LEGISLATIVE GRILLING: While the defense minister answered questions about military doctrine and the ability to hold out against a PLA attack, he refused to discuss specifics

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 26, 2019
By: Aaron Tu and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The nation’s armed forces can hold the line against China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Minister of

National Defense Yen De-fa (嚴德發) yesterday told the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.

During a question-and-answer session, Yen was asked to evaluate the comparative military capabilities of Taiwan and China, three days after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told CNN that Taiwan was “capable of holding off any first waves of attacks” by China.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) asked what the military’s capabilities were to respond to a PLA “first strike,” and whether it had the ability to mount a pre-emptive strike against China.

The nation’s two-staged military doctrine is to enact force protection, followed by the deployment of combat power, Yen told Lo.    [FULL  STORY]

Channel News Asia
Date: 24 Feb 2019

TAIPEI: A Taiwanese games company whose latest offering contained a hidden comparison of Chinese

President Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh apologised Sunday (Feb 24) after gamers in China boycotted the product.

Horror adventure game Devotion was unveiled by Red Candle Games earlier this month and had generated much buzz among gaming communities in Taiwan and China.

But in one scene, an ancient Taoist scribble pasted on a wall was found to contain the Chinese characters “Xi Jinping, Little Bear Winnie” – Winnie the Pooh’s Chinese name.

AA Milne’s loveable but slow-witted bear with a weakness for honey has been used in past memes to poke fun at Xi, prompting Chinese censors to block all mentions of Winnie the Pooh on social media.    [FULL  STORY]

A total of 16,728 Taiwan native chicken at a chicken farm in Yulin County were culled on Sunday

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/02/24
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A total of 16,728 Taiwan native chicken at a chicken farm in Taiwan’s southwestern county of Yulin were culled on Sunday (Feb. 24) after some of the chicken were confirmed having been infected with H5N2 one day earlier, according to a Central News Agency (CNA) report on Sunday.

The Animal and Plant Disease Control Center of Yunlin County Government issued a news release on Sunday, saying that they received a report from the owner of a chicken farm in Huwei Township, surnamed Lee, on Feb. 19 that some of the chicken on Lee’s farm died abnormally, CNA reported.

Upon receiving the report, the center dispatched personnel to disinfect the area surrounding the farm and bring back samples of dead birds for sending them to be tested by the Animal Health Research Institute (AHRI) under the Council of Agriculture, the report said.

The Animal and Plant Disease Control Center received a fax from the AHRI Saturday confirming that the chicken farm was infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 variety.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/24
By: Ku Chuan and William Yen

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) Taiwan is hoping to earn an improved score when an evaluation team from the

Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) returns for a four-day follow-up onsite review in March, according to a Ministry of Justice official.

Deputy Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) said that when the team returns it will be an opportunity for Taiwan to improve its preliminary results from a mutual evaluation by the APG during a third round of a peer review conducted from Nov. 5 to 16, 2018.

The APG uses a “mutual evaluation,” or peer review, to assess the degree to which its members comply with international standards in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

A bad score can hurt the reputation of a country’s financial sector and put it at a major disadvantage in engaging in international finance.    [FULL  STORY]

LEST WE FORGET: The march commemorating the 228 Incident is held every year so that people will be able to talk more openly about it, Pastor Lin Wei-lien said

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 25, 2019
By: Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

Cold weather and steady rain did not deter hundreds of people from more than 60 civic groups who

marched in downtown Taipei yesterday to commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the 228 Incident.

The groups, which included the 228 Memorial Foundation, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, gave young leaders the spotlight by letting them lead the march.

“Let us be proud of Taiwan and our democracy,” marchers declared as they urged people not to forget the victims of atrocities and political oppression during the White Terror era.

The 228 Incident was a crackdown launched by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against civilian demonstrations following the indiscriminate killing of a bystander in an angry crowd in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947; it is considered the start of the White Terror era.
[FULL  STORY]

Crazed woman slashes elderly woman’s stomach open in Tainan, Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/23
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — When taking her mother out for dinner last night (Feb. 22), a woman was suddenly attacked by another woman with a knife, severing her finger and slashing her stomach open.

Last night, a 68-year-old woman surnamed Lin (林) was exiting her vehicle on her way to buy takeout in Tainan’s South District, when she was suddenly assaulted by a woman in her 30s wielding a 15-centimeter-long knife. The suspect stabbed Lin four times, causing her to sustain gruesome injuries, including a severed right finger and a gashed stomach, which exposed her intestines, reported Apple Daily.

Lin is currently listed in critical condition, while the suspect fled the scene. Police immediately began scouring the community and reviewing surveillance camera footage to try to track down the assailant.

Lin’s relatives told the police that the victim had lived abroad for many years and had recently returned home to visit her 92-year-old mother for Lunar New Year. The victim had been staying in her sister’s house in Tainan’s East District.    [FULL  STORY]

President Tsai’s cross-strait policy is mistaken, Kaohsiung Mayor Han says

Nikkei Asian Review
Date: February 22, 2019
By: Lauly Li, Nikkei staff writer

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — The favorite to win Taiwan’s presidential election next year has hit out at

incumbent Tsai Ing-wen’s “wrong approach” on relations with China, saying that the island should enter peace talks with Beijing.

Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu, of the China-friendly opposition Kuomintang (KMT), told foreign journalists on Friday that it was “inevitable” for Taiwan to negotiate a peace treaty, while warning that time was running out.

“Taiwanese people have less and less time to avoid discussing a peace treaty [with Beijing],” said the mayor who came to office just two months ago. “Why? Because the dynamics of cross-strait relations are becoming more and more volatile.”

Han did not expand on what a treaty would entail and did not explicitly say whether signing a treaty with China implied that he would seek recognition of Taiwan’s diplomatic status.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/23
By: Elaine Hou and Christie Chen

Taipei, Feb. 23 (CNA) Taiwan on Saturday lodged a protest against the organizers of the 2019 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, for referring to Taiwan as a “province of China” on its website.

The Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), which organizes the congress, and Fira Barcelona Gran Via, the convention center where the event will be held from Feb. 25-28, have improperly referred to Taiwan as a “province of China” on the event’s registration website, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement.

As a result, Taiwanese officials are unable to attend the congress, the MOFA said.

The MWC is one of the most important global events for the information and communication technology sector, and Taiwanese representatives have always been able to register and attend the event in the past under the name “Taiwan,” the ministry said.    [FULL  STORY]

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: Support for the death penalty was high, with 79.6 percent of respondents to the National Chung Cheng University poll saying it should not end

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 24, 2019
By: Liu Ching-hou  /  Staff reporter

Nearly 80 percent of respondents to a poll expressed doubt about the impartiality of judges, while a larger number said they were dissatisfied with judicial reform efforts, a poll released on Friday by National Chung Cheng University’s Crime Research Center showed.

The survey showed that 21.9 percent of respondents said judges conduct trials correctly, down 1.2 percentage points from a previous poll.

The government in August 2017 convened the National Congress on Judicial Reform, but 80.9 percent of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with its efforts.

Asked about countermeasures against false news reports, 81 percent of respondents said they support the government’s use of police and the judiciary, with 49.8 percent expressing strong approval.
[FULL  STORY]

LGBT+ advocates responded to Taiwan’s historic draft bill with cautious optimism.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/22
By: Michael Garber

The administration of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has approved a draft bill which, if passed, will make Taiwan the first country in Asia to legally enact marriage equality for same-sex couples.

The draft legislation comes almost two years after Taiwan’s highest court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. However, voters decided in last November’s referendums that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman in Taiwan’s Civil Code, dealing a blow to Taiwan’s LGBT activists.

The new bill has frustrated the anti-same-sex marriage campaigners behind the November referendums, who had hoped for a watered down bill providing only for same-sex civil unions.

Taiwan’s Executive Yuan announced the draft bill on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2018.

The language of the draft bill, called “The Enforcement Act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748,” forcefully defends “equal protection and freedom of marriage for two people of the same gender” in Article 1. However, advocates reacted with cautious optimism.    [FULL  STORY]