Radio Taiwan International
Date: 28 December, 2018
By: Paula Chao

The forestry bureau in eastern Taitung county recently made the exciting discovery of hundreds of 1,000-year-old Taiwan red cypress trees.

A forestry bureau team arrived in a mountainous area of Taitung county by helicopter. Their mission: to find rare and endangered Taiwan red cypress trees. It took 13 team members five days to hike to their destination. Sometimes they almost reached the map coordinates only to find a steep cliff in front, not to mention the risk of falling off the slopes.

But the team members were determined to complete their task. And at a point when everyone was almost exhausted, they found hundreds of 1,000-year-old Taiwan red cypress near a beautiful lake.

It takes 10 people to make a circle around the tallest tree there, which is 15 meters in perimeter and 35 meters tall.    [FULL  STORY]

Ko Wen-je has reportedly been invited to visit the US foreign policy think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/28
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – It was first reported on Dec. 18 that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is planning a trip to the United States in the spring of next year.

It has since been reported that during the trip Ko will visit the U.S. think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is located in Washington D.C.

This confirms the speculation of some that Ko was planning to visit the U.S. capital in his role as the mayor of Taipei. The news is likely to fuel even more speculation surrounding a possible presidential bid.

Upmedia reports that in early December several researchers and aides from CSIS made a visit to Taipei City Hall to hold a closed door meeting with Ko. It was reportedly at this meeting that Ko began planning his visit to Washington D.C., which has been confirmed for March, 2019.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/28
By: Lee Hsin-Yin 

Taipei, Dec. 28 (CNA) A Cabinet task force investigating a deadly Puyuma train crash in October took issue Friday with arguments made by the train’s driver against the task force’s conclusions that he acted negligently prior to the accident.

Task force spokesman Allen Hu (胡湘麟) said the accusations made by investigators against Puyuma driver Yu Chen-chung (尤振仲) were not wrong because they were based on data taken from a Train Control and Monitor System (TCMS), which operates like a black box.

The system showed that Yu maintained the train’s speed at 130-140 km per hour from the time the southbound Puyuma express left Luodong station to when it approached Xinma station 9 kilometers south, where it derailed going around a curve because it was moving at double the permissible speed limit.    [FULL  STORY]

‘LEARNING PROCESS’: Wong Chi-huey said that the false allegations had damaged the reputations of Academia Sinica, and other esteemed institutions and companies

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 29, 2018
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

The Shilin District Court yesterday acquitted former Academia Sinica president Wong

Chi-huey (翁啟惠) of corruption charges in connection with OBI Pharma Inc (浩鼎), with Wong saying that he hopes the verdict would “mark a definitive closure to all the confusion and harms done.”

The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office in 2016 started investigating allegations that Wong had received 3,000 OBI Pharma shares from company chairman Michael Chang (張念慈), allegedly in exchange for helping the company obtain Academia Sinica’s research results on enzyme synthesis techniques.

In May 2016, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) approved the resignation of Wong, who began his term in October 2006.

Prosecutors in January last year indicted Wong and Chang under the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan should note that the US can no longer be counted on to unconditionally support its allies.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/27
By: Brian Hioe

The resignation of U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis after the unilateral decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria after a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan should be noted with caution in Taiwan.

While Mattis originally announced that he would resign at the end of February, after news broke, Trump decided to remove Mattis from his post immediately. However, the event has failed to raise much discussion in Taiwan, likely because of a general lack of awareness in Taiwan about America’s global security commitments except as they relate to the threat of China.

needs to call on her allies, will Donald Trump pick up the phone?
As an experienced military official and highly decorated veteran, Mattis was viewed as a stabilizing force within the Trump administration by many, along with other individuals such as former chief of staff John Kelly. With the departure of other individuals seen as stabilizing forces in the Trump administration, Mattis was seen as the last “adult in the room.”

In truth, despite much liberal idealization of Mattis, this is only in comparison to the rest of the Trump administration, Mattis being an individual whose previous actions had led to the nickname “Mad Dog,” for one. Yet Mattis’ departure should still throw cold water onto the idea that institutional checks or the “adults in the room” within the Trump administration would prevent Trump taking irreversible and dangerous courses of political action.    [FULL  STORY]

The distance between the two hospitals is 175, and the trip took 165 minutes, which is about half an hour to one hour sooner than it usually takes

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/27
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A Taiwan’s National Highway Police unit on Thursday helped rush a desperately ill infant from Hualien to National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital in Taipei by clearing the way for the ambulance carrying the baby, according to a Central News Agency report.

A mother said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that her one-month-old baby was having an emergency medical situation that required her to transfer from Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital to NTU Hospital, a trip which would take an estimated three hours, the report said. She said her baby would be kept in an incubator with life support during the journey, pleading road users to let them pass during the journey, which encompasses traveling on the narrow and winding Suhua Highway.

According to an Apple Daily report, the infant’s grandmother said the infant was born four months premature and weighed only 860 grams. However, the baby’s stomach continued to bulge, and bowel necrosis was suspected, the grandmother added.

Therefore, a private ambulance was arranged to transport the infant from the Hualien hospital to NTU Hospital on Thursday.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/27
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, Dec. 27 (CNA) Taiwan’s national freeways will be toll-free from 12 a.m. to 5

a.m. Dec. 29-31 and from 12 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Jan. 1 in the hope of easing daytime traffic during the four-day New Year holiday weekend, transportation authorities said Thursday.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications on Thursday presented to the Cabinet a series of measures to manage the expected high traffic volume during the holiday. For the first time these included extending the toll-free period on the last day of the holiday.

Southbound traffic is expected to peak on Dec. 29, the first day of the holiday, while the same is expected of northbound traffic on Dec. 31, according to Chen Wen-ruey (陳文瑞), director-general of the ministry’s Department of Railways and Highways.

From 7 a.m. to noon on Dec. 29, only vehicles with three or more occupants will be allowed to use No. 1 Freeway southbound lanes between Neihu (內湖) and Toufen (頭份) as well as southbound lanes between Mucha (木柵) and Xiangshan (香山) on No. 3 freeway, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

TAKING ADVANTAGE: The Ministry of Education said it has since last year been aware that employment agencies are recruiting students under an internship program

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 28, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

Hundreds of Southeast Asian students recruited to Taiwanese universities under the

government’s New Southbound Policy have allegedly been tricked into doing illegal work at factories, with some working 10 hours per day, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) said yesterday.

At least six schools have allegedly collaborated with employment agencies and companies to make their students provide cheap labor, Ko told a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee.

One school, which she later identified as Hsing Wu University in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), arranged for its students to work 10 hours per day, four days per week at an optics manufacturer, she said.

“They had to stand for 10 hours and package 30,000 contact lenses every day” and were banned from taking any leave, she said.

January’s Shilin-Datong city councilor by-election has major 2020 presidential implications for Ko-P and Taiwan’s ‘White Force.’

The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/26

In Taiwan’s nine-in-one regional elections, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was overwhelmingly defeated throughout the country, including in Taipei. Even though they did their best to shut out Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), he still went on to pip his opponents to the post.

After his victory, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) made a personal visit to congratulate Ko, but by that time he had long since decided to break away from the DPP. Will Ko Wen-je look to challenge Tsai for the presidency in 2020, or will he continue to build his legacy in Taipei?

It all starts with the upcoming by-election for the vacant Taipei Shilin-Datong District Legislative Yuan seat, set to be held in January 2019 to fill the seat of failed DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智). It looks to be a close battle between the DPP’s Mark Ho Chih-wei (何志偉) and the Ko-backed “White Force” independent Chen Su-yu (陳思宇). It will also tell us a lot about the future of Ko’s independent coalition and hint at his strength as a potential 2020 presidential candidate.
[FULL  STORY]

The disappearances took place over a span of two years since the program started

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/26
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Following the Tourism Bureau’s confirmation of reports that a total of 152 Vietnamese out of 153 who arrived with tour groups in Kaohsiung last week went missing, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said Wednesday that eight students with New Southbound Policy programs had also been out of reach.

Since taking over in May 2016, the current administration has been emphasizing closer ties and exchanges with the countries of South and Southeast Asia, including as a source for tourists and people-to-people exchanges.

The international study programs under the New Southbound Policy had seen eight students disappear over the past two years, with their schools reporting the fact to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the National Immigration Agency, the Central News Agency reported.

The current academic year of the program had resulted in 2,494 foreign students coming to Taiwan, MOE data showed. Short-term technical courses had recruited 182 students, and professional technical programs 255 foreign students, according to the ministry.    [FULL  STORY]