Taiwan tightens food safety protocols following outbreak of African swine fever in China 

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/09
By: Renée Salmonsen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Chinese authorities have yet to inform Taiwan about a recent outbreak of the African swine fever (ASF) virus in China despite an agreement mandating this kind of information be communicated immediately.

According to the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Taiwan authorities were informed of the outbreak by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), not China, reported CNA.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/09
By: Liao Yu-yang and William Yen

Taipei, Aug. 9 (CNA) Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is likely to benefit from the second set of tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese products, a top Ministry of Economic Affairs official said Thursday.

The remark was made after the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced on Tuesday that starting Aug. 23, a 25 percent tariff will be imposed on a list of imports from China worth approximately US$16 billion.

The list, which contains 279 tariff lines, covers items such as petrochemicals, steel and aluminum; machinery and some electronic products.

This is the second tranche of tariffs following the imposition of tariffs on about US$34 billion of imports from China that went into effect on July 6, the statement said.   [FULL  STORY]

THREE EXAMPLES: The associations cited CTi reporter Chen Yun-wen’s departure, an order to blacklist a Storm Media reporter and a threat over an HIV/AIDS list as proof

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 09, 2018
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he would never suppress

reporters, after the International Federation of Journalists and its affiliated Association of Taiwan Journalists on Tuesday said that the Taipei City Government had intervened with reporting three times in less than a year.

The associations released a joint statement condemning the city government for “harassing journalists” and “intervening with media reports and investigations,” citing three cases as evidence.

The most recent case involved Ko’s inconsistent claims about controversial statements he made in a speech at the Taipei-Shanghai Forum in Shanghai in July last year: “The two sides of the [Taiwan] Strait are one family” and “a community with a shared destiny.”

Ko said he had sent a draft of his speech to the National Security Council (NSC) before the trip, but did not receive a response.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-07

A strike by staff at China Airlines in 2016 over poor working conditions

and benefits led to the management agreeing to the strikers’ demands. But two years later, the airline’s employees union feels conditions have still not improved.

Representatives of flight attendants unions protested outside the Presidential Office in Taipei on Tuesday. Two years after a staff strike at Taiwan’s flagship carrier China Airlines, they claim President Tsai has not followed up on promises she made at that time to ensure the rights of flight attendants.

Huang Hui-chen of the China Airlines Employees Union said President Tsai’s pledges of reform at China Airlines have not been kept, whether in regard to flight attendants having to work in perilous weather conditions or putting interns to work on flights.    [FULL  STORY]

Even if Taiwan grants exonerated death row inmate Cheng Hsing-tse the compensation he is asking for, it will never make up for the years he lost behind prison walls.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/08/07
By: Stephen Hsu

July 19th, 2018 was an emotional day for Cheng Hsing-tse (鄭性澤) and his family. It was Cheng’s first time back to the Taichung High Court since the judges returned a not guilty verdict for his retrial on October 26th, 2017. Cheng was due back in court for his compensation hearing, during which he asked for NT$21.6 million (US$706,470) for being detained 4,321 days after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

In 2002, Cheng was accused of killing police officer Su Hsien-pi (蘇憲丕) in a Taichung karaoke bar shootout. In 2006, Cheng was found guilty of murder and possession of a firearm and was sentenced to death. He remained on death row for 11 years.

“I thought the most I would be charged with was gun possession,” Cheng told The News Lens after his 2017 exoneration. “After the death sentence judgment, I was hopelessly disappointed and surprised.”

Cheng Hsing-tse: Finally Free from Death Row’s Shadow
At last year’s retrial hearing, the court heard new evidence that Cheng was tortured by police after being detained and gave his confession under duress. The court found that key evidence was withheld from the initial autopsy report, and could not rule out ballistics reports indicating that the gangster Luo Wu-hsiung (羅武雄) – who was killed by police after starting the shooting by firing a pistol at the ceiling – had killed the officer.
[FULL  STORY]

Police found a little girl wearing a pair of worn-out slippers nibbling on a pacifier and crying as she was walking along a street 

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/08/07
By: Alicia Nguyen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A three-year-old girl in southeastern Taiwan was safely returned home by police after she was spotted crying on a street and looking for her mother around midnight on Tuesday, according to CNA.

According to spokesman of Taitung County Police Bureau Chen Hsing-tsun and police officer Yang Jingfu, when they were on duty at around 1 a.m., they heard the sound of a crying girl and saw her silhouette on the third section of Ruijing Road in Luye Township, Taitung County. As the police officers went to check what was happening, they saw a little girl wearing a pair of worn-out slippers nibbling on a pacifier and crying as she was walking along a street.

After checking with nearby local police stations, the two policemen found that there were no children reported missing in the area. Therefore, they decided to walk the child to the Ruixing tribe, which was 300 meters away and made house-to-house visits to ask if anyone recognized the little girl.

Police’s effort finally paid off as the Ruixing tribe’s chief knew the girl and escorted her home to reunite with her family.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/07
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Aug. 7 (CNA) Taiwan will soon provide assistance to Indonesia to help it recover from a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that has left scores dead in the popular tourist destination of Lombok, a government spokesperson said Tuesday.

The strong earthquake struck Lombok on Sunday evening, killing at least 98 people according to official figures and shaking neighboring Bali.

In the wake of the tragedy, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said on Twitter on Monday: “My thoughts are with the victims of the deadly earthquake in Lombok, #Indonesia. #Taiwan stands ready to help our Indonesian friends at this difficult time.”

Asked to comment on how exactly Taiwan will help, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said nothing has been decided yet.    [FULL  STORY]

NEGOTIATIONS? The union said it has not set a date for the strike as it is still open to talks with the nation’s two major airlines on improving work conditions for members

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 08, 2018
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

The Taoyuan Union of Pilots yesterday said it has secured the vote to organize a labor

strike, adding that it would announce on Aug. 20 when the strike would take place if China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) and EVA Airways (EVA,長榮航空) continue to refuse to negotiate with it.

The union held a vote from July 16 to Monday, with 1,212 of its 1,426 members participating. A total of 1,187 members voted to go on strike: 731 China Airlines pilots, 454 EVA Airways pilots and 2 from other airlines.

“We hope that this [vote for a strike] would encourage the airlines to improve the work environment for their employees, such as making a definite promise that pilots would not have to risk their lives by flying on typhoon days,” union chairwoman Lee Hsin-yen (李信燕) said. “We are open for negotiations with the airlines before the end of this month.”

The union will resort to a strike if the two carriers continue to ignore and slander the pilots, as well as disregard the safety of passengers, she added.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-06

Taiwan’s outlying island of Kinmen began importing water from China on Sunday, but

Taiwan says future electricity lines and a bridge need to be carefully evaluated.

The Kinmen County Government held a ceremony for the new water links on Sunday despite calls from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council to delay it. That’s because Beijing pressured the East Asian Olympic Committee to revoke the central city of Taichung’s rights to hold the East Asian Youth Games next year.

The new water link is the result of an agreement that Taiwan and China signed in 2016 to provide Kinmen with water for 30 years. Kinmen is to import an average of 34,000 tons of water from China each day.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan is a major employer of Southeast Asian migrant workers. We spoke with Archie, who has toiled in a factory for six years, and found a man not in the least bit deserving of the scorn and vitriol so often directed towards foreign workers in Taiwan.

Taipei Times
Date: 2018/08/06
By: Lin Shengyi (林勝毅)

The machines clang and clatter with a deafening ferocity as the factory whizzes along. Inside its walls, workers roast like turkeys in an oven in the hot summer heat. When the winter comes along, they set down their hot soy milk and watch it turn to ice the moment they start to work. This is life inside a Taiwanese industrial park – an experience shared by a decreasing number of locals, who opt out of long hours of arduous manual labor and let the tasks fall to Taiwan’s 680,000 migrant workers.

Archie, a Filipino, is one of them. Six years ago, he became the only one of his four siblings to venture to Taiwan for work. He has been working in the same factory for six years.

In Taiwan, migrant workers must sign new contracts every three years. Their jobs essentially depend on whether the owners wish to extend their employment. The amended Employment Services Act (ESA) allows workers to transfer employers after three years without restarting the costly recruitment process – but these rules are still flouted from time to time. Archie, knowing his employer is in control, has worked very hard to keep his job.    [FULL  STORY]