The China Post
Date: February 16, 2017
By: CNA
This photo shows a smartphone charger on a Taoyuan Airport Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train, which will be providing free rides to passengers throughout its trial run starting today through to March 1. The charger works for both iOS and Android phones. After the MRT officially starts operations on March 2, passengers will be offered a 50 percent discount on all trips during the first month. [SOURCE]
Taiwan Today
Date: February 14, 2017
Radio Taiwan International was named the world’s best Spanish-language shortwave
RTI’s Spanish-language broadcasters are all smiles outside of the radio station’s headquarters in Taipei City. (Courtesy of RTI)
station for 2016 by a Brazil-based association of radio enthusiasts, RTI announced Feb. 10, highlighting the global reach of the state-run broadcasting service.
DX Clube Sem Fronteiras members from 14 countries, predominantly Latin American nations including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and Chile, voted for the award online between Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 last year. RTI beat out Spanish-language competitors from Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and mainland China to claim the top honor.
Several of RTI’s programs also performed well in the awards. The station’s “El Cartero” show placed second in the all request category, while two of its broadcasts finished in the top 10 in the variety show rankings. RTI also had three representatives each in the categories for best male and best female presenters. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/14
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Taipei (Taiwan News)–American David Wible, a former language professor, was 
awarded the Permanent Residency “Plum Blossom” Card on Tuesday by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) for his contribution in the creation of an intelligent web-based interactive language learning system called IWiLL, which has benefited many Taiwanese students and successfully made Taiwan more internationally visible, according to the NIA.
The system supports learning English as a second language on the Internet and includes advanced features to assist learners in learning basic language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. [FULL STORY]
Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/14
By: Hau Hsueh-ching and Lilian wu
Taipei, Feb. 14 (CNA) Police detained a graduate student from National Taiwan 
University of Sport in connection with the killing of his teacher on Tuesday.
The family of the teacher, identified only by her surname Cheng (鄭), reported her missing on Feb. 6, shortly after she told them she would be traveling with a friend to Hualien in eastern Taiwan, but then failed to respond to their efforts to contact her.
Police tracked down to Chen Ming-feng (陳明鋒), 27, a graduate student at National Taiwan University of Sport in Taichung, after discovering that Cheng was last seen on the back of his motorbike riding from Changhua to Taichung that day.
Chen told police that the two had quarreled and he strangled Cheng. The next day he disposed of her body in an isolated mountainous area of Nantou County.
[FULL STORY]
Taipei Times
Date: Feb 15, 2017
By: Staff writer, with CNA
A judicial reform conference will not discuss amnesty for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) or specific policies, such as abolishing the death penalty, organizing committee co-convener Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源) said on Monday after the committee’s fourth and final meeting.
The conference, scheduled to open on Monday, is to be divided into five groups to address protecting victims of crime and the underprivileged, establishing a fair and trustworthy judiciary, creating a highly efficient judicial system with accountability, promoting participation and transparency and building a system that maintains social order, he said.
Each of the five groups is to meet once every two weeks, and are scheduled to hold six meetings over a three-month period.
Chu said his committee solicited views from civic groups on what topics to cover and none of them brought up the abolition of capital punishment. [FULL STORY]
The China Post
Date: February 15, 2017
By: The China Post news staff
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Kuo-Kuang Motor Transport (國光客運) is laying on more special buses
Visitors dress up during a cherry-blossom tour at Wuling Farm in Taichung in this undated photo. (Courtesy of Kuo-kuang Motor Transport)
for trips to see Wuling Farm’s famous cherry blossoms in Taichung.
Wuling Farm’s cherry blossom season is now in full bloom, with this year’s full-bloom period falling between Feb. 11 and Feb. 28.
As of Feb. 8, tickets for the special weekend cherry blossom bus tours were largely sold out, as were tickets for weekday buses, Kuo-Kuang said in a press release.
To meet increased demand, Kuo-Kuang has rolled out more buses, so cherry blossom lovers won’t miss out on the chance to enjoy and appreciate the lovely views in Wuling.
[FULL STORY]
Radio Taiwan’ International
Date: 2017-02-13
The Cabinet has set up an epidemic prevention task force to coordinate the fight against bird flu. That’s
Fighting bird flu
The 13th case was announced in Yunlin on Monday. (CNA)
after three chicken farms were found to have been infected with H5N6. There was a case in Hualien and Yilan, and most recently one was even discovered in Chiayi County.
Authorities have upgraded the level of epidemic prevention because H5N6 is a highly contagious strain of virus that has led to human fatalities in China.
On Monday afternoon, Premier Lin Chuan presided over the task force’s first meeting. Lin called on related government agencies to handle the matter cautiously.
Meanwhile, quarantine official Huang Tze-chung says that rumors that the outbreak has spread further are not true. He says that when compared with the number of birds culled in 2015 when poultry farms were infected with H5N2 and H5N8, this year’s figure is relatively small. [FULL STORY]
Cold spell dropped snow on Taiwan’s mountainous areas
Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/13
By: Rana Yeh, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Taipei (Taiwan News) — A strong cold front hit Taiwan last weekend, sending the mercury down to freezing
Snowfall at Hehuanshan, central Taiwan. (By Central News Agency)
point. Hehuanshan (Hehuan Mountain, 合歡山), a popular mountain resort on the border of Nantou and Hualien counties in central Taiwan, has turned into an image of frost and ice after the temperature dropped to minus 4.5 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning.
Besides Hehuanshan, the strong cold wave also brought snowfall to high mountains such as Hsuehshan (雪山) and Taiping Mountain (太平山). Icicles were also found hanging from a mountain wall in Hualien County.
[SOURCE]
Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/13
By: Lu Hsin-hui and Elizabeth Hsu
Taipei, Feb. 13 (CNA) Taiwan’s annual military exercises for 2017 will be held before the end of May and
(CNA file photo)
include both computer-simulated war games and live-fire drills as has been the case in the past, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Monday.
In a statement, the ministry said the procedures of the Han Kuang exercises (漢光演習), Taiwan’s major war games, will remain unchanged this year.
They will involve “computer-simulated war games first, followed by live-fire drills,” the statement said, clarifying reports by some local media outlets, including CNA, the previous day that no live-fire drills will be held this year.
The Han Kuang exercises involve all three branches of the military — Army, Navy and Air Force — and are conducted to test their joint response to simulated threats from China. [FULL STORY]
.
World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer on Saturday said she would accept an invitation from the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s (TSU) to visit Taiwan on condition that it does not cause repercussions for Taiwanese.
Kadeer made the remarks at an event in Japan attended by World Uyghur Congress vice president Seyit Tumturk, Japan Uyghur Union president Turmuhammed Hashim and Taiwan Friends of the Uyghur Association president Paul Lin (林保華).
Kadeer discussed her proposed visit, tentatively scheduled for this year, and its implications for Taiwan-China relations, with Uighur diaspora leaders and Lin asking about the Taiwanese government’s attitude over her visit.
“I care deeply about Taiwan and I am a staunch supporter of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). I would be glad to visit if it would not lead to losses. I would like to know how Taiwanese truly feel about my proposed visit,” she said. [FULL STORY]
