The China Post
Date: August 23, 2016
By: Yuan-Ming Chiao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Cheers but mostly jeers greeted a visiting Shanghai

delegation that took part in a cross-strait cities forum in Taipei Monday.

Police presence numbering in the hundreds moved to part protesters and supporters at Taipei Songshan Airport (松山機場).

One protester was carried away by authorities after shouting “get the hell out” at delegation leader Sha Hailin (沙海林).

Dozens of members of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU, 台聯), a small political party advocating Taiwan’s political independence, accused Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of “selling out Taiwan” by meeting Sha.

Members of an indigenous peoples group from Hsinchu County held up signs welcoming Sha.

Smiling and waving at the crowd in the arrivals gate, Sha said it was “quite good” to hear diverse voices but emphasized that “many came out in support, leading me to believe that maintaining and developing cross-strait relations is the mainstream view of the Taiwanese people.”     [FULL  STORY]

MASSIVE EFFORT:With the combined strength of 80,000 city government employees, the Universiade cannot go wrong, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je said

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 21, 2016
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that he hopes to awaken Taiwanese

passion with the Universiade next year.
Ko made the remarks on the sidelines of a visit to a pavilion at the Taipei Expo Park to be used for the sporting event, where games were being staged to test the venue’s readiness.

He said that if he were to use one sentence to describe the Universiade, it would be “show the world a better Taiwan, and awaken Taiwanese passion in the process.”

Ko said that he does not believe the Universiade will be a failure when asked to comment on remarks by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), who in an interview with the Chinese-language Apple Daily said that if the Universiade is a flop, it would embarrass the city in the eyes of the international community.     [FULL STORY]

The China Post
Date: August 21, 2016
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Professor Myat Thandar, Rector of the University of Nursing,

Yangon, Myanmar led a delegation to National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan as part of an educational collaboration. The purpose of the visit was to facilitate cooperation in nursing education, according to a press release from the NCKU.

NCKU President Huey-Jen Jenny Su extended a warm welcome to the delegation and shared her experience of a visit to Yangon in July. She said that the two sides should continue efforts to further develop and deepen their partnership.

Thandar and Su exchanged their opinions on higher education and current trends in nursing education. Thandar raised her concerns about the shortage of nurses in Myanmar and welcomed further assistance and collaboration with NCKU, according to the school. Thandar said, “I think the nursing program here in NCKU is very interesting, especially the specialty programs. There are a lot of similarities between yours and the ones we have so I can see there is great potential for us to collaborate in nursing education.”     [FULL  STORY]

Radio aiwan International
Date: 2016-08-20

President Tsai Ing-wen says she hopes to appoint a new chairperson to head Straits

Exchange Foundation by the end of the month.

The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) is a semi-official organization entrusted by the government to handle cross-strait ties in the absence of official links. Tsai has yet to appoint a chairperson for the organization, though an interim chairperson has been in place since May to ensure the office is not left vacant.

During a media reception on Saturday, Tsai told reporters that filling the office had not been a priority after she took office in late May. But she said that as her first hundred days in office come to an end, the time has come to address the issue.

Tsai said that she and a national security team are consulting with possible candidates. She said that the next SEF chairperson will need to be someone the public trusts and respects.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-08-20
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – More than 16,000 foreigners were found to be staying illegally in Taiwan between January and June of this year, with most of them runaway foreign laborers and slightly more women than men, the Ministry of Interior announced Saturday.

The total figure of 16,791 people detained was 19.2 percent higher than in the same period last year, reports said. Slightly more than half, 8,631 or 51.4 percent, were women, and 8,160 or 48.6 percent were men. More than 60 percent of the arrested illegals were former foreign laborers who had run away from their jobs and stayed in Taiwan longer than they should have, reports said.

Vietnam, Indonesia and China were the three countries which supplied the vast majority of the illegals and overstayers, the MOI said. Vietnam accounted for 42.6 percent of the cases, or 7,146 people, closely followed by Indonesia with 38.6 percent or 6,480 people, and by China as a distant third at 6.7 percent or 1,133 individuals.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/08/20
By Lee Hsien-feng and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Aug. 20 (CNA) Hualien County’s Yuli Township is the only place in Taiwan that still maintains a mobile post office.

Mobile postal services were launched in earlier times by the government, using specially equipped vehicles to serve residents in remote areas. At their height, there were more than 10 such mobile post offices around Taiwan.

As fixed-point post offices became more and more common, most of the mobile postal services were phased out, except for the one in Yuli.

According to Yu Jen-kun (游仁崑), head of the Hualien Post Office, Yuli’s mobile post office was established in 1988, serving six villages in the township: Dewu, Chunrih, Songpu, Guanyin, Dongfeng and Lehe.     [FULL STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2016/08/19
By: ZiQing Low

An expat couple in Taiwan have started a crowdfunding campaign after being hit with a

surprise medical bill after the birth of their twin daughters.

After a month-long battle with birth complications and surgeries, Erica Brüll-Reinhold and Bas Brüll expected to be able to take their twin daughters home from a hospital in southern Taiwan. Instead, the couple were told the newborns could not be discharged until a hospital bill of NT$1.3 million (US$41,000) was paid, because their babies were not covered under Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) policy.

The twins were born on July 12 and rushed to intensive care after doctors discovered the babies were underweight because their umbilical cords had been tangled. On Aug. 8, Brüll-Reinhold was told both girls needed surgery to remove tissue that had protruded through their abdominal muscles.     [FULL  STORY]