The China Post
Date: May 8, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A day before online registration for this year’s World Health

A day before online registration for this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) closes, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that no progress had been made in Taiwan’s efforts to gain an invitation to the global summit.

Assembly (WHA) closes, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that no progress had been made in Taiwan’s efforts to gain an invitation to the global summit.

The Foreign Ministry stated yesterday that Taiwan still had not received an invitation to the decision-making summit of the World Health Organization (WHO), and that “there is no new progress.”

Since 2009, Taiwan has attended the WHA under the designation of Chinese Taipei, under an agreement between the then-ruling Kuomintang administration and the government in Beijing and the World Health Organization.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/06
By: Matthew Geason

Matthew Geason is an intern with the Truman National Security Project, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, and a student at National Taiwan Normal University. Views expressed are his own.

‘For those who believe that this debate was laid to rest, recall that if there was

Photo: REUTERS/Richard Chung

severance with the past, there would be no need for a truth and reconciliation commission,’ argues Matthew Geason.

In recent weeks, Taiwan has seen two statues beheaded as a result of decades-old ideological differences. After the beheading of a statue of Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta, individuals outraged by this action reportedly responded with the decapitation of a statue of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正).

This was followed by the introduction of a bill in Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan, proposing repurposing the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and removing all statues of the former president from around the country.    [FULL  STORY]

UNDETERRED:Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee said that a delegation would be sent to Geneva to participate in bilateral meetings even if no invitation is received

Taipei Times
Date: May 07, 2017
By: Peng Wan-hsin / Staff reporter, with CNA

US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Friday urged US Secretary of Health and

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) speaks at a news conference at her office in Miami, Florida August 12, 2015. Photo: Reuters

Human Services Tom Price to help Taiwan join the upcoming session of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decisionmaking body of the WHO.

The next session of the WHA is scheduled to run from May 22 to May 31 in Geneva, Switzerland, but Taiwan has yet to receive an invitation from the WHO secretariat.

“Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Organization threatens the international community’s full access to Taiwan’s high-quality healthcare information. Due to its superb talent, data collection and quarantine and treatment facilities, Taiwan has excellent infectious disease control capabilities,” Ros-Lehtinen, the former chair of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a letter to Price.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 7, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Environmental protection authorities on Saturday traced water

Environmental protection authorities on Saturday traced water pollution to a surprise culprit: a backyard operation that was turning the intestines of slaughtered pigs into a human pharmaceutical.

pollution to a surprise culprit: a backyard operation that was turning the intestines of slaughtered pigs into a human pharmaceutical.

Pingtung officials started their probe after receiving a complaint that water in a local ditch had turned blood red. Photos attached the complaint showed that the ditch was like a “red river,” the officials said.

Environmental inspectors began tracing the source of pollution and found that the perpetrator was illegally making the pharmaceutical drugs that are commonly called blood thinners, officials said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-05-05

The government says the next stage of its New Southbound policy will focus on

Minister without portfolio John Deng (2nd from right) was speaking on Friday at a seminar on the 2017 Asian Political and Economic Prospects.

talent development, agriculture, biotechnology and medical care. That’s the word from minister without portfolio John Deng on Friday. Deng was speaking Friday at a seminar on the 2017 Asian Political and Economic Prospects.

The New Southbound policy aims to forge closer ties with ASEAN member countries, as well as India, New Zealand and Australia.

Deng said the policy, introduced last year, has produced some positive results. These include growth in trade and an increase in tourists and foreign students from the target countries.

Deng also talked about the importance of agricultural cooperation.   [FULL  STOIRY]

xperts identified tetrafuran as cause of high dioxin levels

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/05
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Research has shown that an additive in chicken feed

(By Central News Agency)

caused excessive levels of dioxin in eggs from one farm in Changhua County last month, the Council of Agriculture (COA) announced Friday.

Eggs from the Hung Chang (鴻彰) farm in the township of Fangyuan showed a dioxin concentration of 5.2 picograms per gram, more than double the legal maximum level of 2.5 pg/g. As a result, thousands of eggs were removed from shelves and all of the farm’s chickens, estimated at more than 42,000, were culled.

A meeting of experts and representatives of various government departments met Friday afternoon and came to the conclusion that the presence of dioxin was the result of animal feed containing tetrafuran, a harmful chemical officially known as 2,3,7,8-TCDF.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/05
By: Su Mu-chun and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 5 (CNA) A Vietnamese man who entered Taiwan illegally to be reunited

(CNA file photo)

with his wife and child was arrested at their home in Taichung on Friday.

The man, surnamed Nguyen, will be turned over to prosecutors on suspicion of violating the Immigration Act.

Nguyen, 36, told investigators at the Central Coastal Patrol Office that he first came to Taiwan to work in 2008, but ran away from his original employer six months later because of a debt problem.

At that time, he began seeing a Vietnamese woman who had already obtained a Taiwan ID and took up odd jobs around the island, but he was caught and deported in 2013 when his girlfriend was pregnant.    [FULL  STORY]

OBSOLETE:FAPA president Peter Chen said the proposed legislation suggests that communication channels are outdated and insufficient to maintain regional stability

Taipei Times
Date: May 06, 2017
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Six US senators, including Republican Marco Rubio of Florida, on Thursday jointly

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio introduces Alex Acosta, President Donald Trump`s nominee to be Secretary of Labor, during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 22. Photo: Reuters/Aaron P. Bernstein

introduced the Taiwan Travel Act, legislation that encourages visits between Taiwan and the US at all levels.

The other senators who joined Rubio in presenting the bill were Republicans Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Cory Gardner of Colorado and Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Gary Peters of Michigan.

The draft bill states that the US Congress believes the US government should encourage visits between officials from Taiwan and the US at all levels, instead of placing restrictions on such visits.

Washington should allow US officials at all levels, including Cabinet-level national security officials, general officers and other executive branch officials, to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts, the bill reads.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 6, 2017
By: CNA

CNA — Dozens of people, photographed here on Friday, May 5, visit the 2017 Taipei Tourism Expo which kicked off on Friday. The show, which runs for four days until May 8, promises the best bargains and deals in traveling and tourism..    [FULL  STORY]