The China Post
Date: March 9, 2017
By: Stephanie Chao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Tributes have been paid to former Vice President Lee Yuan-tsu (李元

簇), who has died at the age of 94 after a long fight with kidney disease.

Li, vice president between 1990 and 1996 under President Lee Teng-hui, died with his family by his side at his residence in Toufen, Miaoli at 4:15 a.m., Wednesday, according to reports.

Lee had been undergoing dialysis and had been unable to eat, his former aide Chen Jin-ding told the Central News Agency.

The head of Lee’s medical team, Chuang Chi-kuang told reporters that Lee had recently refused treatment, saying the former vice president had stated his wish to die with dignity.    [FULL  STORY]

Ministry of Transportation and Communications official’s five point safety list for riding tour buses

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/08
By: Judy Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

Taipei (Taiwan News)—Liu Yun-chu (劉韻珠), a member of the road safety committee at

the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) compiled a simple five-point tour bus safety checklist at a press conference to promote travel safety awareness week on Tuesday.

A string of tragic tour bus accidents in recent years awakened Taiwan’s public to the risks associated with one-day bus tours, and the public can use Liu’s simple checklist to ensure a safer trip on tour buses:

1. Keep seat belts fastened at all times.
2. Check if there are two functioning fire extinguishers on the bus.
3. Every bus should be equipped with three hammers for breaking emergency exit windows.
4. In case of an emergency, break the four corners of the exit window. Check beforehand if the emergency exit window is made with reinforced glass, as laminated glass will be the most difficult to destroy.
5. Check whether emergency exits of the tour bus are still functioning.

   [FULL  STORY]

 

 

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/08
By: Tang Pei-chun and S.C. Chang

Brussels, March 7 (CNA) Beijing has changed its strategy of helping Taiwan to prosper

alongside China’s economic growth and instead is now trying to impoverish Taiwan to make it more dependent on mainland China, a Chinese academic said Tuesday.

China’s policy toward Taiwan has clearly been to do everything it can to stop any Taiwan independence campaign, said Song Xinning (宋新寧), director of the European Institute for Asian Studies, at a seminar on “The Trump Presidency: Implications for Northeast Asia.”

If there are no independence moves by Taiwan, there will be no problems in cross-Taiwan Strait relations, Song said at the seminar, which was aimed at making an initial assessment of how much change is likely to come out of the U.S.-Japan alliance during Trump’s first term and examining the broader implications for regional security dynamics in Northeast Asia.    [FULL  STORY]

SOCIAL CHANGE:The government needs to instill concepts of gender equality in its policies to help society transition and encourage women’s participation, Tsai said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 09, 2017
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Sacrificing their careers to take on a caretaker role is not only unfair to women, but also

a national loss, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, pledging to remove all hurdles to increase female participation in the workplace.

Speaking at an event in Taipei organized by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to celebrate International Women’s Day, Tsai said that while women have demonstrated remarkable skills in various areas, they are constrained in the workplace because of insufficient government support.

As the burden of caregiving mostly falls on women, many feel compelled to give up their jobs to care for children or family members, Tsai said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 8, 2017
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered a recall Tuesday of Taiwan’s most

widely used lipid-lowering drug after more counterfeit versions of the drug were found.

The drug’s maker, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, issued a statement through its Taiwan affiliate on Tuesday announcing a recall of the Crestor (冠脂妥) drug in a joint effort with the FDA.

FDA Director Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅) said investigators had found counterfeit Crestor drugs with the batch number MK479.

The discovery came after counterfeit Crestor drugs with the batch number MV503 were found on Sunday.    [FULL  STORY]

‘228 is an important historical event for every Taiwanese who lived under the oppression of the party-state system and does not distinguish between ethnic groups. But the 400 years of oppression experienced by Taiwan’s indigenous peoples is still poorly understood and rarely discussed.’

The News Lens
Date: 2017/03/07
By: Lin Fei-fan
Translated by Aaron Wytze Wilson, republished via New Bloom.

Today, on Feb. 28, Peace Memorial Day, I choose to stand with Taiwan’s indigenous peoples.

Recently, because of schoolwork, and also because of my plans to go abroad, I have rarely participated in public events, and have also turned down various interviews.

This 228 Peace Memorial Day, there is a wide range of activities and events, from northern to southern Taiwan. I had originally thought I could perhaps quietly participate in a couple of commemorative events. But in the end, I chose to stand with my friends from the indigenous community, and marched from Ketagalan Boulevard towards 228 Peace Memorial Park.

Those who don’t understand the march might assume these indigenous had come to make an unnecessary commotion. If they were to think more maliciously, they might assume these people were once again being used by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and were there to block the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from exercising governance.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/07
By: Chen Wei-ting and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, March 7 (CNA) The age limit for taxi drivers will be raised from 68 to 70 next

month, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said on Tuesday.

However, those over 68 years old will be required to pass a cognitive ability test to prove they can work as taxi drivers, the ministry added.

The MOTC explained that according to available statistics taxi drivers over 65 are not at greater risk of being involved in traffic accidents, which is why the ministry is encouraging more senior citizens to remain in the job market.    [FULL  STORY]

UNSUITABLE DISCUSSION?A senior Ministry of National Defense official denied a report that it might buy a Japanese submarine under the pretext of ‘scrap metal’

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 08, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The navy has proposed building a helicopter carrier as part of its indigenous

shipbuilding program to boost the nation’s marine-patrol capabilities.

The navy plans to build a Landing Helicopter Dock capable of carrying six large helicopters and traveling at 30 knots (55kph).

The 22,000 tonne, 220m-long carrier would be fitted with an OTO Melara 76mm gun, an air defense missile system, an active electronically scanned array radar and advanced sonar system, the navy said.
The announcement of the proposal coincided with a naval indigenous shipbuilding exhibition that opens today on the AOE 532 Panshi, a combat-support ship that docked in Keelung Harbor yesterday.
[FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 8, 2017
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered a recall Tuesday of Taiwan’s most

widely used lipid-lowering drug after more counterfeit versions of the drug were found.

The drug’s maker, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, issued a statement through its Taiwan affiliate on Tuesday announcing a recall of the Crestor (冠脂妥) drug in a joint effort with the FDA.

FDA Director Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅) said investigators had found counterfeit Crestor drugs with the batch number MK479.

The discovery came after counterfeit Crestor drugs with the batch number MV503 were found on Sunday.

“Given that the FDA has been unable to confirm how many batches of fake Crestor drugs have entered the market, the administration and AstraZeneca Taiwan have decided to recall all Crestor drugs currently used or sold at hospitals and pharmacies nationwide,” Wu said.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2017/03/06
By: The Japan Times

During the memorial event held Tuesday in Taipei on the 70th anniversary of the

uprising, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen said her government will take steps to identify where the responsibility for the incident lies.

Taiwan last week commemorated the 70th-anniversary of the “228 Incident,” the Feb. 28, 1947, mass uprising by native Taiwanese that was brutally crushed by the Kuomintang (KMT) government of the Republic of China, which took control of the island following the end of colonial rule by Japan two years earlier. Today’s government in Beijing should be reminded that people of Taiwan cherish their freedom and democracy, and its high-handed approach toward the island — which it considers a renegade providence that must be brought back into the fold — is only raising tensions in cross-Strait relations and causing feelings of revulsion among Taiwanese.    [FULL  STORY]