Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-28

Premier William Lai presided over a groundbreaking ceremony at Taiwan Water

Corporation’s Employee Training Park on Sunday. The new park, located in Tainan’s Hsinying District, in southern Taiwan, has a price tag of NT$927 million (nearly US$32 million). It’s slated for completion in December, 2019.

Lai said that the park will not only be able to train some 4,000-5,000 Taiwan Water employees, it can also be used to train people from allied nations. He said that if there is a need in countries covered by the New Southbound Policy, they can also benefit from the park. [FULL  STORY]

One thing remains clear—the enchanting views of a vast body of clean, turquoise water surrounded by the blue and sometimes misty mountains remains unchanged. 

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/28
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–I revisited Sun Mook Lake on January 7 after my first visit about

30 years ago. While my past memories of this Taiwan’s mega tourist attraction have blurred, one thing remains clear—the enchanting views of a vast body of clean, turquoise water surrounded by the blue and sometimes misty mountains remains unchanged.

I stayed at an inexpensive old-fashioned hotel in Shuili Township, Nantou County, about 30 minutes’ drive from Sun Moon Lake on the previous night to avoid getting ripped off by one of the lakeside hotels, which usually starts from NT$4,000 per night.

I took Provincial Highway No. 21 from Shuili to reach Xiangshan Visitor Center (向山遊客中心) after visiting Checheng, which is an old logging village in Shuili and also the last station of the JiJi Train Line. Checheng is a neat and beautiful place, but I think too few relics from the past and too much renovation has made it lackluster.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/28
By: Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Jan. 28 (CNA) With schools in Taiwan having entered the winter break and the

week-long Lunar New Year holiday on the horizon, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) urged people to take precautions before traveling overseas.

Many areas around the world are facing contagious epidemics, including South Korea, where influenza outbreaks are at their peak and virus-caused stomach flu is rampant, the CDC said in a statement on Jan. 23.

Also in South Korea, the host nation of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games scheduled to take place from Feb. 6-25, the highly pathogenic H5N6 and N5N8 types of avian flu have been reported in South Jeolla, North Jeolla and Gyeonggi provinces since the beginning of the year.    [FULL  STORY]

COMPLETION CEREMONY: The government plans to reduce agricultural water waste by as much as 93.8 million cubic meters per year through a new conservation project

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 29, 2018
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday promised to ensure stable water supply for all

sectors of the economy and encouraged businesses to invest in Taiwan as he presided over a ceremony to mark the completion of a major dredging system for the Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫).

The holding capacity of the reservoir, which spans Chiayi County and Tainan, has been dramatically reduced in recent years by about 100 million cubic meters, or about one-sixth of its capacity, due to a build-up of sludge and sediment.

Typhoon Morakot in 2009 alone contributed 90 million cubic meters of mud, which prompted the government to design a dredging system to remove the sludge from the nation’s largest reservoir.

Construction of the NT$4.1 billion (US$141 million at the current exchange rate) system began in March 2013.    [FULL  STORY]

The Guardian
Date: Jan 27, 2018
By: Mitch MacDonald

A good reputation can travel a long way.

A little more than three years ago, Vincent Huang was a family physician in Taiwan

when one of his patients happened to be an Islander living in the country.

After hearing about the province from the patient, Huang and his wife Donna Chen soon decided to take a vacation in P.E.I.

“We found it was a very peaceful place and the people are very friendly,” said Huang, with the couple moving to the province in 2015. “I find the pace is slow and not very rushed, I like the atmosphere because I used to be busy from the early morning until midnight.”

Throughout a 22-year medical career in Taiwan, Huang’s medical centre and clinic cared for more than 100,000 patients. Huang saw about 100 patients a day.

Taiwan is about seven times the size of P.E.I. and has a population of more than 23 million.

Now, the family physician is living a more peacefull existence operating the Fox Blue Café in Charlottetown.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-27

Doctors are urging travelers visiting Taiwan’s southeast coast to be cautious as

Portuguese men o’ war wash up on local beaches.

The Portuguese man o’ war is a collection of small organisms. It is often mistaken for a jellyfish because it has a gelatinous top and stinging tentacles. On occasion, stings from the Portuguese man o’ war can be lethal. A number of dead Portuguese men o’ war have recently appeared on beaches in Taiwan’s southeastern Taitung County.

Liao Yi-sheng, the deputy head of Taitung Hospital, warns that Portuguese men o’ war can sting even after they are dead.

Liao said most injuries from stinging aquatic creatures like jellyfish come during the summer months, when more people tend to swim in the ocean. Liao also said that January is an unusual time to spot these creatures, with sightings most common when they reproduce, between April and June.    [SOURCE]

Students mentioned milk tea in essay about ‘forming a long line’

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/27
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As the English-language section of the university entrance

examinations in Taiwan Saturday featured the subject “form a long line,” students were reminded of the recent craze centered on the milk tea (厚奶茶) from I-Mei Foods Co. (義美食品).

A student from Kaohsiung told the Central News Agency that writing a piece about the topic of long lines was not so difficult, since it was enough to look at daily life and to remember the craze surrounding milk tea, since she had also gone queuing for the product at the time.

Most students interviewed by CNA said Saturday’s exam was not really that difficult, since the topic had been taken from a common phenomenon in Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/27
By: Liu Lee-jung and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, Jan. 27 (CNA) Taiwan’s population grew at its slowest pace in recorded history in 2017, rising only slightly to reach 23.571 million people, according to the Ministry of Interior (MOI) on Saturday.

Data from the MOI showed the number of people with household registration in Taiwan rose by 31,000 from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017, a 0.133 percent growth that was the lowest annual increase since the country began recording such statistics.

Taiwan’s population growth, like that of most developed countries, has been on the decline, and the drop has been especially noticeable in recent years. It now has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.

Whereas the annual growth rate in 1951 was 4.168 percent, it dropped to 1.483 percent by 1984 and 0.133 percent in 2017.    [FULL  STORY]

STEADY HAND: An economist said Yang is familiar with the organization and would help stabilize the foreign exchange market, the No. 1 challenge for the next governor

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 28, 2018
By: Crystal Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Central bank Deputy Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) has reportedly won the

nomination as the nation’s top monetary policymaker after Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) retires on Feb. 25.

In an exclusive report yesterday, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) broke the news, which is consistent with market expectations.

The long-awaited appointment, which still requires confirmation from the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan, would make Yang the central bank’s first deputy to become governor.

He is expected to extend Perng’s “dynamic stability” approach in dealing with foreign exchange.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-26

Lin said the government has made its stance clear to the US over the recent removal of

the country’s national flag from the website of the USTR. (File photo)

The Presidential Office says the government has made its stance clear to the United States over the recent removal of the country’s national flag from the website of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

A senior Taiwanese diplomat stationed in Washington, DC has already made representations to the US over the matter.

Presidential Office spokesperson Sidney Lin said Friday that the US is Taiwan’s most important ally. Lin also said friendly ties between the two sides are crucial to regional peace and stability in East Asia.   [FULL  STORY]