Chefs have toned down the spiciness to accommodate local taste.

The News Lenas
Date: 017/01/22
By: Matthew Fulco

Cuisine from China’s southwestern Sichuan province has a well-deserved reputation for intense

Credit: Matthew Fulco

flavors given its frequent use of chili peppers, numbing Sichuan peppercorns, bean paste, and garlic. Many aficionados of the cuisine insist that the spicier, the better. Anything less than fiery is considered pedestrian.

My brother was close friends in college with a Chengdu native who insisted heat was paramount to the Sichuan dining experience. At the then only authentic Sichuan restaurant in Connecticut’s Hartford County, he always ordered the dishes on the menu identified with three chili peppers (zero was the mildest, three the hottest). While the rest of us were sweating or choking, he would note casually that the food “still lacked some flavor.” Once, cooking up a Sichuan feast in our home, he used so much chili oil that it set off the smoke detector.    [FULL  STORY]

Anti-Trump protesters in front of the AIT told by Taipei police to move to nearby Da’an Park

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/21
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — A protest against the inauguration of President Donald Trump began on

Saturday afternoon in front of the American Institute in Taipei (AIT), but was swiftly forced to relocate by Taipei police to nearby Da’an Park.

A dozen protesters holding signs with slogans such as “No! U’re the Puppet,” “Love Trumps Hate! Not my president,” and “How do u run a country with citizens u don’t respect,” gathered in front of the AIT, the de facto U.S. Embassy in Taiwan. However, because they were quickly told by police “groups of two or more people must leave,” the group reluctantly relocated their protest to neighboring Da’an Park.

U.S. citizen Christian Hansen, 35, a student at the Taipei National University of the Arts, took part in the protest. A placard he held up described Trump as a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while he also accused him of fomenting divisions in U.S. society. The new president’s statements about Taiwan were just designed to push China into making more concessions, Hansen said.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/21
By: Wei Shu and Elaine Hou

Taipei, Jan. 21 (CNA) Taiwan’s state-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC) said it has

Taiwan’s F-16 fighters (CNA file photo)

begun an upgrade of the country’s fleet of U.S.-manufactured F-16 fighter jets and that the work is expected to be completed within six years.

The first batch of four F-16s is being upgraded at the AIDC’s plant, said the company, adding that a new hangar will be launched soon to facilitate the retrofit program.

In order to carry out the program locally, the manufacturer of the jets — Lockheed Martin in the United States — sent its engineers to Taiwan last year and helped train local personnel at the AIDC on how to perform the upgrades to improve the aircraft’s combat capability.

According to the AIDC, the retrofit program will include installing advanced equipment on the fighters, including the AN/APG active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system, currently used in the U.S. F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft. The Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System and the short-range air-to-air missile AIM-9 Sidewinder will also be installed.   [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 22, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The five-day workweek law is bringing changes to the food and hospitality industries,

The five-day workweek law is bringing changes to the food and hospitality industries, with some restaurants choosing to close during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays to avoid high overtime payments and some hotels stepping up recruitment to ease labor shortages.

with some restaurants choosing to close during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays to avoid high overtime payments and some hotels stepping up recruitment to ease labor shortages.

The Lunar New Year has been one of the busiest periods offering handsome profits for restaurants.

But some of the restaurants in Taichung have decided to take a break this year because there is no point opening the doors during the holidays when the profits would be eaten up by the over-time pay for the employees, according to the United Daily News.

The new five-day workweek law requires employers to pay their employers more than two times their regular pay when they have to give up their holidays and work.

One hot pot restaurant chain said it was considering closing for the holidays as the hourly pay for part-timers would be more than double the regular level, according the newspaper.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-20

Tsai seeks international human rights committee plan by year end
President Tsai Ing-wen said Friday she hopes to see a plan for the establishment of a national human rights committee by the end of the year.

The president was speaking after a special committee presented a report on Taiwan’s progress on implementing two UN covenants on human rights. The UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were signed into Taiwan’s law in 2009. That’s despite the fact that Taiwan has been blocked from membership of the United Nations.    [FULL  STORY]

A rare glimpse back at Taiwan in the early 1970s

Taiwan’ News
Date: 2017/01/20
By: Keoni Everington,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

(1971 Typical city scene with colorful advertisements lining the street, not unlike Taiwan today.)

Taipei (Taiwan News) — Covell Meyskens, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California has posted a collection of vintage photographs on his website of ordinary people going about their lives in Taiwan dating from 1971-1972.

These rare photos provide a chance to look back at how much things have changed and how some have stayed the same over the past 45 years in Taiwan.

Bustling street scene on Zhonghua Road, near the Taipei Old North gate.

Cyclists zip by on Zhonghua Road.

Zhonghua Road with Pepsi Cola sign on right, movie posers on left.

Military personnel line up in preparation for the National Day of the Republic of China

Students hold up photos of Chiang Kai-shek during National Day festivities.

Female Ming Chuan University students undergo military training.

Iconic VW Westfalia Camper van cruises the city.

A man drinks a beverage purchased from a bicycle street vendor.

A young woman looks outward from inside a packed public bus.

Women burning joss paper and incense during funeral.

A women appearing to consult with a fortune teller.

A family gathers for a feast while a traveling puppet show plays in the background.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/20
By: Sophia Yeh and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Jan. 20 (CNA) In a recent letter to Pope Francis, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) reiterated the

President Tsai Ing-wen. CNA file photo

Republic of China’s stance on upholding Taiwan’s democracy and peace in the Taiwan Strait, outlining four principles for peaceful engagement with mainland China.

Tsai sent the letter on Jan. 5 in response to the Pope’s message on the World Day of Peace 2017. In the papal message, Pope Francis called on individuals and nations to take concerted efforts to address the crises facing mankind with love and faith in nonviolence.

In the letter, published by the Presidential Office on Friday, Tsai expressed her appreciation and support of the Pope’s call for “disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons, as well as solutions to regional conflict, terrorism, migration issues and environmental destruction.”

She wrote that Taiwan and mainland China were once embroiled in a zero-sum conflict that caused tension in the region and anxiety among our peoples, but now people in both sides enjoy stable lives and normal exchanges under peaceful and separate governance.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 21, 2017
By: Staff writer, with CNA

A draft proposal to reform the pension system seeks to incrementally increase the labor insurance

Vice President Chen Chien-jen, who heads the Presidential Office’s Pension Reform Committee, speaks at a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday held in response to media reports about a draft proposal to reform the pension system that was released on Thursday. Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times

premium from 9.5 percent to 18 percent over a 10-year period, rather than doing so in one step, Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday.

Chen was speaking at a news conference in Taipei held to respond to what Chen called misleading media reports about the proposal, which was released on Thursday.

Under the proposal, the labor insurance premium is to be raised by 0.5 percentage points every year starting next year, said Chen, who heads the Presidential Office’s Pension Reform Committee.

The government would then review the results in 2023 and if they are deemed unsatisfactory, the premium would be raised by 1 percentage point every year until it reaches 18 percent, he said.

There is no plan to change the existing system in which employees, the government and employers contribute 20 percent, 10 percent and 70 percent respectively to the premium, he said, dismissing as untrue a report that said employees and employers would each contribute 50 percent of the premium.    [FULL  STORY]