Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-16

The Legislature on Tuesday approved all eleven nominees of the majority Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) as commissioners for the Control Yuan. The Control Yuan is the government’s internal watchdog agency.

The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) boycotted the vote, however. They claimed that several of the nominees had previously called for the abolishment of the Control Yuan and therefore lack legitimacy. The DPP’s legislative majority meant that the nominees were approved despite the lack of bilateral support.

DPP caucus secretary-general Ho Hsin-chun said her party respects the KMT’s position. Ho said, “As a legislator exercising the right of consent, I think all [DPP] members agreed at the meeting this morning, that we would all vote in favor to support President Tsai Ing-wen’s nominations. [The KMT] refused to vote, that is their right. We show our respect, because they have also given up their authority [as legislators].”    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan is a famously safe place to live, work and travel. Yet crossing the road or driving a scooter is like dicing with death.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/16
By: Jules Quartly

Taiwan is at the bleeding edge of road traffic safety.

At a car park near Taipei 101 there is a regularly updated notice (with obligatory “fun”

cartoon) that provides the number of road traffic deaths and injuries every month. It has become a game with my kids to guess what the new figures are. They are, without fail, always higher than the previous month.

“The real monsters are cars and motorbikes,” I tell my kids. After all, it’s not wild creatures under the bed, animals, stranger danger, terrorists or an act of God that are likely to kill or maim as much as drivers.

Every year about 1.3 million people are wiped out in road crashes and as many as 50 million injured, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. That’s more than 3,500 people dying daily, most of them kids, the elderly, pedestrians and cyclists. These figures are set to increase by 65 percent over the next 20 years if nothing changes. And of course, nothing will.    [FULL  STORY]

The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) Tuesday announced one new confirmed case of listeriosis, which is also the first case confirmed in Taiwan since listeriosis was recently listed as a notifiable disease

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/16
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)– The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC)

Tuesday announced one new confirmed case of listeriosis, which is also the first case confirmed in Taiwan since listeriosis was recently listed as a notifiable disease.

In late December 2017, an 80-something year-old man who resides in central Taiwan sought medical attention after developing symptoms, including fever and vomiting, Taiwan CDC said, adding, subsequently, he lost consciousness and entered into a coma.

Listeriosis was later confirmed after the hospital reported the case to the competent authority for laboratory testing. As of now, the senior citizen has gradually been recovering and is still being treated in the hospital, the agency said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/16
By: Yang Su-min and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) The international environmental group Greenpeace published

Tuesday its first report on the presence of microplastics in the seas surrounding Taiwan, which revealed dangerous concentrations of plastics in the water that could pose a threat to food safety.

According to Yen Ning (顏寧), head of Greenpeace Taiwan’s clean oceans initiative, the group set up a total of 18 locations off Taiwan’s coastline, divided between the northern area off the coast of Keelung and the southwestern area off the coast of Kaohsiung, and gathered water samples from these areas.

At one spot off the Keelung coast, 409 pieces of microplastics were collected in one instance, or as Yen described it, the equivalent of having 788,000 pieces of plastic in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.    [FULL  STORY]

GAINS: Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming denied criticism that the proposed changes are akin to vote-buying by pandering to farmers

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 17, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

As of press time last night, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers were

filibustering the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) proposed amendments to the Organic Regulations for Irrigation and Water Conservancy Associations (農田水利會組織通則). However, it was expected that the amendments would pass last night.

According to the draft amendments, the Council of Agriculture would appoint association presidents and officials, while elections of association heads and officials are to be abolished.

Association officials would be governed by the Civil Service Administrative Neutrality Act (公務人員行政中立法), the proposals said.

The draft amendments also proposed that the term of all association presidents be extended from May 31 to Sept. 30, 2020, in line with the Taipei-based Chi-Sing Irrigation Association and Liugong Irrigation Association.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-15

A civic group is calling for a referendum over the name that Taiwan uses at the

Olympics: “Chinese Taipei.” That name was adopted in 1981, due to pressure from China, which sees Taiwan as part of its territory. It’s a compromise which has enabled athletes to Taiwan to participate not just in the Olympics, but in other international competitions as well.

But now activists say that Taiwan should hold a nationwide referendum to allow citizens to decide on whether to keep the name or change it to “Taiwan.” Changing the name would likely prompt strong opposition from China, which could use its clout to block Taiwan’s participation.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/15
By: Nick Aspinwall

The people of Hongmaogang have faced numerous challenges since their village was

relocated in 2007. Now, residents work to keep their homeland’s spirit alive – and warn their threatened neighbors in Dalinpu of what lies ahead.

The proposed relocation of Dalinpu (大林蒲), a 320-year-old village in Kaohsiung’s southern industrial outskirts, is being fast-tracked in a manner that has left a large contingent of its residents feeling uneasy. Perhaps none are more skeptical than former residents of nearby Hongmaogang (紅毛港) who lived through the relocation of their own village in 2007. The two homesteads have long been intertwined, and the many Hongmaogang natives who moved to Dalinpu are now staring down displacement once again.

Some former Hongmaogang residents faced financial troubles and became homeless after defaulting on their new mortgages, expecting them to be backed by government compensation that never came. Many residents employed in the formerly lucrative local fishing industry found themselves lacking the skills to find well-paying jobs. The people of Hongmaogang, especially disadvantaged residents, “had to face economic difficulties” after relocating, says Wang Zhenyu (王振宇), director of the documentary 紅毛港家變 (“Hongmaogang Home Change”). “People felt they had lost their roots.”
[FULL  STORY]

Railway police warned the public against doing so as it’s illegal and dangerous.    

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/15
By:  Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—As many three-thousanders in Taiwan have received a

considerable amount of snow from the recent cold snaps, many people were seen stepping onto the railway in Taiwan’s eastern county of Hualien to take pictures of snow-capped mountains in the distance on Monday. However, railway police warned the public against doing so as it’s illegal and dangerous.

Photography enthusiast Chuang Jun-shou (莊俊碩), who lives in Hualien City , said he went to Mugua River Bridge around 1 p.m. on Sunday to take pictures of snow-capped Chilai Mountain and saw about 10 people step onto the railroad on the railway bridge over the Mugua River and take pictures of the snow-capped peaks in the distance. They only hurriedly got off the tracks when they heard the whistle of an approaching train, and after the train passed, they went back to the railway again to continue shooting photos, he said.

Chuang posted a slow-motion video footage of the dangerous act on his Facebook page with a sentence that denounced the group, saying they are “foolish people.”
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/15
By: Chang Ming-shuan and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) The supplier of Noritle Cold Vitamin Capsules has announced

that it will recall about 30,000 packets of the product from the market due to concerns over a lack of quality assurance.

An inspection of the manufacturing facility revealed that data showing the drug’s main ingredients was inaccurate.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found last year during an inspection of a pharmaceutical factory commissioned by Tien Liang Biotech Co. to manufacture the cold capsules that there were concerns over the factory lab testing process and abnormalities in data items in its lab report, Hsieh Chi-wen (謝綺雯), a section chief under the FDA, said Monday.

The FDA then issued a demand that the factory authorize a third-party lab to carry out testing in a designated time period and halt delivery of other items in the same product line to ensure safety, according to Hsieh.    [FULL  STORY]

PLEBISCITE BACKED: Bronze medalist Chi Cheng wants other Taiwanese athletes to be able to compete under the name ‘Taiwan’ as she did at the 1968 Mexico Games

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 16, 2018
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Pro-independence groups yesterday renewed their call for a referendum to rename the

national sports team from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan” when participating in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

A coalition that includes the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), the Social Democratic Party, World United Formosans for Independence, some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers and the Lee Teng-hui Association for Democracy urged the public to join the referendum initiative as part of a name rectification movement.

The nation’s athletes have participated in the Olympics under the names “Taiwan,” “Formosa” and “Republic of China (ROC),” but delegations also withdrew from some Games due to controversies over their titles until the term “Chinese Taipei” was adopted in 1981.    [FULL  STORY]