Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/08/04
By:  Central News Agency

New Taipei’s fifth and sixth cases of an indigenous dengue fever cluster of 2018 have

been confirmed in the city’s Xinzhuang District, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Saturday.

One of the recently reported patients lives 500 meters from the other five patients in the same village in Xinzhuang District, indicating that the cluster infection has worsened and extended to neighboring areas, according to a statement from the CDC.

CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said the next five days are critical for observing if the cluster infection has been extended to other villages in Xinzhuang District.

The CDC has sent 33 staff to inspect and disinfect the village where the cluster infection was reported, who have found larvae of vector mosquitoes in 17 containers holding standing water in the area.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/04
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Aug. 4 (CNA) Transportation authorities said Saturday that they have taken

precautions in the possibility of a strike by pilots of the nation’s two major airlines, while the pilot union said it will launch a rehearsal of the walkout amid growing pressure from the carriers.

Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材), Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications, said the ministry has been discussing with the Ministry of Labor and the Taoyuan City government, where the pilot union is based, to solve the problem swiftly.

While he declined to disclose details, Wang said the authorities have been working to have the pilots, China Airlines and EVA Airways talk to each other to avoid a strike.

Meanwhile, the Taoyuan International Airport Corp. (TIAC), which is responsible for the management of the country’s main gateway, said it has held meetings with CAL, EVA Air and airport service companies to prepare for the worst-case scenario.    [FULL  STORY]

WATER SUPPLY: The Water Resources Agency said the contract does not require a commencement ceremony, which the MAC repeatedly asked to be postponed

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 05, 2018
By: Chung Li-hua  /  Staff reporter

A system to supply water to Kinmen from China’s Fujian Province is to begin operations

today with two simultaneous ceremonies, following a national security official’s remarks yesterday that China is trying to split Taiwanese apart using carrot-and-stick tactics.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late last month asked the Kinmen County Government to delay its ceremony after Beijing pressured the East Asian Olympic Committee into revoking Taichung’s right to host the first East Asian Youth Games next year.

The county government decided to hold the ceremony as scheduled, but said that it would tone down the event’s political effects by downgrading it to a “ritual.”

While the central government does not plan to send any officials to the event, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) is reportedly planning to attend the counterpart ceremony in Fujian’s Jinjiang, along with nearly 100 members of the Chinese media.    [FULL  STORY]

Hanoi says it backs one-China policy after Beijing protests about companies’ efforts to protect themselves against anti-China protests

South China Morning Post 
Date: 03 August, 2018
By: Keegan Elmer, Lawrence Chung
Vietnam has denied claims that it approved a Taiwanese firm’s decision to fly the island’s flag at its premises to distance itself from widespread anti-Chinese sentiment in the country.

Beijing complained to the Vietnamese government after a number of firms from the self-ruled island said they had flown the flag to protect their premises and staff during anti-China protests.

On Thursday, Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said Vietnam upheld the one-China policy and that the flag flying was down to the decisions of individual Taiwanese companies.

Beijing angry over Taiwanese flag flown by firm in Vietnam
“The local authorities have complied with Vietnam’s consistent policy on Taiwan,” she said in a press briefing.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-03

Formosat-7, a cooperative project between Taiwan and the United States, will be sent to

the US in September. It will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida by the end of this year at the earliest.

Premier William Lai says the satellite will gather more atmospheric data for more accurate weather prediction. Lai was speaking Friday while inspecting the preparation work for the satellite at the National Space Organization in the northern city of Hsinchu.

Lai said Formosat-7 is free from land, ocean and even weather considerations. He said the satellite will transmit three to four times more data than the earlier Formosat-3.
[FULL  STORY]

A generations-old tradition of luring sardines with fire is under threat.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/08/03
By: Leslie Nguyen-Okwu

It’s pitch black on Taiwan’s waters, and in a few minutes, all hell will break loose. A boom and blaze of fire explode into the night sky, followed by the sour stench of sulphur. Thousands of tiny, ray-finned sardines suddenly leap out of the Pacific Ocean – in a wild, graceless dance – hurling themselves towards the scorching flames. Meanwhile, fishermen work feverishly to scoop them up, before they plunge back into the sea. The scene is utter chaos.

Traditional sulphuric fire fishing is a century-plus-old practice found only in Jinshan, a sleepy little port city near the northern tip of Taiwan. Fishermen use a bamboo torch and soft sulphuric rocks to ignite a fire fierce enough to drive hordes of silver-scaled sardines to the water’s surface. And the golden hour for making fish fly? Set sail during a “moonless night,” when the sun has long dipped below the horizon and the fish are starving for light, says 71-year-old Lee Ke-tong, a boat captain who’s been fire fishing for more than half a century.    [FULL  STORY]

Family was spending holiday on Dauphin Island

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/08/03
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A 17-year-old boy from Taiwan was found dead after going for a

swim in the U.S. state of Alabama, while his father was still missing, reports said Friday.

The father, aged 47, his son and family were holidaying in the southern state when they went out for a swim at Dauphin Island on Thursday afternoon local time, according to the Associated Press.

After swimming about 100 meters out to sea, both disappeared. An air and sea search turned up the body of the boy at 6 p.m., at around a distance of one mile from the spot where he vanished.

The search continued for the father, but until press time without result, media reported.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/03
By: Liu Chien-pang and Hsu Hsiao-ling

Taipei, Aug. 3 (CNA) Two Taiwanese-Americans who tried to climb out from the iconic

Taipei 101 skyscraper Tuesday have each been fined NT$1,500 (US$48.8) for violating social order, Taipei police said Friday.

Huang Chih-chia (黃致嘉) and Li Cheng-yuan (李承遠), both 19 years old, tried to scale down the skyscraper from the 91st floor to the 90th floor by scaling the fence surrounding the 91st floor’s outdoor observatory and sliding down a pole along the building’s exterior, the police said.

After the two entered the outdoor observatory at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, Huang was found and stopped by a security guard as he tried to climb over the fence.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan English News
Date: August 2, 2018
By: Phillip Charlier

The body of a man was found around 200 meters from shore this morning, after he went missing while scuba diving from the shore last night in Keelung City.

Mr Wu, 51, entered the water at around 7:00pm outside National Taiwan Ocean University while his wife waited on shore. As time passed, and other divers all exited the water, Ms Wu became anxious. At around 10:00pm anglers fishing at the spot urged Ms Wu to call the coastguard.

The Coastguard and Fire Bureau dispatched 9 vehicles, and 31 personnel to conduct a sea and shore search. The search was called off at around 1:00am due to poor visibility, and resumed at early this morning.

At around 9:00am, a fishing boat reported the body of a man wearing scuba diving equipment floating around 200 meters from shore. The identity of the deceased was confirmed by Mr Wu’s family.

The accomplishments of women in Taiwan’s armed forces deserve to be celebrated. Its appalling patriarchal orthodoxy, on the other hand, does not.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/08/02
性別是綿密而複雜的美麗毛線，我們一起將其編織成社會，翻轉世界。關注性暴力、女性主義、男性研究、性別平等教育與慰安婦研究，目前為高雄醫學大學性別研究所研究生。

Taiwan takes pride in its tradition of promoting women’s rights. According to its

Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Taiwan is top in Asia and ninth worldwide in addressing challenges facing women, using the metrics of the United Nations Gender Inequality Index (which is used to measure UN member states).

Taiwan’s progress was celebrated recently in a July 18 event at the Chihhang Air Base in Taitung County. Taiwan’s first female fighter pilots – Chiang Ching-hua (蔣青樺), Chiang Hui-yu (蔣惠宇), and Fan Yi-lin (范宜鈴) – flew their aircraft to Chihhang from their assigned posts for the event. Between the three of them, they can now pilot all three types of the nation’s frontline fighter jets, the AIDC F-CK-1, the Dassault Mirage 2000 and the Lockheed Martin F-16, according to Air Force Command.    [FULL  STORY]