Taichung’s air quality has improved, but visibility is still poor.

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/09/08
By: Light McCandless, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Taichung’s air quality has improved, but visibility is still poor.

NASA is helping to find out why.

Taichung City’s Environmental Protection Bureau and the central government’s Environmental Protection Administration held a ceremony for the opening of a joint project on air quality and visibility monitoring. Deputy Taichung City Mayor Lin Yi-ying (林依瑩), said that the city hoped to find a solution to the core problem of air pollution, so that blue skies could once again be seen over Taichung.

The EPA and EPB held the joint ceremony at Tung Hai University (東海大學) to unveil three advanced mobile air monitoring vehicles. The EPA Deputy Minister Chang Tzi-ching (張子敬) said that the EPA had worked with the US’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for 10 years on cooperative projects, including an air monitoring station in Yushan National Park, which could monitor pollutants entering the area. Due to this long-term cooperation, Taichung City Mayor Lin Chia-lung invited NASA experts to help Taichung take the pulse of its air quality, and so they were able to cooperate on monitoring.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/09/08
By: Tien Yu-pin and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, Sept. 8 (CNA) The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and the Korea Exchange

(KRX) launched a cross-border IT index at the annual meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges in Bangkok Friday.

The Korea Taiwan IT Premier (ITP) is “the first step toward creating an index representing Asia,” Chan Woo Jeong, chairman and CEO of KRX, stated in reference to the lack of a global index in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a press release issued by the TWSE.

On the appeal of the index, TWSE President Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢) noted that it “provides the solution to leveraging each other’s (South Korea and Taiwan’s) strengths to attract global capital investment in the two markets.”

The index is a product-driven index that consists of the Premier IT stocks investors prefer and provides a risk hedge tool for investors, Chan said as he continued to stress the points of attraction of the index for global investors.    [FULL  STORY]

As part-time or short-term jobs become more common, Taiwan is considering legislation to regulate non-conventional employment.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/09/07
By: Rachel McMahon

In Taiwan, as elsewhere across the globe, freelance and contingent work is on the rise

as businesses shift their employment models away from the 9-to-5 jobs that have traditionally dominated labor markets. As of May 2016, according to survey data from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Taiwan had a total of 792,000 part-time, temporary, and dispatch workers – nearly seven times the number from a decade ago – accounting for just over 7% of Taiwan’s working population.

The growing popularity of part-time work has gone hand-in-hand with an increase in the use of dispatching services in which specialized agencies act as a bridge between client companies in search of part-time labor and personnel willing to work on a temporary basis. Dispatch workers hold employment contracts with their dispatching agency rather than the client company they perform services for. But the wide range of roles and responsibilities for dispatch workers, combined with their atypical employment status, make regulating their wages, benefits, and protections particularly challenging.    [FULL  STORY]

Hutien Community (Zhuzihu), which won the title of Taipei’s first “Golden Farming Village” competition about 10 days ago, will advance to the nation-wide finals to compete for the top honor of representing Taiwan in exchange activities with German’s agric

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/09/07
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Hutien Community (Zhuzihu), which won the title of Taipei’s

first “Golden Farming Village” competition about 10 days ago, will advance to the nation-wide finals to compete for the top honor of representing Taiwan in exchange activities with German’s agricultural villages.

Hutien Community, located in the center of Yangmingshan National Park, was formerly known for its floriculture industry thanks to the alpine climate suitable for the cultivation of cherry blossoms, calla lilies, hydrangeas, and camellias. The community has transformed in recent years into developing recreational farming that incorporates tourism, dining, and floriculture industries, hence generating significant economic benefits.

Hutien is also the birthplace of the island’s japoca rice. With the locals’ rehabilitation effort in 2011, japoca rice farming in the area has been successfully revived after disappearing for forty years. Adopting the approach of natural farming, the community has also shouldered educational responsibility by holding agricultural experience activities for elementary and junior high schools in the neighborhood.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/09/07
By: Emerson Lim, Tang Pei-chun and William Ye

Taipei, Sept. 7 (CNA) Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) has urged the United Nations (UN) not to forget the 23 million people of Taiwan.

According to the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium, Belgium’s biggest French language newspaper Le Soir published an article by Lee titled “Taiwan, a Valuable Partner for SDGs — True Universality” on Wednesday.

The article also said that the United Nations Headquarters symbolizes diversity, equality and freedom, but the symbolic imagery is fading as more and more Taiwanese are prevented from entering.    [FULL  STORY]