Tsai Ing-wen will transfer on flights to and from Mario Benitez’s inauguration next month as president of Paraguay

South China Morning Post 
Date: 20 July, 2018
By: Zhenhua Lu, US correspondent 

Washington plans to allow Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to pass through airports in southern US cities when she travels to South America next month for Mario Benitez’s inauguration as president of Paraguay in what would be a show of support for the self-ruled island, sources have said.

People with close ties to both US and Taiwan authorities said that Tsai could pass through airports in Houston, Texas, or Miami, Florida, en route to Paraguay, the only South American country among 18 nations with full diplomatic relations with Taipei.

To avoid antagonising China, with which the administration of US President Donald Trump is locked in a trade war, the US is “very unlikely” to let Tsai enter high-profile cities such as Washington or New York, one of the sources said.
[FULL  STORY]

Company is represented at Bio Taiwan 2018 expo in Nangang

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/07/19
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – I-Mei Foods Co., which was founded in 1934 with the

concept that baking biscuits is an honest profession, has recently crossed over into the domain of biotechnology, setting up two new companies, Health I-Mei (義美生機) and I-Mei Biomedicine (義美生醫).

As I-Mei Foods CEO Luis Ko (高志明) attended the Bio Taiwan 2018 fair Tuesday, he happened to run into Premier William Lai (賴清德) at the head of a government delegation visiting the ATLife long-term care expo.

Health I-Mei and I-Mei Biomedicine said their presence at Bio Taiwan 2018 was aimed at finding a subcontractor for freeze vacuum drying, promoting health products, and finding overseas representatives.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/19
By: Liao Yu-yang and CNA intern Wang Szu-ch

Taipei, July 19 (CNA) Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津)

demanded action Thursday from CPC Corp. over recent reports of leaks from an oil storage tank at its oil depot in the outlying county of Penghu.

Shen said CPC had been instructed to submit a review on the leak within a week and name disciplined officials. The company was also asked to review operational processes and introduce intelligent measurement control systems, to replace the manual measurement of oil.

The oil leak at the depot in Penghu occurred in mid-2017, but the depot director and manager did not report the matter. Officials at the CPC head office said they were unaware of the leak until May this year.    [FULL  STORY]

LABOR RIGHTS: Lai has instructed that brokered contracts should not be renewed when they expire in two years, and that government agencies should hire workers on their own

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 20, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka yesterday urged local governments to

follow Premier William Lai’s (賴清德) direction to stop contracting brokers to hire contract workers within two years and instead allow all central agencies to directly recruit workers.

Speaking at a news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei, Kolas, who was inaugurated on Monday, said that local governments should join in the effort to better protect the rights of such workers.

Kolas on Wednesday announced Lai’s decision to roll out the policy in 2020 to better protect the rights and interests of government contract workers, who are usually employed in areas such as forestry management and protection, forest surveying, lab testing and experimentation, national park patrols and cultural site maintenance.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-18

The foreign ministry has restated Taiwan’s sovereignty claim to the Diaoyutai

islands. That’s after a report that Japan plans to list the islands as part of its territory in school textbooks from next year.

Taiwan, Japan and China all claim the uninhabited islands located to the northeast of Taiwan. Japan refers to them as Senkaku, while China calls them Diaoyu. The islands have been controlled by Japan since 1972.

A report in Taiwan’s Apple Daily newspaper on Tuesday said high school textbooks in Japan would list the islands as Japanese territory from next year. The new books will also list the disputed Takeshima islands as Japanese territory. The islands are also claimed by South Korea, which calls them Dokdo. The books will claim that no sovereignty dispute exists concerning the islands, according to the Apple Daily report.    [FULL  STORY]

Time
July 18, 2018
By: Suyin Haynes

Artist Aihua Cheng has worked feverishly for the past four months in her scenic Baisha Bay studio on Taiwan’s northern coast. For her latest project, the oil painter and sculptor read the extended works of the late Chinese Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo—while creating a three-part sculpture dedicated to the writer and dissident, who died as a political prisoner last year. “I completed the work just yesterday,” she told TIME, shortly before her creation was shown to the public for the first time outside Taipei’s city hall on July 13.

Titled I Have No Enemies, Cheng’s piece incorporates a line drawing of Liu looking out over a bronze open book inscribed with his writings. “I hope that his books and thoughts can continue impacting China,” she says. Unveiled on the one-year anniversary of Liu’s death, the sculpture was planned by exiled democracy activist Wu’er Kaixi as a tribute to his former mentor. “Taiwanese people joining us in erecting this sculpture are telling China that we have not forgotten our values,” says Wu’er, who was forced to flee China after the Tiananmen Square protests and settled in Taiwan in 1996.

That message will resonate with many on this island, which began to embrace democracy after nearly four decades of martial law ended in 1987. The mainland still views Taiwan, an island of 23 million people that lies 112 miles off China’s coast, as its sovereign territory despite the island’s breakaway in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War.    [FULL  STORY]

‘House Heart’ was produced by students from Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Tainan

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/07/18
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A group of students at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology recently produced a short film that is a simple meditation of the idea of “home.”

The film entitled “House Heart “ (屋子心)  is a high quality animation with no dialogue, which uses paper as a medium. It is remarkable for its craftsmanship and its endearing presentation of the urban landscape.

Liberty Times reports that the students were inspired by the old houses that dot the streets in Tainan, which continue to decrease in number, as they are torn down to make way for new developments.

Many of the classic style houses have also fallen into disrepair, as the memories of all that happened in them are lost to history.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/18
By: Chiang Chin-yeh and S.C. Chang

Washington, July 18 (CNA) Taiwan’s minister of mainland affairs on Wednesday

put forth a candid and practical proposal for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to work out rules for an orderly interaction.

“The two sides differ internally in their views on the development of cross-Strait relations. They should mutually respect each other, listen to rational views domestically, and work out rules for an orderly interaction,” Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said in his opening remarks at an international conference on “The Opportunities and Challenges of Cross-Strait Relations” sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

Chen’s talk was titled “Democracy and Freedom: The Cornerstones for Developing Cross-Strait Relations.”

He said cross-Strait relations have affected peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region since 1949. He described the past nearly 70 years of cross-Strait relations as a journey from conflict to conciliation, and then a swing to unease.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 19, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday reasserted Taiwan’s sovereignty over the

Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the disputed East China Sea, after the Japanese government expedited a plan to include Japan’s territorial claims over the island chain in its school curriculum.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on Tuesday announced that it is moving up implementation of its “national territory education” curriculum from 2022 to next year, according to a Kyodo News report.

Japanese high-school students are to be taught about the legitimacy of Japan’s territorial claims over several disputed islands, including Diaoyutai, as well as islets in the Sea of Japan known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-17

The economics ministry is celebrating the growth of economic ties with the target

countries of the government’s New Southbound policy. At a forum held with dignitaries from several of these countries, the deputy economics minister outlined just how far these ties have come.

Since 2016, Taiwan has been pushing for closer ties with countries in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand, under the New Southbound policy. On Wednesday, the economics ministry celebrated the policy’s successes at the third annual Taiwan-ASEAN-India Strategic Investment Partnership Forum.

Representatives from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and, for the first time, India, were in attendance.    [FULL  STORY]