Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/03
By: Wendy Lee , Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s largest carrier China Airlines (CAL) has once again won the top award

at the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on Monday, for its float “Return To the Beauty of Taiwan.”

The Rose Parade is a New Year’s Day celebration held annually in the City of Pasadena, featuring elaborate flower-covered floats, marching bands, and equestrian units, and is followed by the Rose Bowl college football game.

On Monday’s 128th Rose Parade, China Airlines’ colorful float won the “International Trophy for most beautiful entry from outside the United States and District of Columbia.“

This is the 31st year the airline company has had an entry in the parade, and the 26th award it has won since it first began taking part in the event in 1987.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-02

Taiwan’s representative to the United States, Stanley Kao, says President Tsai Ing-wen will receive

appropriate treatment during her upcoming transit stops in the United States. Kao was speaking on Sunday at a New Year’s Day flag-raising ceremony in Washington, D.C.

President Tsai Ing-wen is scheduled to visit four Central American allies later this week. She will make a transit stop in Houston on January 7. On her return journey, the president will spend a night in San Francisco on January 13 and leave the United States the following day.

In keeping with precedent and in the spirit of mutual understanding, Kao said the transit stops will be safe, comfortable, convenient and accorded with dignity.

With US President-elect Donald Trump about to take office on January 20, Kao said he hopes that relations between the two sides will be sustainable, consistent and predictable.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/02
By: Wendy Lee, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As New Year’s Eve revelers flocked to Taipei’s Xinyi District to marvel at the

Taipei 101’s annual fireworks extravaganza, hospitals nearby have recorded a surge in the number of patients on the last day of 2016.

According to Taipei Medical University Hospital, which is located near Taipei 101, the demand for accident and emergency services had tripled on the evening of Dec 31 and into the next morning, with most of the patients being young men and women suffering from alcohol-related medical problems or crowd-related injuries.

Tung’s MetroHarbor Hospital in Taichung City also reported a dramatic surge in the number of patients seeking for medical services during the New Year’s Eve celebrations, with most of them the result of excessive drinking, the hospital said.

Lu Li-hua, CEO of the Tung’s Taichung MetroHarbor Hospital’s Emergency Center, said that the hospital is preparing for yet another influx of new patients as flu and cold season usually peaks during Lunar New Year.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/02
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, Jan. 2 (CNA) The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to ban conversion therapy, which attempts

to change a homosexual person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual, and the regulation will be promulgated as soon as March.

On Dec. 30, the ministry published a draft regulation that listed conversion therapy as a prohibited treatment and would punish any physician who used the therapy to treat a patient.

Members of the public will have the opportunity to offer their opinions of the draft regulation for 60 days, after which the ministry will issue a regulation based on the draft.

According to the Physicians Act, doctors who engage in prohibited treatments are subject to fines of between NT$100,000 (US$3,095) to NT$500,000 and may be suspended for one month to one year.   [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 03, 2017
By: Yang Yuan-ting, Lin Yen-tung and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Academics and writers on Sunday reacted with shock after award-winning author Mika Tanaka admitted

to falsifying her personal history throughout her career.

Tanaka, whose real name is Chen Hsuan-ju (陳宣儒), won the Ministry of Culture’s coveted Golden Tripod Award in 2015 for her non-fiction book, Wansei Back Home (灣生回家), which was made into a documentary by the same name that won commercial success. The award came with a prize of NT$150,000.

At the time, Chen said that her Japanese maternal grandmother was a wansei, a story that she told at numerous promotional events for the book and the documentary.

Wansei is a Japanese-language term used to describe people who are the descendants of Japanese immigrants who came to Taiwan during the Japanese colonial era from 1895 to 1945.   [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 3, 2017
By: Kuan-lin Liu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Upset reactions to the “one fixed day off, one flexible day off” policy have flooded local

and social media, with business owners complaining that the new holiday regulations have forced them to hike prices.

The policy, which came into force on Dec. 23, guarantees workers one flexible day off and one fixed day off a week, with employees paid double to triple their regular salary if they choose to work on a flexible day off.

Businesses React

But businesses have said that they would pass on the rise in costs associated with the new policy to consumers, with a spate of retailers announcing price hikes.

Fried dumpling chain 8 Way (八方雲集) said it would raise prices by an average of 10 percent starting Jan. 1.

8 Way spokesman Hung Wen-bing (洪文彬) told local media the firm had “never raised its prices due to cost increases since its founding in 1998.” But the burden of the new policy had compelled what he called a “reaction to the pressures of increasing costs.”    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 2, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A man died trying to light a firework on New Year’s Eve, police said Sunday.

According to the New Taipei City Police Department, the 32-year-old man, surnamed Tsai, was found dead with a head injury on the roadside around midnight on Saturday in Tamsui.

Officers found a lighter, firework shell and tube beside Tsai’s body, the police said.

The tube measured approximately 60 centimeters long and 11 centimeters in diameter, and had the smell of gunpowder residue, officers said, adding that this kind of tube was typically used to light fireworks.

Officers said that some types of fireworks should not be lit using a lighter but with electronic lead wires instead.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/01
By: Central News Agency

Several new regulations take effect in Taiwan on Jan. 1, including higher monthly and hourly minimum wages, an increase in the number of annual leave days for workers, and more stringent food labeling regulations.

●Labor:
The monthly minimum wage in Taiwan will be increased from NT$20,008 (US$618) to NT$21,009 with effect from Jan. 1, while the hourly minimum wage will be increased from NT$126 to NT$133. The wage increases are expected to extend to about 1.62 million employees.

An amendment to the Labor Standards Act will also be implemented, mandating a five-day work week for all workers in Taiwan who are covered by the Act and reducing the number of annual national holidays from 19 to 12 days to partly offset the reduction in work hours.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/01
By: Rita Cheng and Ko Lin

Washington, Dec. 31 (CNA) U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday failed to dispel speculation about a possible meeting with ROC President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) when she stops over in the United States later this week.

During a New Year’s Eve celebration at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump was asked whether he would meet Tsai during her stopover in the U.S. The president-elect indicated that from a protocol standpoint, he will not meet anybody until after Janu. 20 because it would be inappropriate.

However, Trump’s following comment left many to speculate on the possibility of a meeting, adding “But we’ll see … we’ll see.”

Earlier in December, Trump spoke with Tsai on the phone in what was described as the first time since the severing of diplomatic ties between the United States and Taiwan nearly 38 years ago.   [FULL  STORY]