After diplomacy ends, embassy closes

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/05/03
By:  Central News Agency

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – After Taiwan and the Dominican Republic severed diplomatic

ties, Taiwanese offices in many countries lowered their flags on the afternoon of May 1.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Thursday that it will convene relevant departments in the near future, including the Latin American Department, the Secretariat, and the CCICED, to discuss the evacuation of the embassy and technical groups.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Andrew Lee (李憲章) told the Central News Agency that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will meet in the near future to discuss related issues after the dismantlement, including the follow-up arrangements for the embassy’s staff, agro-technical personnel, and the future division of the Dominican clerical jurisdiction to ensure travel for local Taiwanese business people and overseas Chinese.

China and the Dominican Republic announced that they had established diplomatic ties on May 1. MOFA has said that the diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic would be terminated immediately, bilateral cooperation and assistance programs will be completely stopped, and embassies and technical personnel will be evacuated.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/03
By: Wang Yang-yu, Hsiao Po-wen and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) Taiwan has once again broached the issue of mutual legal

assistance with Hong Kong in order to prosecute a Hong Kong man suspected of killing his girlfriend while on vacation in Taiwan, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said in a statement Thursday.

Although the first such request received no official reply, the ministry’s Department of International and Cross-Strait Legal Affairs revealed that Shilin District Prosecutors Office found new evidence, namely a DNA sample that does not belong to the victim, during a third autopsy, which suggests that Poon Hiu-wing (潘曉穎) could have been pregnant at the time of her death.

While prosecutors office spokesperson Wu Yi-ming (吳怡明) declined to confirm whether she was in fact pregnant, the ministry is asking for Hong Kong’s cooperation in obtaining a DNA sample from Poon’s boyfriend Chan Tong-kai (陳同佳) to determine if there is a match.

The MOJ has asked the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s top agency in charge of China policy, to deliver a second mutual legal assistance proposal so that the two can share evidence and secure justice for the victim.    [FULL  STORY]

‘A GOOD THING’: Taiwan Foundation for Democracy vice president Yan Jiann-fa said suspended ties ‘could help clarify the relationship’ between the two sides of the Strait

Taipei Times
Date: May 04, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The severance of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and the Dominican Republic can help

Taiwanese better understand cross-strait relations and might also be conducive for forging a Taiwan-centric consensus on the issue of independent sovereignty, an academic said yesterday.

“The suspension of diplomatic ties with the Dominican Republic could turn out to be a good thing for Taiwan, because it could help clarify the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Taiwan Foundation for Democracy vice president Yan Jiann-fa (顏建發) said at a seminar in Taipei.

“People who harbored unrealistic expectations regarding China should have gained a better understanding,” Yan said. “There is no need to have fantasies about cross-strait ties, which simply cannot be achieved unilaterally by Taiwan.”

Taiwan has chosen to side with the “alliance,” which is led by the US and includes Europe and Japan, at a time when competition has erupted between China and the US, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-02

Over 100 students and faculty members at National Taiwan University have protested

against the government’s recent interference in the selection of the university’s president.

More than 100 students and faculty members of National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei held a press conference on Tuesday to voice their protest against the government’s decision not to allow the university’s president-elect Kuan Chung-ming to take office.

Kuan was officially selected as the next president of NTU in January. However, the education ministry, citing a potential conflict of interest, has withheld their approval, preventing Kuan from taking office. Members of NTU and of the public have demonstrated against the government’s interference. At the end of April, the education ministry chose not to approve Kuan’s selection, sparking further protests.
[FULL  STORY]

Yes123 survey shows that the average salary for women is substantially less than men

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/05/02
By: Alicia Nguyen and Te’Qin Windham, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Yes123 released a survey Wednesday revealing that the

average monthly salary for Taiwan’s professional women under 39, workplace mothers, and middle-aged women over the age of 40 and working mothers lags behind men’s as much as NT $17,700.

According to the “Workplace Moms’ Salary and Mother’s Day Business Opportunity Survey,” the average monthly salary of a working mother under age 39 is NT$31,300, which is higher than a young professional woman without a child has a salary of NT$31,000. However, the average monthly salary of both men and men with children of the same age range is also relatively low.

The results also show that middle-aged professional mothers over 40 have an average monthly salary of NT$35,000, which is only 67 percent of men’s salary of the same age range. The women’s salary is as much as NT$17,700 less than men’s; the wages of middle-aged working women without children is equally lower than that of men’s.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/02
By: Wang Tung-yu and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, May 2 (CNA) Taiwan’s support was integral to the establishment of a regional

entrepreneurship information center in El Salvador by the Central American Integration System (SICA), the organization’s secretary-general said at the center’s official opening last week.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, SICA’s Secretary-General Vinicio Cerezo included Taiwan in the list of partners he wanted to thank for supporting the initiative, which will provide many young entrepreneurs with new opportunities in the digital age of social media, according to a statement from Taiwan’s embassy in El Salvador Tuesday.

The center, which will operate under SICA’s regional center for the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, looks to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and the development of said businesses so that Central America can better integrate with the rest of the world, and act as a bridge between North and South America as well as the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, Cerezo continued.    [FULL  STORY]

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese were forced to leave the island after the second world war but many never forgot their adopted homeland

Date: 01 May, 2018
By: Kyodo

In February, the Tainan city government released a documentary film titled Tainan Stories about Japanese who lived in Taiwan during its 50-year colonial rule and who were repatriated to Japan after the second world war. The film was also screened in Osaka in April.

More than 300,000 eventually returned to Japan in the years after 1945. An estimated 80,000 who were born in Taiwan during the occupation became known as wansheng (Taiwan-born), or wansei in Japanese.

“As time passes and wansheng numbers decline, we’re afraid they will one day be forgotten,” said Lin Chien-hsien, deputy head of Tainan’s Department of Information and International Relations.

Lin also hopes the film will attract visitors interested in the island’s Japanese history – and not just visitors from Japan. The plight of the wansheng has long attracted attention from Taiwanese artists, writers, and particularly filmmakers.    [FULL  STORY]