Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/15
By: Sophia Yeh and Ko Lin

San Francisco, Jan. 14 (CNA) The protest that took place outside the hotel where President Tsai Ing-wen

(蔡英文) stayed during her stopover in San Francisco on Saturday was normal in a democratic society, said American Institute in Taiwan Chairman James Moriarty, according to Tsai’s spokesman.

Tsai faced a protest by overseas Taiwanese as she left her hotel Saturday to attend a luncheon with people from the local Taiwanese community at the Hyatt Regency near San Francisco International Airport before heading back to Taiwan.

Addressing the protests on the chartered flight home, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) cited Moriarty as saying that everyone is entitled to their opinion, highlighting the flourishing democracy that the United States and Taiwan both enjoy.

The AIT head also had a positive outlook on the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, Huang said, adding that Moriarty, who also attended the luncheon, said his friendship with Tsai went way back.   [FULL  STORY]

BARGAINING CHIP?President Tsai Ing-wen said her administration would be able to handle the nation’s place in US-China relations and ‘put Taiwan’s interests first’

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 15, 2017
By: Reuters

US president-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he would not

commit to the “one China” policy until he sees progress from Beijing in its currency and trade practices.

In excerpts from the hour-long interview published on Friday, Trump, when asked if he supported the “one China” policy toward Taiwan that has underpinned US relations with Beijing for decades, said: “Everything is under negotiation, including ‘one China.’”

“We sold them [Taiwan] US$2 billion of military equipment last year. We can sell them US$2 billion of the latest and greatest military equipment, but we’re not allowed to accept a phone call. First of all, it would have been very rude not to accept the phone call,” Trump said in the interview.

In a previous interview with Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace last month, Trump questioned the need for Washington to stick to its “one China” policy.

“I fully understand the ‘one China’ policy, but I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘one China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” he said at the time.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 16, 2017
By: Kuan-lin Liu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Mayor of New Taipei City and former Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu has said

the party’s new leader must narrow the gap with the people if it is to have a future.

In response to questions at a press conference Sunday about the KMT chairmanship race slated for May 20, Chu said the chairman must make the party more in tune with the people, adding that “only then will the party have a future.”

The opposition party, who slumped to a crushing landslide defeat in last year’s general election, has faced criticism it is out of touch with the realities facing ordinary people.

Chu, who served as the KMT’s chairman between 2015 and 2016, applauded the diverse field of candidates running for the party’s chairmanship, saying it was “a good thing to see so many people willing to take on this position during the most difficult time facing the party.”

The four declared candidates are: incumbent KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), former Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), and former Legislator Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-14

The eastern city of Taitung has hosted the last in a series of regional forums on the issue of pension

reform.

The Presidential Office’s pension reform committee organized four forums, one each in Taiwan’s northern, central, southern, and eastern regions to gather local opinions on shoring up Taiwan’s deficit-ridden pension system.

A national meeting on pension reform is now planned for January 21 and 22. The meeting will take the views heard at each of the regional meetings into consideration. Government agencies will then take the recommendations of the national meeting and use them in preparing draft legislation on pension reform.    [FULL  STORY]

Tamsui recorded 11.8 degrees Celsius early Saturday

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/14
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

A cold air mass from China sent temperatures down to 11.8 degrees Celsius in Tamsui of New Taipei

City, 12.2 degrees in Hsinchu and 12.6 degrees in Taipei City early Saturday, setting new record lows since the beginning of the winter.

The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said that snow is likely to blanket the highest mountains this weekend due to the strong cold air mass, while the tallest mountain, Yushan, might be out of luck, since it is more likely to be greeted by frost than by snow showers due to insufficient moisture brought to the area.

The CWB said the Hehuan Mountain is more likely to see snow on Sunday thanks to a higher amount of moisture.

Saturday’s daytime highs will hover around 16 degrees Celsius in northern and northeastern Taiwan, according to the latest forecast, with 20-24 degrees expected in central and southern Taiwan, and 18-21 degrees in the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung with cloudy skies.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/14
By: Wang Swu-fen and Liian Wu

Kaohsiung, Jan. 14 (CNA) The captain and chief engineer of a Taiwanese fishing ship returned to Taiwan

on Saturday after being detained in Indonesia for three months for allegedly fishing illegally in the country’s waters.

Captain Tsai Yun-ming (蔡雲明) and chief engineer Tsai Yun-Tsung (蔡雲忠) left Jakarta early Saturday morning and arrived in Kaohsiung the same evening after transiting through Hong Kong, with a deity in hand that they had worshipped on their ship.

Tsai Yun-ming said he paid a fine of about NT$500,000 (US$15,822) and the fishing vessel was seized.

The Pingtung-based Jih Lien Tsai No. 16 (日連財16號), with the Tsai brothers and six Filipino crew members aboard, was intercepted by the Indonesian navy on Oct. 12 while sailing in waters between the Philippines and Indonesia at a longitude of 127 degrees 40 minutes east and latitude of 5 degrees 45 minutes north.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 15, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Though touted as a “king vegetable” in Taiwan, cabbage has yet to emerge as one of

the island’s major agricultural export products due to lack of integrated marketing systems, with the vast majority of production still destined for the domestic market, according to officials.

Statistics compiled by the Council of Agriculture showed that Taiwan dedicates 9,000 hectares of farmland to cabbages, with annual production estimated at over 360,000 tons.

Disappointing Trade

Over the past five years, cabbage exports accounted for only a tiny portion of production, and declined from 2,500 tons in 2011 to only 200 tons in 2016, the statistics showed.

Council officials said that up to 80 percent of Taiwan’s cabbage exports were destined for the Japanese market, with export prices ranging from NT$8 to NT$11 per kilogram.

Tsai Chun-ying, a senior technical specialist at the Council of Agriculture’s Department of International Affairs, said the decline in cabbage exports and the failure to increase export prices were mainly caused by the lack of an integrated marketing system, which in turn resulted in the failure to secure a stable supply of cabbage with consistent quality.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: January 13, 2017

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested and condemned Jan. 12 Nigeria’s announcement the previous

day that it would no longer recognize Taiwan as a country and cease diplomatic relations, calling the move a politically motivated scheme intended to confuse the international community.

Nigeria’s foreign minister said in a joint news conference with his mainland Chinese counterpart in the West African nation’s capital, Abuja, that his government will sever ties with Taiwan in accordance with the “one China” principle. The Nigerian government also called for Taiwan to move its trade office from Abuja to the country’s largest city Lagos.

Noting that the two sides have never established formal diplomatic relations, the MOFA accused the West African nation of seeking to mislead the international community.

“The ministry strongly protests and condemns the Nigerian government’s cooperation with mainland China in carrying out a politically motivated, unreasonable, uncivil and ruthless scheme,” it said.

Taiwan and Nigeria inked a memorandum of understanding on establishing trade missions in each other’s countries in November 1990. The Trade Mission of the ROC (Taiwan) was set up in the then-Nigerian capital of Lagos in 1991, while Nigeria opened its trade mission in Taipei City the following year.
[FULL  STORY]

Yunlin’s Lunbei Township and Pingtung also ranked high on the air pollution list.

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/13
By: Wendy Lee , Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Environmental group Air Clean Taiwan on Friday revealed in a report a ranking

of Taiwan’s cities and counties by levels of PM2.5 air pollution, in which Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District holds the top spot for worst air pollution in Taiwan in 2016.

Yunlin’s Lunbei Township and Pingtung also ranked high on the air pollution list.

In the past year, Lunbei often recorded high levels of PM2.5, an important indicator of long-term air quality, prompting the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to issue red and purple alerts for the area.

According to the EPA’s four-tiered, color-coded air pollution alert system for the PM2.5 levels, the hazardous purple alert is the highest and most severe warning, followed by red, yellow, and green.

The report also suggested the air pollution levels in central and southern Taiwan are much higher than the northern part of Taiwan, often due to poor diffusion conditions.    [FULL  STORY]