Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/18
By: Emerson Lin and William Yen

Manila, Feb. 18 (CNA) The Taiwan Education Center Philippines, and St. Paul University Quezon City

held an event Monday to encourage students and faculty from the university to study in Taiwan and to even apply for scholarships to pursue doctoral degrees.

Lee Cheng-han (李政翰), the education secretary at Taiwan’s representative office in Manila, briefed students and faculty at the event on Taiwan’s higher education system and the quality of instruction.

Whether students want to develop academically or develop practical skills, Taiwan can provide appropriate courses, and scholarships are also available from Taiwan’s government, Lee said.

The program’s manager, Huang Tse-hsiang (黃澤翔), said another purpose of the event was to expose Filipino students to the possibilities and fun of learning a foreign language through Chinese language classes.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 19, 2019
By Peng Chien-li and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

A Philippine-Taiwanese couple have said that they have been unable to send their three children to

school since coming to Taiwan in 2014, as they cannot afford the DNA tests required for naturalization.

The children of the Miaoli County family spend their days with their Philippine mother, identified only as Mary, at their home in Gongguan Township (公館), while their father, surnamed Chung (鍾), works as a day laborer, township education officials said.

The eldest — a 13-year-old girl — likely has developmental problems, they said.

Township officials and local police visited the family and said that they would help them find course material for the children to bring them up to speed at school once they are naturalized.

A local school said it had been unaware of the family’s circumstances, adding that it would work with the office to help the children.    [FULL  STORY]

The event featured dance, music, riddle solving, and tangyuan making

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/17
By: Wen Lee, Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – With Lantern Festival just around the corner, the National Immigration Agency held an event at Wanhua New Immigrants’ Hall in Taipei on Sunday to mark the end of the Lunar New Year of the Pig.

The event, which featured music, dancing, solving riddles, and making tangyuan (湯圓), saw the participation of more than 150 new immigrants spanning two generations.

Celebrations kicked off with a performance by VIT Dance Group (泰友印越舞蹈社), with dancers dressed in traditional Indonesian garments flowing across the stage to the tune of “Tian Mi Mi” (甜蜜蜜)—a classic of the late Taiwanese diva Teresa Teng.

The event reached a climax with participants engaging in a riddle-guessing activity to win prizes. Younger, second-generation immigrants learned how to make pig-shaped tangyuan, or yuanxiao (元宵)—a fun, thematic take on the traditional Chinese dessert made of glutinous rice flour and customarily eaten during Lantern Festival.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/17
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Feb. 17 (CNA) Taiwan on Sunday expressed grave concern and serious regret

after Spain deported another two Taiwanese citizens suspected of involvement in telecoms fraud to China last Friday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

The two men were part of a large group of 219 Taiwanese nationals arrested in the European country for alleged involvement in fraud in late 2016, MOFA said.

Three of the suspects were previously sent to China for trial in 2018.

MOFA spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said Taiwan had repeatedly called on Madrid to honor the nationality principle by deporting them back to Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

Hong Kong Free Press
Date: 16 February 2019
By:Tim Hamlett

The case of Chan Tong-kai, which has slumbered in obscurity since last February, has ignited a small political and legal explosion.

Mr Chan was arrested after his girlfriend died in what we used to call “suspicious

circumstances” while the couple were on holiday in Taiwan. He hastened back to Hong Kong before this was discovered and the Taiwan police would now like him, as we also used to say, “to help with their inquiries”.

To this end they have asked for him to be sent back to Taiwan. Mr Chan was promptly arrested and charged with some rather technical offences which can be seen as having taken place in Hong Kong. He cannot be tried in Hong Kong for murder, or indeed for any other crime he may be suspected of committing in Taiwan, because the Hong Kong courts have no jurisdiction outside the territory.

Normally you would expect Mr Chan to be extradited to the place where his alleged crime was committed. But this is tricky. Hong Kong has extradition agreements with 20 countries, including Australia, the US and UK. China is not one of them. Taiwan is, of course, not mentioned at all.

The Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, which governs such matters, specifically excludes any such arrangement with the People’s Republic of China. I don’t know why the Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters Ordinance comes up in this context, because it does not cover the surrender of suspects, but it excludes China also.    [FULL  STORY]

MOFA raises travel alert level to orange

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/16
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Saturday it advised

citizens against traveling to Taiwan’s diplomatic ally Haiti due to violent protests in the Caribbean nation.

Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the world, is one of Taiwan’s 17 official allies, most of them small countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Thousands of protesters have rioted in the country for days, even attacking the home of President Jovenel Moise, over allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement.

MOFA said that Taiwanese citizens in the country were safe, but that it had raised its travel alert level to orange, urging Taiwanese to avoid unnecessary trips to the Caribbean country, the Liberty Times reported. Red is the highest level of travel alerts, followed by orange, yellow and gray.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/16
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 16 (CNA) China Airlines (CAL), one of two major aviation companies in

Taiwan, announced Saturday that its regular flight schedule will not resume until Feb. 21, later than what its chairman had promised a day earlier.

CAL Chairman Ho Nuan-hsuan (何煖軒) had said on Friday that all CAL flights will resume formal operation on Saturday, when 450 of the 700 CAL pilots who went on the week-long strike returned to work.

However, the airline said on Saturday that the current schedule was made before Feb. 14, when the strike by some 700 CAL pilots ended, explaining that it was difficult to assign proper flight crew at the moment.

As a result, eight flights were canceled on Saturday, according to the latest announcement from CAL.    [FULL  STORY]

MEASLES OUTBREAKS: The Centers for Disease Control also advised all people born in or after 1981 to consult a doctor about vaccinations before traveling to high-risk regions

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 17, 2019
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Pregnant women and infants should temporarily avoid visiting Japan, as there have been

outbreaks of measles and rubella (German measles) there, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said in an official warning yesterday.

A total of 148 measles cases were confirmed in Japan between Jan. 1 and Feb. 3, the highest number for the first five weeks of the year since 2013, with 49 cases in Mie Prefecture and 43 in Osaka Prefecture, the centers said.

About 2,900 cases of rubella were confirmed in Japan last year, the second-highest annual number in a decade, and the outbreak has continued to spread this year, the agency said.

Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 3, 367 cases of rubella were confirmed in Japan, with 101 cases in Tokyo Metropolis, 57 cases in Kanagawa Prefecture and 37 cases in Chiba Prefecture.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 15 February, 2019
By: Paula Chao

The first bionic legs to be developed in Taiwan have been unveiled. The legs allow the physically challenged, including stroke patients and those with spinal injuries, to stand and walk freely.

The cost for a pair comes to NT$1 million (US$33,000). That’s significantly cheaper than the roughly NT$5 million (US$166,000) needed to buy US or European models.

National Taiwan University Hospital introduced Taiwan’s first bionic legs to the public Wednesday. The bionic legs are a wearable mobile machine consisting of a powered exoskeleton. The legs allow patients to stand and walk without assistance.

To start the device, the wearer sends a signal by pressing a black button on one of the walking sticks. The robotic tool is also able to monitor the wearer’s movement, stopping automatically when the wearer is about to fall or lose balance.    [FULL  STORY]