Linchupi Kapok Road is at its seasonal peak, with many hundreds of trees forming a red canopy

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/03
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Kapok flowers are in full bloom along a country road in Tainan City’s Baihe District (白河), and the flamboyant flowers will last about another 12 days, according to a news release published on the website of the Baihe District Office on Monday (March 2).

The kapok flowers along Linchupi Kapok Road (林初埤木棉花道) have been particularly well-formed and exquisite during the 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday thanks to the warm weather, according to the district office. The flowers attracted a total of over 90,000 visitors during the three-day holiday.

Linchupi Kapok Road is nearly a kilometer long, with trees receding in parallel rows to form a blooming red canopy. Kapoks, also known as red silk-cottons, are deciduous trees with buds that blossom into five-petal arrangements of bright red.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/03/2020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, March 3 (CNA) Airline companies and travel agencies in Taiwan are facing difficulties amid falling demand due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, while travelers have been expressing frustration at having to cancel or postpone their trips.

In an internal letter to its 10,000 employees on Monday, China Airlines (CAL) said the impact of the epidemic has been like an "avalanche," and it asked for understanding and cooperation if the situation worsens and tighter measures become necessary.

CAL has already cut salaries at the management level by 10 percent and has been asking its employees to take special leave.

"Even when the epidemic ends, the company will need more time than before to recover," the letter reads, citing previous crises such as the SARS epidemic in 2002.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 04, 2020
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Although the peak flu season has ended, people should still take protective measures as 12 flu-

related deaths were confirmed last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.

CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) also announced that expanded criteria for prescribing government-funded antivirals to treat the flu would be extended until the end of this month, allowing physicians at more than 4,000 contracted clinics and hospitals to prescribe the drugs to people with flu-like symptoms, including foreign nationals with an Alien Resident Certificate.

There were 12,059 emergency room visits for flu-like illness reported last week, down 4.4 percent from a week earlier, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Liu Ting-ping (劉定萍) said, adding that there were 46,433 hospital visits for flu-like illness reported, down 11.6 percent week-on-week.

In the past two weeks, the two gauges have been lower than in the same period over the past four years and the number of serious flu complications has dropped significantly, indicating that the peak flu season has ended, she said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 02 March, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Taiwan’s Cabinet is planning to distribute vouchers to the public in order to boost the local economy, which has taken a hit from the outbreak of COVID-19.

More than 3,000 people have died, and 89,000 people have become infected since the outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December. Most of the cases and fatalities have occurred in the Chinese province of Hubei. As of Monday, Taiwan has 41 confirmed infections, including one fatality.

Premier Su Tseng-chang spoke on Monday about the plan to hand out government vouchers to stimulate domestic consumption. He said the goal is to boost economic momentum and revive the local industries hardest hit in the outbreak.    [FULL  STORY]

We have had the privilege of speaking with Taiwan-based filmmaker/master of slow cinema Tsai Ming-liang three times over the last four years (see here, here, and here). This year, he returned to the Berlin International Film Festival with Days, his first narrative feature since the Venice Grand Jury Prize winner Stray Dogs in 2013. 

Premiering in competition, the “intentionally un-subtitled” film tells of the lives of two solitary men who share an intimate moment together, then resume their lonely existence again. We sat down with Mr. Tsai in Berlin to talk about narrative filmmaking, not subtitling Days, and shooting Lee Kang-Sheng’s face.   

Mr. Tsai, you returned to narrative filmmaking with Days after a series of (mixed-form) documentaries (Afternoon, Your Face) and a VR film (The Deserted). Is there any difference in the way you approached or prepared the project?

When I make films these days, I don’t think about preparations. I used to write scripts, come up with ideas, but that’s not how I approach filmmaking anymore. Instead, I focus on the collection of footage. I save and accumulate footage. This probably has to do with my background in museums. I often think about saving and potentially using film footage for exhibitions someday. For example, when Kang (longtime collaborator Lee Kang-Sheng) fell ill, I felt strongly about documenting the process on film. And I made sure to have a good cinematographer do it properly. That’s how Days came to be. After a few years of footage collection, I met Anong (Anong Houngheuangsy, co-lead of Days) whom I also filmed this way. One day, I simply wondered what it would be like to combine this footage.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Grand Trail is divided into seven sections

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/02
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Having a strong immune system is very important to personal health, especially at a time like the present when the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading like wildfire. Taipei’s Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO) has been committed to enhancing the public’s immunity to diseases by promoting the 92km Taipei Grand Trail hike.

The GEO said in a press release on Friday (Feb. 28) that it first promulgated the Taipei Grand Trail route in 2018 and has been encouraging the public to complete the hike by awarding finishers with certificates and free towels. To spice up the campaign, the office launched a new activity on Oct. 28 last year that works with an app, enabling finishers to not only receive certificates and towels but also participate in a lottery, according to the release.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/02/2020
By: Chen Wei-ting and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 2 (CNA) A member of a Taiwanese tour group traveling to Israel that flew on the same plane as an Israeli citizen infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been hospitalized with a respiratory illness after returning to Taiwan on Monday.

The 11-member tour group flew from Taipei to Istanbul on Feb. 27 and then from Istanbul to Tel Aviv on Turkish Airlines flight TK784 early on the morning of Feb. 28.

The Israeli passenger also took flight TK784 on his return to Israel from Japan, after having presumably recovered from his novel coronavirus infection developed on the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship.

He was diagnosed with COVID-19 soon after arriving home, however, and all other people who had been on TK784 were required to leave Israel immediately as a precaution against the further spread of the epidemic, according to a statement issued by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).    [FULL  STORY]

N. Taiwan woman in her 60s may have been infected during trip, according to CECC

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/02/29
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After a Taiwanese tourist who visited Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt tested positive for Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) Saturday (Feb. 29), the 36 other members of her tour group will be tested too, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said.

The tourist, a woman from north Taiwan aged over 60, was announced as the 39th case of the virus in Taiwan on Saturday. She was the latest of a number of travelers who had been infected overseas.

While travel advisories for Dubai and Egypt were a possibility, CECC head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) cautioned the infection might have occurred during the flight. He therefore advised would-be travelers to avoid long-haul flights as spending a long time inside an enclosed space could increase the danger of infection, CNA reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/01
By:  Central News Agency

An amended transportation regulation will require people with serious drunk driving violations to use ignition interlock devices on their vehicles from March, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said Saturday.

Under the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act, for which the MOTC announced the amendment on Jan. 10, people who have driven drunk two times or more over the past five years or those who have killed or seriously injured people when drunk driving will have to install breath alcohol ignition interlock devices on their vehicles, the ministry said.   [FULL  STORY]