Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/15/2020
By: Su Mu-chun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) A taxi carrying four boat crew members ran off a pier in Taichung Harbor in the wee hours of Wednesday, killing the driver and three of the passengers, according to the fire department.

The fourth passenger managed to smash one of the car windows and escape after the taxi plunged into the sea, and he called for help, said the Taichung Harbor Fire Department, which responded to the call at 1 a.m. Wednesday.

Firefighters and coast guard search and rescue personnel, who were dispatched to the scene, pulled three bodies from the ocean near the vehicle and later found a fourth one about one kilometer away, the fire department said.

The four bodies were identified as the taxi driver and three crew members of a supply boat that works at offshore wind farm, according to the fire department.    [FULL  STORY]

BUSY DAY: Between 8:30am and 10am, 1,299 post offices distributed 166,000 packets of Triple Stimulus Vouchers, with staff handling an average of 1.6 packets per minute

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 16, 2020
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

A total of 701,408 packets of Triple Stimulus Vouchers were claimed at post offices nationwide on the first day of voucher collections, Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) said yesterday.

The company had an emergency response team on hand in case there were any unruly situations.

Chunghwa Post chairman Wu Hung-mo (吳宏謀) said that he had inspected five to six post offices yesterday morning.

The system froze between 9:49am and 10:02am due to a shortage of bandwidth, and postal service personnel had to temporarily process requests for vouchers offline, but aside from that, the first day of collections generally went smoothly, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatiomnal
Date: 14 July, 2020
By: Katherine Wei

The book, titled "Please Listen to Me", includes 29 personal stories.[/caption] Many of us have gotten into arguments with family members because of a generation gap. Maybe your parents didn’t understand why you were obsessed with heavy metal music, or maybe you wished your children would stop using their phones so much during dinner. Here in Taipei, some kids put together a book to help communicate with their elders better.

In Taiwan, where many three-generation families live under the same roof, the generation gap can be pretty wide.

She says, her grandparents see things differently than they do. 00:13-00:17 And she says they don’t like it when they get rowdy or hyperactive. 

An elementary school in Taipei worked with a picture book illustrator with hopes to bring the kids closer to their loving grandparents who seemed to disapprove of so much their grandchildren did.     [FULL  STORY]

Exercise includes anti-abduction training for special forces in case the island's president is taken hostage

Asia Times
Date: July 14, 2020
By: Frank Chen

The Taiwanese military put itself on a “wartime” footing this week for its annual island-wide drill repelling a mock invasion by China.

Despite the Covid-19 epidemic, the 188,000-strong force is sticking to its decades-long tradition of staging the exercise with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as the avowed opposing force. The codename of the drill, held since 1984, is Han Kuang, meaning recovering lost territories in Mandarin.

Taiwanese papers reported that the military had mobilized almost all its airmen as well as reserve forces on Monday, day one of the war game. They simulated missions removing personnel from hostile areas after the “red group,” a squadron playing the role of a PLA spearhead for the drill, took control of major airbases along the island’s mainland-facing coast.

Footage aired by Taiwanese media showed fighters and other warplanes taking off from airbases in Taichung and Kaohsiung and flying east for shelter, before these facilities fell to the advancing red group. This is part of the air force’s tactics to preserve the most potent assets and avoid head-on dogfights with the enemy when an aerial invasion is irreversible.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan welcomes strengthened US position against China’s maritime claims in contentious waters

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/14
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday (July 14) welcomed Washington’s rejection of Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, urging the inclusion of Taiwan into a multilateral dispute settlement mechanism over the contested waters.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Monday (July 13) that the U.S. considers China’s maritime claims outside its waters to be illegitimate. He stated that Beijing’s “Nine-Dashed Line” claim in the South China Sea has no legal basis and that the U.S. is aligning with the 2016 decision by an Arbitral Tribunal under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, which sided with the Philippines against China’s assertions in relevant waters.

Stressing that China will no longer be allowed to treat the South China Sea as its “maritime empire,” Pompeo made clear that Washington supports its Southeast Asian allies in protecting their sovereign rights to offshore resources and stands with the international community in defense of freedom of seas, according to the statement.

At a news briefing, MOFA Spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安) reiterated Taiwan’s indisputable island and maritime claims in the sea. Citing the four principles set forth by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2016 on the issue, Ou called for Taiwan’s participation in a multilateral dispute settlement system and made a case for putting aside differences in favor of cooperation to jointly develop resources in the region.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 07/14/2020
By: William Yen

Taipei, July 14 (CNA) National Taiwan University's College of Public Health (NTUCPH) said Tuesday it is looking to work with a U.S. university to develop an innovative testing system to curb the spread of the COVID-19 new coronavirus.

At a weekly press briefing in Taipei, NTUCPH Dean Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) said he hopes to import innovations being planned or tested at the University of California, Berkeley to be used in Taiwan's universities.

"If possible we will try to replicate what they are doing on a smaller scale at NTU, so we know what areas need to be adjusted," Chan said.

Citing approaches and innovations being planned or tested in the United States, Chan invited Taiwanese-American Michael C. Lu, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley to share new ideas with reporters in Taipei.    [FULL  STORY]

INJURED: Several KMT lawmakers fought their way through DPP members into the legislative chamber, while others lay on a driveway to block Chen Chu

Taipei Times
.Date: Jul 15, 2020
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Scuffles broke out at the Legislative Yuan yesterday as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers again occupied the legislative chamber, stymieing a report by Control Yuan presidential nominee Chen Chu (陳菊) and a question-and-answer session.

The KMT lawmakers showed up at the back door of the chamber at about 5am and tried to enter, but were stopped by several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who were guarding the door.

Scuffles broke out as the KMT lawmakers tried to force their way through the door, injuring legislators on both sides.

KMT Legislator Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) tackled DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), while DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) became entangled with KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲).    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 13 July, 2020
By: Katherine Wei

Officials say a giant clam in Kenting was stolen[/caption] Kenting National Park is home to a protected coral reef which draws crowds of scuba divers every year. One of the biggest draws is a giant clam. But that clam has gone missing and is presumed to have been stolen.

A wise fictional lobster once said “darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter.” That’s one of the reasons why Houbihu in Taiwan’s Kenting National Park is such a huge attraction. People love to scuba dive and explore the protected coral reef. Unfortunately, one of Houbihu’s biggest attractions — a giant clam — has gone missing.

This giant clam was the biggest in Houbihu. People flocked to see it, but now it’s gone. A local scuba instructor says that the clam was part of the local economy. Many people relied on the tourists it brought in for their livelihood.    [FULL  STORY]

This Is Colossal
Date: July 13, 2020
By: Grace Ebert

Artist Ling-Li Tseng describes her recent installation as “a whispering between human(s) and nature.” Debuted in Houli at the 2020 Taiwan Lantern Festival, “The Search of the Glow” is a lightweight, wooden sphere constructed with a series of connected ovals. Together, the pieces form a hollow orb that’s outfitted with thin strips of LED lights, creating a radiant installation that glows in the otherwise dim area.

To create the modular artwork in collaboration with Serendipity Studio, Tseng used a combination of digital fabrication and traditional, craftsman processes. The four larger ovals and smaller, connecting pieces were created through lofting, a drafting technique that generates curved lines. Made of eight layers of wood veneer, the strips use a double curvature to maintain its shape.    [FULL  STORY]

National Police Agency orders heightened police attention across country toward gangs, illegal firearms

Taiwan News
Dated: 2020/07/13
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

(Taiwan News) — The police chiefs of Kaohisung and Tainan have been fired in a move to force official accountability for a series of shootings and murders that recently took place in the two cities,

The National Police Agency (NPA) said that Tainan City Police Commissioner Chou Yew-woei (周幼偉) and Kaohsiung City Police Department Commissioner Lee Yong-kuei (李永癸) must be held responsible for the lapse in policing that has allowed the worrying spate of violence to occur, according to a press release issued by the NPA on Monday (July 13).

In one case, an altercation at a dance hall in Tainan led to shootings in the city on June 30 and July 9, with the two sides exchanging a total of more than 10 rounds of ammunition, per Chinatimes.

The firings came on Monday after Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said he regretted that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文）has had to concern herself with the recent uptick in crime. The premier demanded that the city and county police department chiefs take responsibility for the violence in their jurisdictions.    [FULL  STORY]