None of the injuries are life-threatening: military spokesman

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A total of 15 soldiers were taken to hospital in Hsinchu County Tuesday (May 28) after their truck crashed into an empty sentry post during military maneuvers.

The drills were reportedly part of the latest round of Han Kuang exercises, the United Daily News reported.

After 4 p.m. Tuesday, the group was passing by the guard post at the Army base in Hukou when the vehicle slammed into the structure and into a wall. As a result, the front of the truck was destroyed and a total of 15 soldiers were injured.

None of the injuries was life-threatening, but the military were transferred to two hospitals in the region, reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/28
By: Wang Shu-fen, Jeffrey Wu, Elizabeth Hsu and Ko Lin 

Taipei, May 28 (CNA) Amended regulations that ban ride-hailing service Uber from running a taxi business in Taiwan while partnering with rental car companies will come into effect in early June, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) announced Tuesday.

The proposed Article 103-1 of the Regulations for Automobile Transportation Operators, dubbed the “Uber Clause,” will be approved at a planned internal affairs meeting at the ministry on Thursday, said Vice Transportation Minister Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材).    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 27 May, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

Mangos are a popular fruit in Taiwan and throughout the world. Peak demand in summer means that farmers have to get creative with the growing process. Often that means using artificial ripening agents. However, the Council of Agriculture says that the fruits are perfectly safe to eat!

If you walk through a mango field in Taiwan… you will see fruits wrapped in paper bags. Farmers do that to protect the mangos and make them ripen faster.

Farmer Lai Yung-kun says these mangos have been treated with a plant hormone called Ethephon, which promotes the release of ethylene. That speeds up the ripening process and boosts production.

It’s easy to be alarmed by the thought of added chemicals on our fruits or vegetables, but the Council of Agriculture says it’s safe.

One of the council’s top quarantine officials, Tsou Hui-chuan says they approved Ethephon in 2014. She says it’s a low-grade toxin that breaks down easily in the soil and water.    [FULL  STORY]

Meeting between national security advisers was first since US ended formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979.

Al Jazeera
May 27, 2019

Senior national security officials from the United States and Taiwan have held their first meeting in four decades this month, with the aim of deepening cooperation, the government in Taipei has said.

Taiwan’s national security chief David Lee met John Bolton, the White House NSA, during his May 13-21 visit to the US, the island’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement issued on Saturday.

“During the trip, together with US government officials, Secretary-General Lee met with representatives from our diplomatic allies, reiterating support and commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said.

Taiwan’s foreign affairs ministry and the US’s de facto embassy in Taiwan declined to comment on Monday.    [FULL  STORY]

US senators reintroduce draft bill supporting Taiwan’s international recognition

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/27
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Three U.S. senators on Thursday (May 24) reintroduced a draft bill designed to counter China’s bullying of Taiwan in the international arena and the poaching of its diplomatic allies by downgrading relations and cutting or lowering aid to countries that kowtow to Beijing’s demands.

On Thursday, Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) reintroduced the draft Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, or the TAIPEI Act. The act is a U.S. Strategy to engage with governments in the world that support Taiwan’s diplomatic recognition, while downgrading ties with countries that tow the Chinese Communist Party line on Taiwan and suspend or alter U.S. foreign assistance to the governments of such nations.

The bill opens by mentioning that since President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016, China has poached six diplomatic allies from Taiwan, and that the Taiwan Relations Act of 2019 requires the U.S. to take steps to address this. The draft then calls on the Secretary of State to submit a report to congress on steps taken by the U.S. to “reaffirm and strengthen Taiwan’s international alliances around the world,” within 90 days after the law’s passage and every 180 days thereafter.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/27
By: Chiang Pei-ling and Emerson Lim 

Taipei, May 27 (CNA) The Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) slammed the United Nations for not respecting the rights of Taiwanese media workers after it refused to issue press passes to Taiwanese reporters to cover the ongoing Worth Health Assembly (WHA).

The 72nd session of the WHA is being held in Geneva from May 20 to 28. Taiwan was unable to participate for a third consecutive year due to China’s pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO).

Similarly, Taiwanese journalists who applied to cover the WHA were denied by the U.N.’s Geneva office despite following its requirements and regulations.

In a statement released Monday, the ATJ said Taiwanese journalists, including correspondents of Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) stationed in Europe, were denied access to the press briefings at the Assembly.    [FULL  STORY]

SUPPORT: Prior to meeting the Honduran official, President Tsai Ing-wen met and thanked a Peruvian legislator for initiating a petition for Taiwan’s inclusion at the WHA

Taipei Times
Date: May 28, 2019
By: Lu Yi-hsuan and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Honduran Second Vice President Olga Margarita Alvarado Rodriguez yesterday arrived for

a five-day state visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Alvarado, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, is to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Tsao (曹立傑) at a series of events and state banquets, the ministry said.

Her seven-member delegation is to conduct exchanges with Taiwanese officials and non-profit organizations on bilateral cooperation in the fields of public health, social welfare, agriculture and education, it said.

The delegation is expected to visit the International Cooperation and Development Fund, the Garden of Hope and Maria Social Welfare foundations, and Taipei Heping Experimental Elementary School, it said.    [FULL  STORY]

New Bloom Magazine
Date: 05/26/2019
By: Lee Bo-Yi

AS OF MAY 24TH, same-sex couples can get married in Taiwan. Legislation passed last week fulfills the 2017 ruling by Constitutional Court which states that prohibiting same-sex marriage is against the constitution. The passage of this law also shows that Taiwan shares the values of democracy, freedom, and human rights with other developed countries internationally, and significantly, that Taiwan is a different country than China, which has enforced regulations undermining the rights of its LGBT+ residents.

Taiwan is a democratic country in East Asia: it has already experienced three party alternations, which is impossible in today’s China, and in which no alternation of political parties has ever taken place. However, Taiwan’s democracy did not come without struggle. Over the past few decades, the Taiwanese people have protested against the authoritarian KMT. From the late 1940s to the 1990s, KMT not only enforced the martial law but also murdered what some think to be as high 140,000 people during the February 28 Massacre and the White Terror.

Thanks to the efforts made and even lives sacrificed by activists at that time, the Taiwanese people can now elect their presidents through a popular vote, which is fair, impartial and open, unlike some of the “elections” that take place in our hostile neighbour of China.    [FULL  STORY]

Forbes
Date: May 26, 2019
By: Ralph Jennings

After a decade spent trying to remain competitive in the global high tech race, officials in Taiwan appear to have decided the answer lies in AI. Taiwan has been losing out on consumer electronics orders from offshore brands–the island’s long-time strength–as manufacturers look to cheaper factory hubs such as China. But investments in Taiwan by Google, Microsoft and Nvidia among others, all over the past year or two, show that Taiwan can start pivoting from hardware and become a leading R&D center in artificial intelligence.

In response, the government is now scrambling to develop talent, which may otherwise fall short of what it takes to keep attracting investments from big businesses. Premier Su Tseng-chang says 10,000 people will be trained every year for work in AI R&D. That ambition extends naturally from decades of educating engineers at the island’s universities. Silicon Valley firms are setting up shop in Taiwan exactly because of that talent, tech analysts say.

“In less than two years, Taiwan has become a stage for AI application innovations watched by the world,” Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang said in a statement on May 16. AI “bases” established in Taiwan by foreign tech giants, he said, will “raise industry competitiveness as well as raising the quality of life of our citizens.”

Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, refers to a type of computer science that lets machines act like humans, for example recognizing speech or making decisions based on large amounts of data.    [FULL  STORY]

Fighter jets and other combat aircraft will use Taiwan’s main highway as an emergency airstrip during military exercises.

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/26
By:  Central News Agency

Fighter jets and other combat aircraft will use Taiwan’s main highway as an emergency airstrip Tuesday (May 18), during this year’s Han Kuang series of military exercises.

The aircraft will practice emergency take-offs and landings in the central county of Changhua, on the Huatan section of the main north-south National Freeway No. 1 that runs along the island’s west coast. The aircraft drill will be part of a series of live-fire exercises staged over five days, starting on Monday.

The Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s most important war games, are held each year to test the combat capabilities of all branches of the armed forces, in the face of a continued military threat from China.

The landing and takeoff drill is an important part of the combat training for the Air Force in the event of an attack by China, the Air Force said in a statement.    [FULL  STORY]