The News Lens
Date: 2018/07/25
By: Nick Aspinwall

A Taiwanese vessel docked in South Africa recently became the first to ever be

detained under a new UN convention preventing labor abuse at sea. In Taipei, advocates are fed up.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Civil Service Development Institute in Taipei this morning to usher in the 2018 International Workshop to Combat Human Trafficking.

Organized by the Ministry of the Interior (MoI), the event highlights Taiwan’s ongoing commitment to stop forced labor, but the event’s roster of legislators and speakers will have to tend to a persistent thorn in their side: labor abuse of migrant workers in the fishing industry.

Taiwan’s maligned distant water fleet made the news for all the wrong reasons last week, when its vessel Fuh Sheng No. 11 became the first ship ever detained for violating the International Labour Organization (ILO) Work in Fishing Convention (also known as C188). South African authorities apprehended and inspected the vessel at port in Cape Town following complaints from the crew about poor work and living conditions.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/07/25
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Jinshan beach fire fishing concert, an event that combined a concert and the unique practice of Sulphuric Fire Fishing (蹦火仔), was held at Jinshan Beach in New Taipei City on Saturday (July 21), according to Taiwan’s North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area Administration (NCGNSAA).

The event featured the world’s last four remaining sulphuric fire fishing boats operating in waters off the venue along with narration given by culture and history experts, who were invited by the event organizers to help visitors understand the unique practice.

Sulphuric Fire Fishing, an important industrial and cultural heritage of Jinshan, is still continuing on local waters during summer.

The shows of the four fire fishing boats took place at two different times on Saturday night. After a fisherman on each of the boats lit a sulfuric fire on the end of a long stick to light up the surroundings of the boat, which made an explosive
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/25
By: Su Mu-chun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, July 25 (CNA) Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said Wednesday that

the city government is evaluating the feasibility of lodging an application for arbitration with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after the East Asian Olympic Committee (EAOC) revoked Taichung’s right to host the first East Asian Youth Games slated for 2019, reportedly due to “political factors.”

Although Taichung City has spent more than NT$670 million (US$21.87 million) on preparations for the games, the EAOC made the decision following a vote at an extraordinary EAOC council meeting called by Chinese representatives in Beijing Tuesday on whether to hold the Taichung event as planned in August 2019.

The Chinese representative reportedly raised the issue due to alleged concerns over a public campaign in Taiwan to hold a referendum on whether Taiwan should seek to participate in all international sporting events, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, as “Taiwan” rather than its standard Olympic name “Chinese Taipei.”    [FULL  STORY]

CITY NAMES: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked the firms for their reluctance, while the US Department of State reiterated its stance against Beijing’s pressure

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 26, 2018
By Nadia Tsao and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter in WASHINGTON, with staff writer

Three major US airlines have changed their Web sites to refer to Taiwan only by

city names, in response to Beijing’s demand that the changes be made by yesterday.

Reuters on Tuesday reported that the three major US carriers — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines — had agreed to meet China’s request to change the way they refer to Taiwan online.

An unnamed US official was quoted as saying that the US Department of State had on Monday promised China’s embassy in Washington that the carriers’ English and Chinese-language Web sites would only display city names for Taiwan and would remove references to Taiwan as a nation.

American Airlines yesterday morning was the first to comply, changing references from “Taipei, Taiwan,” to only “Taipei.”    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-24

President Tsai Ing-wen says Taiwan stands on the front line defending

democratic values as China continues to use “sharp power” to influence the region. The president was addressing the Ketagalan Forum: 2018 Asia-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei on Tuesday.

Tsai said the challenge of today is to find ways to cooperate to protect joint interests in the face of economic, political and military coercion. She said China uses “sharp power” to influence its neighbors in the East Asia region. This is a term coined by the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, referring to the rising authoritarian influence in the world of China and Russia.

With regards to Taiwan, these include military exercises designed to intimidate, involving warplanes circling the island. Politically, China has prompted diplomatic allies to break ties with Taiwan and applies pressure to restrict Taiwan’s international participation.    [FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: JULY 24, 2018
By: David Shepardson, Michael Martina

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – Major U.S. airlines are expected to change how their websites refer to Chinese-claimed Taiwan by Wednesday in an effort to avoid Chinese penalties, three sources said, after coordination between the carriers and the U.S. government.

Beijing has demanded that foreign firms, and airlines in particular, not refer to self-ruled Taiwan as non-Chinese territory on their websites, along with Hong Kong and Macau, a move described by the White House in May as “Orwellian nonsense”.

China set a final deadline of July 25 for the changes, and last month rejected U.S. requests for talks on the matter, adding to tension in relations already frayed by an escalating trade conflict.

Numerous non-U.S. airlines including Air Canada (AC.TO), Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and British Airways (ICAG.L) have already made changes to their websites, according to Reuters checks, after China’s Civil Aviation Administration sent a letter to 36 foreign air carriers earlier in the year.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/07/24
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—On July 17 Taipei police helped an octogenarian, who

got lost during his latest visit to his old residence, find his way home by leveraging a face detection and recognition system.

The Songshan Precinct of the Taipei City Police Department said in a news release on Tuesday that Zhonglun Police Station officers Shen Yu-wen (沈毓雯) and Chan Ze-hua (詹則華) were on patrol when they received a report at midnight on July 17 that an old man might have got lost as he had been standing in an alley on Section 3 of Bade Road in Songshan District for a considerable period of time.

The two police officers immediately responded to the report. When they got to where the elder was, they saw him standing at the entrance of an alley with a crutch and looking into the residences in the alley with helpless facial expression.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/24
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, July 24 CNA) Taiwan is part of the new “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”

strategy proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Tuesday in Taipei.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a forum in which he was invited to speak, Carter said he has “been part of” the U.S.’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy, “which favors an inclusive network of countries pursuing security in a way that is based upon rules and principle, and not coercion.”

“That is what will guarantee the stability and also the prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, and Taiwan is a part of that network, of principle, inclusion and rules, and it’s a privilege to have that relationship,” he said.

The Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, introduced by the Trump administration in November 2017, encompasses an area stretching from the U.S. West Coast to Japan, down through Southeast Asia to Australia, and west across another ocean to India.    [FULL  STORY]

YOUTH GAMES: The city urged the East Asian Olympic Committee to respect the rights of athletes, saying that doing otherwise would go against the Olympic spirit

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 25, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The East Asian Olympic Committee yesterday announced that it has revoked

Taichung’s right to host the first East Asian Youth Games due to “political factors” after the city had already spent nearly NT$677 million (US$22.04 million) on preparations for the event.

The government denounced what it called China’s “barbaric” interference in the committee.

The decision was made at a provisional committee meeting in Beijing yesterday, reportedly due to pressure from China, which is unhappy about a referendum proposal to rename Taiwan’s national sports team from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan” for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The committee is comprised of representatives from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, Japan and Guam.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-23

President Tsai Ing-wen says Taiwan is responsible for its own national defense.

She was speaking on Monday while meeting with the local media in the southeastern county of Taitung.

The president was speaking about a cross-strait military operation plan, which the armed forces recently revised. The plan stipulates that Taiwan must rely on itself in the event that a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait. It was created under the assumption that the United States would not send soldiers to help defend Taiwan.

Tsai said that maintaining regional peace and stability is the responsibility of all sides. But she said that self-defense is the responsibility of Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]