Taiwan News
Date: 2016-05-29
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

According to the Central Weather Bureau, seven weather stations across Taiwan, including the Taipei Weather Station, on Sunday detected their respective highest temperature since the beginning of this year, but no stations broke their respective May record.

The hottest spot in Taiwan on Sunday is located in Dawu, Taitung County, with the temperature reaching 37.3 degrees Celsius due to effect of the foehn, the CWB said, adding that the highest temperature ever registered in Dawu was 39.4 degrees Celsius in 1954.

A foehn is a type of dry, warm, down-slope wind that occurs in the lee (downwind side) of a mountain range.

The other highest temperatures since this year detected on Sunday were the 36.7 degrees in Taipei City, 36.4 degrees in Keelung, 36.2 degrees in Banqiao, 34 degrees in Hsinchu, 33.7 degrees in Yilan and 33.5 degrees in Tamsui.    [SOURCE]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/29
By: Yu Kai–hsiang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 29 (CNA) A man who attempted to break into the Presidential Office

with a fruit knife Sunday has been taken to prosecutors on charges of theft and violation of the Social Order Maintenance Act after police questioning.

Police said the man, about 40 years old, with the surname of Lee, was found to have a criminal record for fraud and theft.

In the initial investigation, the man was not found to be suffering from any mental disorder or having any political motive behind his break-in attempt, the police said.

Tsai Han-cheng (蔡漢政), head of the Jieshou station of Zhongzheng First Precinct under the Taipei City Police Department, said the man lives in New Taipei’s Xinzhuang District, but, being unemployed, he has often slept on the street.     [FULL  STORY]

The New York Times
By Austin Ramzy

HONG KONG — Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s new president, made a rare appearance in Chinese online videos this week. The flag of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, did not.

The two flags that were standing behind Ms. Tsai and Marcus D. Jadotte, the United States assistant secretary of commerce, as they met in Taiwan were pixelated and appeared as grainy blobs in footage carried by Tencent Video, a Chinese website. The clip was later posted by the English-language website of People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.

The Chinese news media focused on a stumble by Ms. Tsai in her meeting with Mr. Jadotte. She paused awkwardly while reading the Chinese version of Mr. Jadotte’s name in the prepared text, then ad-libbed in English, “I have trouble saying it in the Chinese language.”

The Chinese state- and party-run news media have been critical of Ms. Tsai in her first week in office. One report even suggested that her status as a single woman made her “extreme.” That article, carried on the website of a newspaper run by Xinhua, the state news agency, was widely criticized and quickly removed from most Chinese websites.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/29
By: Chang Jung-hsiang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 29 (CNA) A hen in Tainan has laid an egg that weighed three times more than normal and nearly broke the world record for the heaviest chicken egg.

The hen was one of many chickens raised by Tainan resident Lin Shih Su-hsia (林施素霞) at her fruit garden in Xigang District.

On May 20, when she went to fetch fresh eggs from her chickens’ cages, she noticed a two-year-old hen raising its feathers, normally a sign that it was laying an egg.

But despite several changes in position by the hen, nothing came out, Lin said.

Five minutes later, an egg finally emerged. Lin’s curiosity about why it took the hen longer than the one to two seconds the process normally takes was answered when she saw the size of the egg produced, she told CNA.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-05-28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Ministry of Transportation and Communications and six local city police departments will take action against Uber next month, reports said Saturday.

Uber Technologies Inc. launched a smartphone app-based alternative to taxi services with drivers using their own cars, but many countries have been skeptical of the practice due to competition with taxi firms and safety considerations.

The government first ruled Uber illegal in late 2014, and has since leveled heavy fines on the service.

The Directorate General of Highways under the MOTC was going to cooperate next month with the police forces in the cities of Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to crack down on illegal Uber services, reports said.

In the past, DGH inspectors would pose as passengers for the Uber services and take down the name of the driver and the license plates before writing out the fines later, but under the new practice, police officers will be directly waiting at the destination, reports said.     [FULL  STORY]

PRIME PROPERTY:Premier Lin Chuan said Taoyuan’s location between Taipei and Hsinchu made it an ideal location for the government’s ‘Asian Silicon Valley’ project

Taipei Times
Date: May 29, 2016
By: Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter

Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday vowed to reduce land expropriation and enhance

communication with the public as the government pushes forward with the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project, which is to be a key component of a larger “Asian Silicon Valley” project that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) proposed during her campaign.

The premier made the remarks during a visit to Taoyuan to inspect the future site of the Asian Silicon Valley project, where he was briefed about a dispute between area residents and the government over the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project.

“Politically speaking, [the government] should reduce unnecessary land expropriation to avoid delays in the project’s progress due to protests by local residents,” Lin said in response to media queries for comments on the stalled project.

“The government should also do its best to communicate with the public. I believe that [Taoyuan Mayor] Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) would help negotiate and he should not only follow the rules and regulations, but also pay attention to things that have been overlooked.”     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/05/27
By: Sophia Yeh and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, May 27 (CNA) The New Southbound Policy Office under the Presidential Office will begin its

mission of expanding the Southeast Asian market with a plan aimed at boosting visits by Southeast Asian tourists to Taiwan through visa-free privileges, the head of the office said Friday.

The office will coordinate the relevant authorities to promote the policy initiated by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), said James Huang (黃志芳) in a radio interview. The first stage will be opening Taiwan’s doors wider to middle-class tourists from Southeast Asia, he said.

“In the short term, (we) will first promote tourism and visa exemptions,” he revealed.

This will be similar to what Japan has done over the past few years by offering visitors from Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, preferential visa-free treatment, he said.

Taiwan must not block “middle-class tourists who have strong purchasing power and affluent people” from these countries only because it has to handle relations with foreign workers and new immigrants, he contended.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: May 27, 2016

The Taiwan-initiated Skills Development Capacity Building Alliance under the Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation commenced its first forum May 26 at Taichung City Hall, underscoring Taiwan’s ongoing efforts to boost employment and foster growth throughout the region.

Titled the 2016 Symposium on Workforce Development for Quality Growth in Asia-Pacific Region, the three-day forum in central Taiwan features presentations by high-ranking government officials and labor experts from Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam. The event marks a significant first step for the new alliance, which was formally given the green light earlier this month at the annual meeting of the APEC Human Resources Development Working Group in Lima, Peru.

“The alliance has already drawn considerable attention as youth unemployment is a major issue confronting many economies in the region,” said Tsai Meng-liang, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency, which co-organized the symposium in conjunction with Taichung City Government’s Labor Affairs Bureau.

Taiwan’s WDA first proposed the alliance in May 2015 at the annual meeting of APEC’s HRDWG in Boracay, the Philippines. The initiative was formally established at this year’s gathering in Lima May 5-10 after receiving support from 14 member economies in the working group, including the U.S., mainland China and Peru, APEC host for 2016.     [FULL  STORY]