China Airlines ground crew members call for end to pilot strike in front of Taipei’s Dongmen Market

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/10
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — China Airlines (CAL) ground crew members gathered in Taipei this afternoon to call for an end to a pilot strike organized by the Pilot Union Taoyuan as they accused EVA Air employees of interfering with CAL’s internal affairs.

Today at 3:30 p.m., CAL employees began to gather in front of the Dongmen Market in Taipei’s Da’an District to protest against a pilot strike being led by the Pilot Union Taoyuan and accused staff of rival air carrier EVA Air of manipulating the situation.

CAL ground crew members gathered this afternoon to call for an end to a strike being held by over 400 pilots from their airline. Protestors complained that the strike organized by the CAL branch of the Pilot Union Taoyuan had brought much trouble and inconvenience to employees and the public, and they denounced them has having no right to represent the company.

Protestors accused EVA Air employees of participating in the strike and expressed their opposition to what they described as the rival airline’s “interference in China Airline’s internal affairs.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/10
By: Yu Hsiang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Feb. 10 (CNA) A total of 20,608 marriages between Taiwanese and foreigners were registered in 2018, with most of the foreign spouses coming from Southeast Asia, according to statistics from the Ministry of the Interior.

The number of foreign spouses from Southeast Asia was 8,749, accounting for 42.45 percent of all the foreigners married to Taiwanese last year, the statistics show.
[FULL  STORY]

MIDDLE GROUND: CAL has already agreed to dispatch more pilots and regional flights should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, the transport ministry said

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 11, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) has offered the Taoyuan Union of Pilots a third path to consider in dealing with fatigue among China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) pilots, it said yesterday, adding that it would keep its doors open for negotiations as the pilots’ strike continued for a third day.

Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) made the announcement at the conclusion of an emergency response meeting held after the airline and union failed to reach an agreement on how to resolve pilot fatigue during six hours of negotiations on Saturday.

The airline’s management agreed to dispatch three pilots when the expected flight time exceeds eight hours, but the union said that the limit should be set at seven hours.

The company said the union’s proposal would be hard to implement, as many regional routes have flight times of between seven and eight hours and it would not have enough pilots to dispatch on those flights, Wang said.    [FULL  STORY]

New Bloom Magazine
Date: 02/09/2019
By: Brian Hioe
Photo Credit: Tsai Ing-wen/Facebook

TAIWANESE POLITICAL leaders took the opportunity to criticize China’s lack of democracy in their Lunar New Year’s messages, as observed in speeches by president Tsai Ing-wen and premier Su Tseng-chang.

In Tsai’s speech, which was released in the form of a video on Facebook, Tsai offered her new year’s wishes to “Taiwanese and ethnic Chinese around the world”, stating that Taiwan remained committed to defending its democratic freedoms, and that even during the new year, members of the military, airport staff, and other security personnel continue to work to protect those freedoms from possible threats. Tsai would also remark on that the Lunar New Year was celebrated by ethnic Chinese across the world, also reiterating her new year’s greetings in Hakka, Cantonese, and Teochew.

LUNAR NEW YEAR SPEECH BY TSAI
Tsai then went on to state that Taiwan preserved traditional culture and democracy as a core value of society, but that places without democracy might not be able to understand this. As such, Tsai stated that she hoped other ethnic Chinese societies could also enjoy the blessings of democracy. In closing, Tsai would offer her new year’s greetings in English, stating that many foreigners had come to visit Taiwan during the new year’s and that she hoped they would enjoy their stay in Taiwan.

Su Tseng-chang’s comments, on the other hand, which were also released in the form of a video on Facebook, struck a humorous note, with Su discussing the dangers of the African swine fever virus in the form of a cooking program. Su stated that if there was “mutual cooperation” in Taiwanese society, there would be no need to worry about the swine fever, reminded that if food is heated properly, this would kill the swine fever virus, and emphasized that swine fever only affects pigs, not humans. Su also stated that travelers who failed to pay fines on bringing meat into Taiwan would not be allowed into the country, as a preventative measure, and asked citizens to contact authorities if they found any dead pigs, particularly by riversides or in public areas.    [FULL  STORY]

Tainan teen dressed in inflatable dinosaur costume viciously attacked by hoodlum

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/09
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A 16-year-old young woman, who wears an inflatable T-Rex costume to raise funds, on Friday (Feb. 8) reported being assaulted while performing on the streets of Tainan.

On Friday, the female high school student uploaded a photo on Facebook showing a mask covered in blood and wrote the following:

“After being hit and bleeding, I feel like my nose was almost broken. But I don’t know who it was. It’s very puzzling. Who on provoked whom? And nobody saw… No one can testify for me.”
The student says that she comes from a disadvantaged family and she dresses up in the costume in order to help her family cover living expenses and to help with her tuition. The other reason why she dresses up in a full costume is to conceal her identity, even from her family.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/09
By: Chiu Chun-chin, Sunrise Huang and William Yen 

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TTIA) experienced smooth operations Saturday during the second day of strikes by pilots employed by China Airlines (CAL), one of the country’s leading carriers.

Hung Yu-fen (洪玉芬), senior vice president of Taoyuan International Airport Corp., which oversees TTIA, said the strike has not made a big impact on the airport and that “everything is under control.”

On Saturday, a total of nine CAL flights were canceled at TTIA, four outbound and five inbound, affecting about 1,028 passengers, Hung said, adding that the affected passengers were all able to board other flights to their destinations through codeshare flights.

According to an announcement on the CAL website, a total of 31 flights were canceled across the country from Friday to Saturday, while three more flights Sunday will also be canceled.    [FULL  STORY]

PILOTS’ STRIKE: The union’s first demand of alleviating “fatigue flights” had not been addressed nearly two hours into the meeting, which carried on into the night

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 10, 2019
By: Hsiao Yu-hsin, Chen Yi-chia and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday was criticized by the Taoyuan Union of

Pilots for undermining flight safety to maintain its proclaimed 90 percent flight capacity, as the strike by CAL pilots continued for a second day.

A mediation meeting at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) in Taipei, attended by representatives from the union, CAL, the MOTC, the Ministry of Labor, the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Taoyuan Department of Labor began at 3pm.

The discussions were sluggish from the start, and participants had not even addressed the union’s first demand of aleviating “fatigue flights” — or flights of more than 12 hours — almost two hours into the meeting.

Negotiations were continuing as of press time last night.    [FULL  STORY]

The withdrawal removes a major US handicap in its great power struggle with China.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/08
By: Milo Hsieh

The U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty with Russia after having a domestic conversation on the possibility since mid-2018. The treaty itself will take six months or more to expire officially, but the strategic implications of the move are already coming in play.

On the surface, it may be perceived a reckless and unpredictable move coming from U.S. President Donald Trump. However, it presents real opportunities for the U.S. to redefine its strategic priorities. Especially with the rise of China, who is not a signatory of the INF, an U.S. withdrawal could potentially pivot to a renewed arms control deal that includes China in response to an increasingly multipolar world.

In this article, I will explain the ways an U.S. withdrawal from the INF could in fact be beneficial to Taiwan, a party that is often caught between the great power struggle between the U.S. and China.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2019/02/08
By:  Central News Agency

Three more cases of measles have been confirmed in Taiwan, bringing the number to 11 since the beginning of the year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Friday.

The three new cases include a woman in her 20s, who came in contact with a measles patient living in northern Taiwan, confirmed as an imported case from Vietnam on Jan. 16, and another two imported cases — one man in his 30s from Haiphong City, Vietnam and a 7-year-old girl from Manila, the Philippines, according to a CDC statement.

The three new patients developed symptoms from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, the CDC said in its statement.

Of the 11 measles cases confirmed this year, eight were imported, four from Vietnam and the Philippines each, and three indigenous cases, it indicated.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/08
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 8 (CNA) China Airlines (CAL), one of Taiwan’s leading airlines, will hold talks with the CAL branch of the Pilots Union Taoyuan on Saturday in a meeting that will be mediated by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) amid a pilot strike called on Friday which has so far affected more than 3,000 passengers.

CAL, led by company president Hsieh Su-chien (謝世謙), will meet with senior union officials including chairwoman Lee Hsin-yen (李信燕) to discuss related issues, including working hours and bonuses, according to MOTC Deputy Minister Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材).

Also attending the meeting will be representatives from the Ministry of Labor, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and Taoyuan City’s Department of Labor, said union official Chen Po-chien (陳柏謙).

“Due to the intervention of the MOTC, we have learned that CAL will offer proposals including flexibility on the management of long-haul flights to reduce pilots’ working hours,” Chen said.    [FULL  STORY]