It was recently reported in various Taiwanese media outlets that North Korea and Taiwan discussed the transfer of North Korean submarine technology to Taiwan.

The National Interest
Date: April 20, 2019
By: Charlie Gao

Submarines are a critical asset for Taiwan’s Navy, the Republic of China Navy (ROCN). They provide critical intelligence gathering, patrol, and deterrence capabilities in the Taiwan Strait. However, they are few in number. The ROCN only operates four submarines, only two of which are used operationally.

Pressure by the People’s Republic of China on would-be exporters has prevented Taiwan from buying full submarines abroad, so Taiwan has started its own indigenous submarine program. This program has attracted the usual European and American partnerships, but some other nations appear to have thrown their hat into the ring.

Surprisingly, North Korea is one of these nations. It was recently reported in various Taiwanese media outlets that North Korea and Taiwan discussed the transfer of North Korean submarine technology to Taiwan. According to one account, the attempted transfer was facilitated by the North Korean Central Military Commission. The commission asked senior figures in North Korea if export was acceptable. Leadership concluded that Taiwan was not actively hostile towards North Korea and relations were cordial enough, so the export was approved.    [FULL  STORY]

A total of 250 have been ordered as part of a NT$13.3 billion deal

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/20
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The first batch of a total of 250 Stinger missiles ordered from the United States should arrive in Taiwan by the end of the year, the Liberty Times reported Saturday (April 20).

The NT$13.3 billion (US$433.7 million) deal includes the portable surface-to-air missiles, the launch units and training for the operators, but Taiwan’s own National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) will be responsible for the necessary target identification systems, according to the report.

The contract for the Stinger Block I-92F runs from 2017 to 2025 and covers 250 missiles in total.

Details of the project were still being worked out, including the use of technology by NCSIST, the Liberty Times wrote.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/20
By: Tyson Lu and Ko Lin

Taipei, April 20 (CNA) A tour bus carrying more than a dozen passengers was hit by a rock slide on the mountain roads of Taroko National Park in Hualien County on Saturday, injuring a South Korean tourist.

The incident occurred near the scenic Jiuqudong Trail (Tunnel of Nine Turns) at around 2 p.m., when a rock roughly 50 centimeters in diameter fell through the roof of the bus and landed on the right foot of a female passenger.

The bus was carrying 14 tourists from South Korea at the time.

The victim was treated at a local hospital in Hualien, the Xincheng Precinct of the Hualien County Police Department said.    [FULL  STORY]

ROAD SAFETY: The National Police Agency said it made the recommendation due to motorists using holders to skirt the law and using devices while operating motorbikes

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 21, 2019
By: Cheng Wei-chi, Huang Tun-yuan, Jonathan Chin and William Heth  /  Staff reporters, with staff writers

The National Police Agency (NPA) has recommended that the law be amended so that

motorists watching video on smartphones that have been placed in holders be subject to fines, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said.

The Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) says that motor vehicle operators who hold a handheld device, such as a smartphone or computer, and make a call or otherwise communicate be fined NT$1,000 to NT$3,000.

The agency said it hopes that the ministry would propose an amendment to prohibit the playback of video on mobile devices in holders, instead of prohibiting the “holding of phones and tablets” while driving.

The recommendation is being made due to the increasing number of motorists using holders to skirt the law and using mobile devices while operating motorbikes, the agency said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/20
By: Tai Ya-chen and Chi Jo-yao

London, April 19 (CNA) The British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group expressed

concern this week over China’s fighter jets recently crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and said such a move endangered regional peace.

In a joint statement released on Thursday, U.K. Member of Parliament Nigel Evans and Lord Rogan, deputy speaker of the House of Lords, said the intentional crossing of the Chinese fighter jets over the median line of the Taiwan Strait, a maritime boundary that has been abided by Taiwan and China for years, has damaged the cross-strait status quo.

“We are seriously concerned about the rise of tension in cross-strait relations,” Evans and Rogan said as co-chairs of the group. “It is evident that regional peace and stability is at stake.”

The co-chairs said that the prosperity and stability across the Taiwan Strait were “hugely important to the East Asian region and the world as a whole” and stressed that maintaining peace in the region was in the common interest of all parties concerned.    [FULL  STORY]

May 24 deadline set by Taiwan’s Constitutional Court in 2017 to amend legal code to permit same-sex marriages

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/20
By:  Central News Agency

TAIPEI (CNA) — A total of 157 same-sex couples in Taiwan plan to register to get married at household registration offices on May 24, the day that the Constitutional Court set for same-sex marriages to be legalized, the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) said in a recent Facebook post.

To mark the historic day, TAPCPR, a local LGBTI rights organization, is also organizing a traditional wedding banquet outside the Presidential Office in Taipei on May 25.

Writer Chen Hsueh’s (陳雪) and her partner will be among the couples to register to get married that day.

The marriage registration and wedding plans are being organized despite ongoing uncertainty over how Taiwan’s legislature will handle competing demands from groups in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage and those opposed to categorizing same-sex unions as marriages.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan English News
Date: April 19, 2019 
By:Phillip Charlier  

Four people were injured after a the driver of a minivan hit vehicles head-on at high speed while traveling on the wrong side of the road in Chiayi County this morning, April 19.

The van slammed into two scooters, and sideswiped a sedan, before hitting a school bus carrying 35 students to Sieh Chih Vocational High School at around 7:30am.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 19 April, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

President Tsai Ing-wen is calling for unity within her Democratic Progressive Party. That’s

as the party faces the prospect of a divisive primary contest.

Tsai plans to run for a second term on the party’s ticket in next year’s presidential election. But in a surprise announcement last month, former Premier William Lai said he was launching his own bid to become the party’s 2020 candidate.

The party has extended a period of negotiations meant to work out a deal between the two candidates or convince one of them to stand down. But neither has budged, and the deadline for reaching a conclusion is in May.    [FULL  STORY]

3 intoxicated foreign fishermen assault reporter, harass woman at 7-Eleven in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/19
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Three foreign fishery workers were arrested this morning after they disturbed the peace, assaulted a reporter, and harassed a woman in front of a 7-Eleven in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, reported CNA.

A preliminary investigation by the Yancheng Branch of the Kaohsiung Police Department showed that the three men involved in the altercation included two Burmese nationals and an American-Korean. At 2 a.m. this morning, after drinking heavily at a 7-Eleven on Wufu 4th Road in Kaohsiung City, one of the Burmese men sat on a sidewalk and started to cause a disturbance, prompting neighbors to call the police.

When police arrived on the scene, they tried to persuade the bare-chested man to leave. However, he refused and when police tried to take him into custody, he violently resisted.

A struggle ensued and police used pepper spray to subdue him and arrested him. The second Burmese man then joined his compatriot in the squad car.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/19
By: Feng Shao-fu and Ko Lin

Taipei, April 19 (CNA) The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) warned Friday that it will not tolerate illegal trespassing or any forms of aggression in Taiwanese waters, after receiving reports of Chinese fishing boats pelting Taiwanese vessels around Taiwan’s Matsu Islands with rocks.

A 500-ton Penghu coast guard vessel and two additional patrol boats have been deployed to the outlying islands to stop any future incursions by Chinese fishing boats in the area, the CGA said.

The response came after a Beigan-registered Taiwanese fishing boat reported Wednesday that it was attacked and chased off by numerous Chinese boats in Taiwan-controlled waters between Gaodeng and Zhongdao islets.    [FULL  STORY]