female Chinese tourist from Wuhan quarantined for symptoms of China coronavirus

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/01/21
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A female tourist from Wuhan, the origin of a deadly new strain of coronavirus, has been quarantined after she developed potential symptoms of the disease while traveling in eastern Taiwan.

At about 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning (Jan. 21), a Chinese national was admitted to the emergency room of Mennonite Christian Hospital after exhibiting some symptoms of a mysterious new virus named 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), reported UDN.

While taking part in a group tour of Hualien, Taiwan, the woman started coming down with an illness, and although she believed she could treat it herself, the group's leader opted to have her seek medical treatment as a precaution.

Mennonite Christian Hospital said that a 39-year-old woman from Wuhan who was part of a group of 17 Chinese tourists had been admitted to the ER Tuesday morning. After arriving in Taiwan on Jan. 16 and visiting Hualien on Monday (Jan. 20), the woman suddenly developed a fever, and although the fever subsided somewhat after she took some medicine, the tour's leader decided to send her a nearby hospital, reported ETtoday.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/21/2020
By: Elaine Hou, Chen Chih-chung, Yu Hsiao-han and Frances Huang

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Tuesday urged the public to remain calm and not panic after Taiwan reported the first confirmed case of a new type of coronavirus earlier in the day, carried by a Taiwanese woman who was recently in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

On his Facebook page, Su said Taiwan has 44 million surgery masks and 1.93 million N95 particulate respirator masks that will be released onto the market if necessary.

"Please don't panic," Su said. "Also please don't hoard masks."

Su said during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the government will watch closely how the situation develops, while advising Taiwanese people to enjoy the holiday, which starts on Thursday and runs through Jan. 29.    [FULL  STORY]

MEDICAL ALERT: A Taiwanese woman working in Wuhan who arrived on Monday tested positive for the coronavirus, the CDC said, urging people to take precautions

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Taiwan yesterday reported its first confirmed case of a new type of coronavirus — a 55-year-old

Taiwanese woman who arrived on Monday from China.

The woman, who works in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first discovered, reported to quarantine officials at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that she had a fever, the epidemic response command center said.

The center was established on Monday to contain the spread of the new coronavirus.

The woman was immediately placed in quarantine and later tested positive for the pneumonia-like virus, dubbed the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the center said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 20 January, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

Taiwan’s legislature on Monday approved the central government’s budget for 2020. Lawmakers came back for an extraordinary session starting on January 14 to finalize the budget. The current legislature will remain in place until January 31. Lawmakers who were elected in January will take their posts on February 1.

The approved budget for 2020 allocates approximately NT $2.07 trillion (around US$69 billion) in government spending. That’s slightly lower than the estimated tax revenues for 2020, which is about NT$2.1 trillion (USD$70 billion).     [FULL  STORY]

Expert: “Over the next four years, it may be more important to acquire less glamorous but nimbler weapons to prevent Beijing from considering an invasion.”

The National Interest
Date: January 20, 2020
By: David Axe Follow @daxe on TwitterL

Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen’s January 2020 re-election could signal another four years of stiff defiance to Chinese aggression for the island country. But Taiwan should reconsider its defensive strategy, Iain Marlow wrote for Bloomberg.

“In her first term, President Tsai Ing-wen secured more than $10 billion in high-profile U.S. weapons to defend Taiwan against China,” Marlow wrote. “Over the next four years, it may be more important to acquire less glamorous but nimbler weapons to prevent Beijing from considering an invasion.”

During her first term, the staunchly pro-independence Tsai worked hard to secure from the United States deals for weaponry worth more than $10 billion, including 60 new F-16 fighters and 108 M-1A2 tanks. Taiwan also launched an ambitious program to develop, with American assistance, a new class of diesel-electric attack submarines.

But over the next four years, Tsei and her government could take a different approach. “Many of the things Taiwan needs at this point are not things that require the U.S. to sell them,” Scott Harold, an analyst at RAND, a California think tank.    [FULL  STORY]

Map leaked online shows PLA plans to take Kinmen, Penghu before invading southern Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/01/20
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A photo surfaced Sunday (Jan. 19) on Weibo showing People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers sitting next to a map of Taiwan that appears to indicate a southerly route for China's invasion of Taiwan, first going through Kinmen and Penghu, before landing troops in southern Taiwan.

After President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) enjoyed a landslide victory in Taiwan's elections on Jan. 11, Communist China has been doubling down on its rhetoric about the tattered "one country, two systems" framework and adhering to the "1992 Consensus" — expressing its opposition to "Taiwan independence" despite the fact that Taiwan has never been a part of Communist China. In a joint statement issued with Myanmar on Saturday (Jan. 18), China reaffirmed the "one-China" principle and categorized "Taiwan as an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China's territory."

In a statement on Sunday (Jan. 19), Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) responded by saying: "The ministry condemns such false statements that diminish the sovereignty of the Republic of China." Ou added: "Taiwan is not part of China, and only the Taiwanese government elected by its people can represent Taiwan in the international arena."

Later that afternoon, two accounts on the tightly government-orchestrated social media site Weibo, Tianfu Community and Dingsheng Forum, released a photo of PLA soldiers seated with their backs turned to a massive topographical model of southern Taiwan. The model is covered in black marks, appearing to show key strategic locations the PLA plans to seize during an invasion.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/20/2020
By: Hou Hsueh-ching, Chang Hsiung-feng and Lee Hsin-Yin\

Taipei, Jan. 20 (CNA) The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Monday approved an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for two planned natural gas-fired generators, allowing the new units to be constructed at the Taichung Power Plant in central Taiwan, to increase the plant's electricity generating capacity under certain conditions.

The generators, which are expected to replace polluting coal-fired generators, will have an installed capacity totaling 2.6 million kilowatt, according to the power plant's operator, state-run Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower).

The generators and related facilities will be built within existing land owned by the company, to avoid environmental impact, Taipower said.

Last October the project, which went through three EPA reviews between October 2018 and June 2019, was subjected to a fourth review and on Monday it was sent to the EIA meeting attended by economics officials, experts and environmental activists.    [FULL  STORY]