The China Post
Date: February 5, 2017
By: CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A man in Taipei launched a knife attack on his three teenage children

Sunday, killing two of them, then cut his own throat, Taipei police said.

The third child, a 16-year old girl, passed out after she was stabbed in the neck but later regained consciousness and sent a message via LINE to her uncle, pleading for help, the Beitou District police said.

She was rushed to Taipei Veteran’s Hospital, where she received emergency treatment, and appeared to be in stable condition, the police said.

The other two children — a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy — were dead when police arrived at their home in Beitou, according to Hsieh Chih-hsin (謝志鑫), chief of the investigation division of the Beitou Precinct.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: February 5, 2017
By: The China Post news staff and CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) expressed concerns Saturday over a tour bus

accident that injured 21 of the 26 Chinese passengers in Southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City.

China’s TAO and semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits are concerned about the accident and are seeking further information from Taiwan authorities, TAO spokesman An Fengshan said. ARATS was informed by its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation, about the accident that took place around 10 a.m.

The bus was carrying 28 people — a Taiwanese driver, a Taiwanese tour guide, a Chinese tour manager and 25 tourists from southeastern China’s Zhejiang Province — when it struck a railway underpass, smashing its top. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said following the accident that it had sent its officials on site to visit the victims, coordinate with traffic and medical personnel and see that travel insurance policies of the accident victims would be paid out.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2017/02/04
By: Olivia Yang

While three Taiwanese films are looking forward to the annual international film festival, unresolved

problems remain and threaten the local film industry.

Three Taiwanese films will be screened at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale) which opens on Feb. 9.

Taiwanese director Huang Hui-chen (黃惠偵)’s documentary “Small Talk (日常對話)” has been selected to screen in the Panorama section and will also compete in the 31st Teddy Award, an official award of the Berlinale for films with LGBT topics. The documentary is Huang’s attempt to understand her gay mother through discussing issues such as trust and abuse, and won the 2016 Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary.

Internationally acclaimed director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) is executive producer for “Small Talk,” and while he will not be attending the Berlinale, at a press conference yesterday Hou stressed the importance of Taiwanese films being selected to screen at international film festivals.   [FULL  STORY]

On this day, Taiwanese households would prepare for the “Jade Emperor ritual,” in which various food items would be offered to the highest ranking deity to pray for good fortune for the coming year.

Taiwan News
Date:| 2017/02/04
By: Wendy Lee ,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — On the ninth day of the first month of Lunar calendar,

Taiwanese people along with the Hokkien community celebrate the birthday of the Jade Emperor (Tian Gong, or Yu Huang Dadi), who, according to Taoist beliefs, is the supreme deity and “the God of Heaven.”

The Jade Emperor is the Ruler of Heaven, and the Lord of the Imperial Court. His birthday falls on the ninth day of the first lunar month.

In Chinese culture, nine is considered to be an auspicious number given it has the same pronunciation with the word “everlasting” in Mandarin. It is also the highest single-digit number in the decimal system, which stands for grandness and eternity.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/04
By: Cheng Chi-feng, Jay Chen and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) Twenty-two people, mostly Chinese tourists, were injured Saturday when their tour bus hit an overpass in Taiwan’s southern port city of Kaohsiung, the Tourism Bureau said, adding that none of the injuries were life-threatening.

The accident occurred when the bus, which carried 28 people — including the driver, a tour guide and 26 visitors from southeastern China’s Zhejiang Province on a six-day trip that began on Feb. 1 — was going through a railway underpass with not enough clearing, the bureau said.

The local fire department said seven of the injured were children, all of whom sustained minor injuries.

Initial investigations showed that the driver’s unfamiliarity with local streets and lack of alertness may have been the cause of the accident.    [FULL  STORY]

INTERIM:The MND was planning to replace outdated Hawk missiles with Tien Kung III systems, but deployed PAC-3 batteries due to a backlog in production, sources said

Taipei Times
Date:| Feb 05, 2017
By: Lo Tien-pin and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile systems were moved to the Hualien and

Taitung areas ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday to ensure that Taiwan’s southeastern border is adequately defended in case of an attack, sources at the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said.

The relocation was prompted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force conducting several training missions around Taiwanese airspace over the past few months and a Chinese naval group consisting of China’s sole aircraft carrier and five other vessels sailing as close as 20 nautical miles (37km) of Taiwan’s southeastern air defense zone, the sources said.

The group sailed 90 nautical miles south of Pingtung County’s Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, as it headed for the western Pacific Ocean on a long-distance training mission, they said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: February 5, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s health authorities on Saturday reported this year’s first case

of a human infected by avian influenza (H7N9) and are actively tracking the health of as many as 108 people who came in contact with the patient over the past two weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that a Taiwanese businessman in mainland China was confirmed to have been infected with the H7N9 virus several days after returning from the mainland on Jan. 25.    [FULL  STORY]

Can Taiwan foster closer ties with unofficial allies?

The News Lens
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Matt Taylor

On the final day of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) second international trip to South

America as part of a strategy to consolidate Taiwan’s diplomatic ties with its allies in the region, she hinted that mutual co-operation could become an integral component of its future official relationships.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting with reporters in El Salvador, she stated that bilateral trade and an expansion of market orientated policies will be of mutual benefit to Taiwan and the Central American economy. Such measures include promoting Taiwanese youth to work with those in countries such as Paraguay and the Dominican Republic to develop startups, establish new trade policies, and schedule bilateral visits by business leaders to develop stronger trade exchanges. Furthermore, it looked to directly involve domestic companies in the continued improvement and development of infrastructure and healthcare.    [FULL  STORY]

Morris Chang was only slightly injured in Hawaii fall

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei City Councilor Wang Hsin-i apologized to Taiwan

Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. founder Morris Chang Friday for having written that he had been seriously injured.

Her original statement had come on the eve of the reopening of the Taiwan stock market following the Lunar New Year holiday, and had created fears about the future of the world’s largest contract chip maker and its chairman, 85-year-old Chang.

The businessman traveled back to Taiwan from Hawaii, where he had spent the holidays, to reveal he had only suffered a minor cut above the eye. He was returning to Taiwan, not to receive emergency medical care, as Wang had written, but just to go back to work at TSMC, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Huang Ya-chuan and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Feb. 3 (CNA) The Water Resources Agency (WRA) warned Friday of water

shortages in Taoyuan and parts of New Taipei, as the water level in the Shimen Reservoir has continued to drop in recent months due to scant rainfall.

Starting Friday, the water supply signal for Taoyuan and New Taipei’s Banqiao and Xinzhuang districts was changed from blue, which indicates that supplies are normal, to green, which indicates that supplies are slightly tight, the WRA said after a meeting on the issue.

In December and January, rainfall accumulated in the Shimen Reservoir totaled only 26 millimeters and 21 millimeters, respectively, accounting for 35 percent and 24 percent of the past averages for the two months, the WRA said.   [FULL  STORY]