Taiwan News  
Date: 2017/12/29
By:  Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A renowned Canadian political expert recently gave a gloomy outlook for Northeast Asia for the beginning of 2018, and warned that Taiwan will fall prey to China’s military ambition while the U.S. is waging war against the rogue nation in the region – North Korea.

In an article entitled “A U.S. Attack on North Korea: Could China Retaliate Against Taiwan” by J. Michael Cole, he wrote that an attack against North Korea would “represent the most dangerous period of Taiwan’s survival, as this could prompt Beijing to seize the opportunity created by the American focus on North Korea to resolve its historical grievance” and be “perceived as further signs of containment of China.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/29
By: C.P. Liu and Flor Wan

Taipei, Dec. 29 (CNA) Starting from Jan. 1, foreign residents holding valid Alien Resident Certificates (ARCs) or those who have obtained Alien Citizen Digital Certificates can apply online for information on whether or not they are prohibited from leaving Taiwan, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said Friday.

The measure will allow 820,000 foreign residents in Taiwan to further enjoy government e-services. These services already include tax return filing and checking of departure and entry dates via the Internet, saving them the trouble of visiting NlC offices personally, the agency said.

But the NIC noted that residents from China, Hong Kong and Macau will not be covered by the program for the time being.    [FULL  STORY]

The Telegraph
Date: 28 December 2017
By: Hugh Morris, travel news editor

Taiwan has been forced to destroy around 200,000 passports after designers accidentally

used an image of Washington Dulles International Airport instead of its own Taoyuan International.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mofa) admitted on Tuesday that it would need to recall 285 passports already issued and pulp the remainder.

A page from the erroneous Taiwanese passport CREDIT: WEIBO
The error came to light after someone on Facebook noticed that the outline of an airport on the document’s pages, intended to be the airport that serves the capital, Taipei, was in fact Dulles International, DC’s bustling hub.

The first person to spot the blunder captioned the photo as the “51st state of America”, before the image was widely shared on Weibo, a microblogging site in China.
[FULL  STORY]

 

Early results of a study being carried out by the Taiwan government show a connection with PM2.5 pollutants and lung and liver disease

Taiwan News 
Date: 2017/12/28
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Preliminary findings by a group of Taiwanese government

agencies on the effects of excessive PM2.5 (particles suspended in the air less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter) humans include lung disease and liver cancer, while in terms of areas, and central and southern Taiwan are in the most urgent need of air pollution control, reported Apple Daily.

Starting in 2015, Taiwan’s National Health Research Institute (NHRI), Health Promotion Administration (HPA), and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and been collaborating a study measuring the long-term health impacts of air pollution on Taiwanese citizens.

As this year’s research draws to a close and as results are to be released in January of 2018, a correlation has been found with exposure to PM2.5 and respiratory disease in children and the elderly, as well as liver cancer. The study has also found that central and southern Taiwan are in the most urgent need of air pollution reduction efforts.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/28
By: Hsiao Po-wen and Kuan-lin Liu 

Taipei, Dec. 28 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court Thursday handed down heavier sentences to 33 of 68 individuals in the second trial of a case involving the murder of a police officer by members of a local gang in downtown Taipei, including a 10-year sentence for the ringleader.

The court was ruling on a case that dates back to September 2014, in which Tseng Wei-hao (曾威豪) and his wife Liu Hsing-tung (劉芯彤) had an argument with security personnel at a club on Songshou Road in Taipei City and after leaving proceeded to cause trouble outside the premises, calling on other members of the Zhongshan Good Youth (中山好青年) gang to help them.

A police officer, Hsueh Chen-kuo (薛貞國), was dispatched to the scene, but upon arriving was confronted by Tseng, Liu and about 60 gang members who beat him to death.
[FULL  STORY]

EXTRAORDINARY SESSION: The Cabinet and the DPP caucus agreed to push five priority bills, including the central government budget and changes to the labor law

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 29, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

A total of 48 new laws and regulations are to take effect on Monday, ranging from a lower

tax exemption threshold for foreign e-commerce Web sites to increases in the minimum wage and tighter environmental regulations.

The custom tax exemption threshold for goods purchased on foreign e-commerce platforms is to be lowered from NT$3,000 to NT$2,000.

The change is to ensure equal taxation, because goods sold on local e-commerce platforms are levied according to national laws.

The monthly minimum wage is to increase from NT$21,009 to NT$22,000, benefiting 1.66 million workers, and the minimum hourly pay is to rise from NT$133 to NT$140, benefiting 390,000 workers.    [FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: 12/27/17
By: Christina Zhao and Reuters

Taiwan will gradually get used to Chinese air force drills around the island, Beijing said on

Wednesday, as Taiwan accused the mainland of posing a threat to its national security.

On Tuesday, Taipei said that frequent and increased Chinese military drills pose an “enormous threat” to Taiwan’s security, in an annual defence review, according to the South China Morning Post.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) carried out 16 drills near the self-governed island in the past year, said Taiwan’s defence ministry in a white paper this week. China’s military threat was growing by the day, it added.

When asked about the continuing drills and the footage released by the air force, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) stated that it and the defense ministry had repeatedly said the exercises were routine.    [FULL  STORY]