Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/12/09
By: Wu Jui-chi and Ko Lin

Taipei, Dec. 9 (CNA) The number of Japanese tourists visiting Taiwan in a single year broke the 2

million mark for the first time Monday, with the lucky 2-millionth arrival feted with various gifts from the Tourism Bureau.

Mizaguchi Ayako from Miyazaki Prefecture, who arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport aboard a China Airlines (CAL) flight, was accompanied by four members of her family.

The 27-year old said it was her first visit to Taiwan and that she plans to tour Taipei and make trips to several locations in New Taipei such as Jiufen and Shifen.

She said she is looking forward to visiting Longshan Temple, drinking pearl milk tea and tasting some of Taiwan's delicacies.    [FULL  STORY]

AMENDMENTS ON WAY? ‘We absolutely support’ the proposal, an EPA official said, adding that the standard should at least be up to the WHO’s recommendation

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 10, 2019
By: Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Environmental group Air Clean Taiwan yesterday called on lawmakers to set stricter standards for

monitoring PM10, particulate matter measuring up to 10 micrometers in diameter, in Taiwan.

“Environmental protection is not just about protecting the environment,” Air Clean Taiwan founder Yeh Guang-perng (葉光芃) told a news conference in Taipei. “It is about protecting everyone’s health, the health of the land, the health of the planet, the health of Taiwan.”

The WHO standard for PM10 is an annual mean of 20 micrograms per cubic meter (mcg/m3), Yeh said.

Many places in Taiwan, including Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, have recorded PM10 levels of “approximately three times” that value, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

• Crowded race for the legislature could skew victory chances for independence-leaning DPP and mainland-friendly KMT
• Latest poll shows Tsai Ing-wen on course for a second presidential term, on the back of an anti-Beijing campaign

South China Morning Post
Date: 8 Dec, 2019
By: Lawrence Chung  

While the latest polls suggest incumbent Tsai Ing-wen is on course to win a second term in Taiwan’s presidential elections

 in January, conditions may be less favourable for her ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the race for the legislature, according to analysts.

The rise of a number of new political parties and the prospect of more than 1 million young people eligible to vote for the first time could dash hopes of a parliamentary majority for both the DPP and its main rival, the mainland-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), they said.

In a poll released by the TVBS television network on Tuesday, Tsai had 46 per cent of the vote, while KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, the populist mayor of Kaohsiung who swept to power on an anti-DPP wave in last year’s mayoral elections, had 31 per cent.    [FULL  STORY]

Worried they won’t be treated fairly in court, some demonstrators are seeking refuge on the self-ruled island, where they live in a legal limbo.

The New York Times
Date: Dec. 8, 2019
Video by Cora Engelbrecht, Caroline Kim, Vivien Wong and Orlando de Guzman
Text by Cora Engelbrecht

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Sporting T-shirts, tousled hair and backpacks, the trio slumped around a cafeteria table in the Taipei airport looked more like stranded students than a group of protesters on the run.

A few nights before, they were hurling Molotov cocktails on the front lines of the anti-government protests that have roiled Hong Kong for months. But after the police arrested two of their friends, they feared they would be next.

Desperate, they sent a cry for help to a private online group known for helping people escape to Taiwan. Within hours, they were on a plane to Taipei, the capital.

“We are fleeing the law,” said one of the protesters, her eyes darting across the food court. “We didn’t have much time to figure out what is happening.”    [FULL  STORY]

Highest concentrations of red maple leaves can be found along Taichung's Dasyuashan Forest Road at 35-km mark, between 43- and 49-km marks

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/12/08
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Dongshih Forest District Office encourages the public to admire the red maples of Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Area before the leaves fall in mid-to-late December, the office said in a press release on Nov. 28.

The maple trees at Dasyueshan are mostly Taiwan red maples, green maples, fragrant maples, and Kawakami maples, according to the news release.

Located in Taichung's Heping District, Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Area is about an hour’s drive from Dongshi District. To get there, take Dongkeng Road, which later becomes Dasyueshan Forest Road, and follow it to get to Dasyueshan National Forest Recreation Area.

Along the road, red spots dotting the verdant forest serve as a guide leading visitors to denser congregations of colorful maple trees, especially around the toll station at the 35-kilometer (km) mark and between Dasyueshan Visitor Center at the 43-km mark and the Siaosyueshan area at the 49-km mark, according to the report. Not only are the leaves still on their branches pleasing to the eye, but so are those that cover the ground like a red carpet, the office added.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/12/08
By: Wang Shu-fen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Dec. 8 (CNA) The mercury in Dasi, Taoyuan dipped to 8.6 degrees Celsius Sunday morning, the lowest so far in a flat area of Taiwan this winter, as a continental old mass arrived in the country, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.

Weather monitoring stations in several other flat areas also recorded season lows, the bureau said, citing 8.9 degrees in Matsu island and 9.8 degrees in Taipei's Dann Forest Park and Wenshan District, New Taipei's Shuangxi District, and Kinmen island.

Elsewhere, the mercury dropped to lows of 10 degrees in New Taipei's Shenkeng District and 10.1 degrees in the city's Tamsui District, according to CWB data.

In areas north of Kaohsiung, lows of 10-13 degrees were recorded, while in Pingtung and Hualien temperatures dipped to 14-15 degrees, the data showed.    [FULL  STORY]

Sputnik International
Date: 07.12.2019

At least two B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers believed to have taken off from the US’ Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew over parts of the East China Sea Thursday, according to Taiwanese newspapers.

The B-52 Stratofortress is an American strategic bomber designed and built by Boeing and operated by the US Air Force since the 1950s.

According to reports, the bombers passed the Miyako Strait, a waterway between Japan’s Miyako Island and Okinawa Island, before flying over parts of the East China Sea near Taiwan’s coastal waters and areas claimed by China. The B-52s activated their automatic dependent surveillance broadcast systems to make their presence and flight route known, Asia Times reported, citing Taiwanese news outlets. 

However, despite the reports, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has not provided any confirmation of whether the US warplanes flew over parts of the East China Sea.

In March, two B-52H Stratofortress bombers flew over the East China Sea for an "integration training" mission by the US Navy and the Japan Air Self Defense Force. One month later, two B-52s reportedly flew around within 250 kilometers of the coastline of Guangdong, a province of southeast China, and circled above the Pratas Islands controlled by Taiwan before heading back to Guam.    [FULL  STORY]

Marchers will demand concrete measures from KMT, DPP presidential candidates

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/12/07
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Migrant workers will demand the end of the private labor brokerage system at their biennial protest in Taipei on Sunday (Dec. 8).

In order to do away with excessive brokerage fees, labor groups want “G2G,” or government-to-government, recruitment to be generalized. Taiwan employs hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mostly from Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Foreign laborers and caregivers have been contributing to Taiwan’s economy and social development for 30 years, the organizers of the demonstration told CNA. They added that some brokerages used their monopoly on information to suppress the workers’ rights instead of assisting them, adding that over the past three decades, the government has failed to live up to its responsibilities.

The protesters will begin their march at the headquarters of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party at 1 p.m. and pass by the offices of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Legislative Yuan before stopping in front of the Ministry of Labor.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/12/07
By: Emerson Lim

Taipei, Dec. 7 (CNA) Survivors of atrocities committed during Taiwan's period of martial law on Saturday exhorted younger generations to cherish the country's hard-earned democracy, at a ceremony to mark the United Nations-designated Dec. 10 Human Rights Day.

One of the survivors, 81-year-old Yang Tien-lang (楊田郎), said he was arrested in 1955 at the age of 17 for allegedly "spreading propaganda for traitors," while working as a newspaper delivery boy.

His superiors reported that he had scrawled subversive slogans such as "overthrow Chiang Kai-shek" and "join the Communist Party" on the wall of a theater, Yang said.

"I was taken to a police station in 1955 on the back of a police bicycle," he said, at the Human Rights Day celebrations at the National Human Rights Museum in Taipei.
[FULL  STORY]