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Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to face ‘transitional justice’

The China Post
Date: February 26, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Ministry of Culture announced Saturday a raft of measures to

The Ministry of Culture announced Saturday a raft of measures to exact “transitional justice” on Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

exact “transitional justice” on Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

Culture Minister Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) held a press conference to announce that souvenirs depicting the late President Chiang Kai-shek had been removed from shops inside the memorial hall.

The practice of playing a song in honor of Chiang at the opening and closing of the memorial hall had also been brought to an end, she said.

She announced that galleries had also been renamed to erase references to the former president, whose legacy has become increasingly disputed.   [FULL  STORY]

Ban on slaughter and transport of poultry lifted

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-02-24

The Council of Agriculture has lifted a weeklong nationwide ban on the slaughter and

COA has lifted a weeklong nationwide ban on the slaughter and transport of poultry. (CNA photo)

transport of poultry.

The ban on transport was lifted at midnight and the ban on slaughter at noon on Friday. The ban was in place for a week to prevent an outbreak of bird flu from spreading further. On February 6, a highly pathogenic H5N6 bird flu virus which carries a risk of human transmission was found in a bird.

Quarantine official Shih Tai-hua said Friday that vets are ready to make sure that all poultry is healthy.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan deports suspected ISIS member to Indonesia

Suspect was 34-year-old woman working on the island

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/24
By: Matthew Strong,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – An Indonesian woman working in Taiwan was arrested on

News report from Indonesia’s Liputan 6.

suspicion of having joined Islamic State and deported to her country, reports said Friday.

The island counts more than 100,000 Indonesian citizens working temporarily, most often women who serve as caregivers for elderly people.

Media in Indonesia said a woman named Tri Astiningsih, 34, had joined IS and been arrested on February 21 as the result of a joint investigation by Taiwan and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The following day, she was put on a China Airlines flight to the Indonesian capital Jakarta and arrested by local authorities upon her arrival. Taiwanese security staff accompanied her on the plane, while Indonesia sent members of its special antiterrorism unit to the airport to pick her up, reports said.  [FULL  STORY]

Cold, wet weather in northern Taiwan to last into Feb. 27: CWB

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/24
By: Wang Shu-fen and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) The current cold and wet weather in northern and northeastern Taiwan is likely to continue into Feb. 27, while another wave of cold air could hit Taiwan March 2, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said Friday.

Lows are expected to hover around 12 degrees Celsius in those areas between Friday, Feb. 24 and Feb. 27, with rain likely to make the weather feel even colder, the bureau said.

Central and southern Taiwan could experience lows of around 15 degrees during the same period, but chances of rain there might be slightly lower than in the northern part of the country, bureau data shows.    [FULL  STORY]

Koo focuses on youth corps funding

CASH FLOW:Chen Li-wen said she did not know whether the corps had returned the government’s money, but that it used most of it organizing youth activities

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 25, 2017
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday consulted historians and

Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee Chairman Wellington Koo, right, gestures at a hearing in Taipei yesterday. Photo: CNA

former officials at the China Youth Corps at a hearing in Taipei to determine whether the corps is a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) affiliate, but questions surrounding the foundation’s operations remained.

The committee’s investigation report found that the corps — known as the China Youth Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps until 2000 — was founded in 1952 after a resolution by the then-KMT Central Reform Committee in an effort to “depose Chinese communists and resist Soviet Union forces” following the KMT’s defeat in the Chinese Civil War and its retreat to Taiwan.

It organized camps to teach combat skills to young people at high-school level and above under the control of the Ministry of National Defense until 1969, when then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) son, then-minister of national defense Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), took over as premier, the committee said.   [FULL  STORY]

Military tests new recruits for drugs after amphetamines found on base

The China Post
Date: February 25, 2017
By: Joseph Yeh

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The military is now conducting urine tests on new recruits to make

The military is now conducting urine tests on new recruits to make sure they are not using illicit drugs, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

sure they are not using illicit drugs, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

This latest move follows a case earlier this week in which drugs were found at an Air Force base in Taichung.

Several small packages of drugs were discovered at Ching Chuan Kang Air Force Base (清泉崗空軍基地) in Taichung on Monday. The case has since been handed over to prosecutors for further investigation.

Prosecutors had announced on Thursday that they found 51 small packages of white powder that were later identified as amphetamines.    [FULL  STORY]

Drop off in new H5N6 cases does not signal end of outbreak: Official

Radio Taiwan Internatyional
Date: 2017-02-22
Quarantine effort continues to contain H5N6 spread

The quarantine bureau is warning farmers that a drop off in the number of new H5N6

The quarantine bureau is warning farmers that a drop off in the number of new H5N6 cases does not mean the ongoing bird flu outbreak has ended. (Photo by CNA)

cases does not mean the ongoing bird flu outbreak has ended.

The warning comes amid a weeklong ban on the slaughter and transport of poultry that began Friday. After an uptick of reported cases over the weekend, Monday and Tuesday passed without any new cases of H5N6.

However, deputy director of the quarantine bureau Shih Tai-hua said Wednesday that the weather in Taiwan is expected to change in the coming days, bringing back the cold conditions favorable to H5N6.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan red quinoa found effective in suppressing early-stage cancer progression in mice

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/22
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taiwan red quinoa could be a good dietary food for fighting early colon cancer as a

(By Central News Agency)

research conducted by a Taiwanese medical research team shows that early stages of chemically induced colon cancer were suppressed in mice fed red quinoa diets for 10 weeks.

In the research, the team from Taipei Medical University’s School of Nutrition and Health Sciences found that early-stage cancer progression in mice with chemically induced colon cancer was effectively suppressed after they were fed Taiwan red quinoa for 10 weeks. That means Taiwan red quinoa as a dietary food could play a role in prevention of colon cancer, the research says.

The research results show that the diet of Taiwan red quinoa indeed has the effects of regulating oxidizing reaction, apoptosis and cell proliferation.    [FULL  STORY]

Train explosion suspect sentenced to 30 years in prison

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/22
By: Liu Shih-yi and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) The Taipei District Court on Wednesday sentenced a man to 30

CNA file photo

years in prison for setting off an explosion in a train in Taipei in July 2016 that injured 25 people, including himself.

The man, Lin Ying-chang (林英昌), was found guilty of detonating a homemade explosive device on a commuter train as it was pulling into Songshan Railway Station late on the night of July 7, 2016.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted murder and 10.5 years for manufacturing explosives, which the court then combined into a 30-year sentence.

At a trial hearing at the court on Wednesday, Lin argued that he intended to commit suicide and did not have any intention to kill others.    [FULL  STORY]

Suspected drugs discovered on air base

UPGRADE:A KMT legislator called on the president to consider upgrading ketamine to a Category 2 substance to allow for heavier punishments for users and dealers

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 23, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

Dozens of packages of suspected amphetamines and regulated substances were found

A guard inspects a vehicle at the entrance to Taichung’s Ching Chuan Kang Air Base yesterday. Photo: CNA

on the Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in Taichung, but an ongoing base-wide drug test has not identified any drug users.

Base patrol officers on Monday found 27 packages containing powdery and crystal substances and drug paraphernalia, the Ministry of National Defense said.

A preliminary analysis showed that the substances might be amphetamines and ketamine.

There are about 3,000 enlisted personnel and officers on the base, and 1,200 had taken urine tests as of yesterday, with 10 people initially testing positive, the base’s Political Warfare Office director Colonel Shih Sheng-te (施勝德) said yesterday.  [FULL  STORY]