‘EXPERIMENT’: Brent Christensen said that at the time of the TRA’s passage, many hoped for the best, but were skeptical about what unofficial ties alone could achieve

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 02, 2019
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

A year-long campaign is to be launched in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the

signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the 40th birthday of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), AIT Director Brent Christensen said yesterday.

Christensen made the announcement at the Executive Yuan in Taipei prior to a meeting with Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).

The campaign, called AIT@40, would celebrate 40 years of friendship and partnership between Taiwan and the US since the signing of the act, Christensen said, adding that it would be held with the collaboration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington.

It is to feature 12 monthly themes ranging from trade and investment to shared values and education, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

A daily breakdown of Taiwan’s top stories and why they matter.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/01
By: TNL Daily News

Taiwan will maintain its goal of abolishing nuclear power by May 2025, despite the outcome of last November’s referendum that required the removal of an article of legislation calling for all six nuclear reactors on the island to be shuttered.

That article was subsequently repealed, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Thursday published a revised national energy strategy affirming the government’s intention to abolish nuclear, and calling for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told a press conference that resistance from local governments, difficulty in maintaining Taiwan’s aging reactors, a lack of storage space for spent fuel rods, and a failure to complete an application to extend an agreed decommissioning deadline with the Atomic Energy Commission make it impossible for Taiwan to continue with nuclear.

The move is likely to cause consternation among proponents of the referendum, support for which which garnered almost 6 million signatures, equivalent to 59 percent of the vote. Pro-nuclear activists have vowed to hold another referendum on the issue in 2020 if the government failed to restart non-operational reactors.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 01, 2019 
By Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

New Taipei City prosecutors yesterday filed assault and coercion charges against a man

surnamed Lin (林) after a video of him apparently beating his wife and child over a trivial matter was widely circulated, sparking a public outcry over domestic violence.

The alleged incident took place on the night of Jan. 12, when the 42-year-old instructed his 11-year-old son to buy bawan (肉圓), meatballs made with gelatinous dough, from a vendor in New Taipei City’s Lujhou District (蘆洲).

The indictment says that Lin became angry because his son forgot to ask the vendor for hot sauce, and then yelled at the boy and accused him of lying while his wife, surnamed Lee (李), tried to intervene and protect their son.

The video appears to show Lin angrily putting his wife in a headlock before throwing her to the floor, and repeatedly slapping his son on the face and punching him in the torso.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/01
By: Chiang Pei-ling and Chi Jo-yao

Taipei, Feb. 1 (CNA) One of Taiwan’s first conjoined twins, who was successfully separated from his brother 40 years ago, died of a brain hemorrhage Friday, according to his family.

Chang Chung-jen (張忠仁), the older of the conjoined twins, collapsed Thursday at work and died early the next morning, his family said.

In 1979, Chang and his brother Chang Chung-i (張忠義) were the first conjoined twins in Taiwan to be successfully separated.     [SOURCE]

A fire engulfed a three story building early Friday morning, it reportedly started from a timber pile next to the family home

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/02/01
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – At around 4:00 a.m. the morning of Feb. 1 in Tainan’s Xiaying District (下營區), a fire engulfed the third floor of a home and damaged other levels as well, resulting in the death of a grandmother and her two grandchildren.

The deceased victims were a 61 year old grandmother surnamed Huang(黃), and her two young grandchildren surnamed Feng (馮), a brother and sister, aged eight and six.

After receiving the report of a residential fire around 3:45 a.m., 16 fire engines, three ambulances, and 50 police officers were sent in response.

The flames were extinguished by 4:39 a.m., according to a report from Apple Daily. The fire is suspected to have started from a timber pile next to the house, as the homeowner was engaged in collecting wood for carpentry and decoration purposes.
[FULL  STORY]

The two asylum seekers entered Taiwan late last night for ‘professional exchanges.’

The News Lens
Date: 2019/01/31
By: Nick Aspinwall

This story has been updated to reflect statements made on Thursday afternoon by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council.

Chinese asylum seekers Yan Bojun, 44, and Liu Xinglian, 64, entered Taiwan last night after spending 125 days stranded in a restricted area of Taoyuan International Airport.

The two men have entered Taiwan for “professional exchanges,” according to CNA. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) arranged for them to fly to Singapore earlier yesterday before returning to Taiwan late last night, where they were allowed entry after spending over four months in limbo.

The two men, who say they are fleeing persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), were picked up by Taiwanese friends and driven separately to arranged residences.    [FULL  STORY]

 

Bus driver was looking at his smartphone: reports

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/31
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Two Taiwanese men delivering food for Uber Eats by motorcycle were killed by a bus in Sydney, Australia, according to reports Thursday.

Camera footage showed the bus driver had been watching his smartphone and failed to brake to try and avoid the stationary motorcycle, the Apple Daily reported.

The two Taiwanese were identified as Bill Chen (陳廣偉), 28, and Hsu Su Po (許舒博), 32.

Chen and Hsu were on a scooter stationary on one side of the road when a bus driven by Luis Rojas, 49, hit them from behind, catapulting them into the other lane where they were killed by oncoming traffic, reports said.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/31
By: Elaine Hou and Chung Yu-chen

Taipei, Jan. 31 (CNA) Indonesian students already enrolled at a university in Taiwan were denied visas because they are deemed to have insufficient financial resources or lack adequate proficiency in Chinese, while a few were found to have applied for visas with fake documents, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Thursday.

According to local media reports, Taiwan’s representative office in Indonesia has refused to issue or is reviewing the issue of visas to 57 Indonesian students enrolled at Taiwan Shoufu University in Tainan.

Huang Wen-shen (黃文琛), director of the International and Cross-Strait Affairs Office at the university, in a Facebook post criticized Taiwan’s representative office in Indonesia for refusing to issue the visas.

According to Huang, some of the students have received scholarships from local gold mining companies but were still not granted visas.    [FULL  STORY]

REFERENDUM No. 7: The government is to bar capacity expansions at coal-fired power plants and abide by local governments’ tightened environmental regulations

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 01, 2019
By: Ted Chen  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday published a revised national energy strategy

that calls for the abolition of nuclear power by 2025 and reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

Although Taiwanese in November last year voted against the government’s 2025 deadline to abolish nuclear power, the energy source would still be completely removed from the nation’s energy mix after that year due to inevitable constraints, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told a news conference in Taipei.

Resistance from local governments, difficulty in procuring replacement parts for aging reactors, finding storage space for spent fuel rods and the inability to complete the stay-of-decommissioning application process have all but ruled out the use of nuclear power beyond 2025, Shen said.

Other remedies, such as reactivating decommissioned nuclear plants, are also unlikely due to the lengthy budget approval process at the legislature, Shen said, adding that General Electric Co is no longer able to provide technical support for reactors that were installed decades ago.    [FULL  STORY]

Xi Jinping’s proposal came across as farcical in a city where democratic traditions have evaporated.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/01/30
By: Suzanne Pepper

Hong Kong is learning what it means to live with Chinese definitions of free speech and all its derivatives. Introducing the proposed new national anthem law, Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Patrick Nip told critical questioners they could still exercise their right to say whatever they want. It’s just that they will have to find some other format because renditions of the national anthem will soon be off limits.

The maximum sentence possible under the new law will be a three-year prison term and a HK$50,000 (US$6,370) fine for intentionally insulting, distorting, or otherwise disrespecting the national anthem. This is to be played at all the usual times and places, with one addition. It must also be played at swearing-in ceremonies when officials, legislators, and judges are taking their oaths of office.

The police will be allowed two years, instead of the usual six months, to file charges against offenders – two years because that’s how long they’ve found it can take to ferret out miscreants from the footage now being recorded by police cameras and others at every demonstration and political event. This kind of surveillance is also part of Hong Kong’s new reality.

Credit: Reuters / Bobby YipThis could soon be against the law in Hong Kong.
The new law follows from the calamitous 2016 Legislative Council swearing-in-ceremony when some newly-elected Hong Kong legislators added a few insults along with some political slogans to the standard oath-of-allegiance. Bad behavior at soccer matches had also not gone unnoticed. A national anthem law has since been passed and is being enforced throughout the country, with Hong Kong and Macau required to add a similar law to their new post-colonial Basic Law constitutions.    [FULL  STORY]