Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/28
By: Chang Ming-hsuan, Worthy Shen and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, April 28 (CNA) Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is joining an emerging

global trend of urban beekeeping, led by a luxury hotel that is now producing its own honey.

W Taipei, a 32-story hotel in the bustling Xinyi District, has 100,000 bees in an apiary on its roof, its general manager Cary Michael Gray said at a press conference Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the hotel harvested at 3 to 4 liters of honey from its rooftop beehives, Gray said, adding that he hopes the “buzz” will spread throughout Taiwan’s cities as honey bees are gradually disappearing from the global map.

The hotel launched the beekeeping project last November under a program initiated by Syin-Lu Social Welfare Foundation to tackle the global bee crisis and improve urban ecology in Taiwan, Gray said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/27
By: Lu Hsin-huei and Ted Chen

Taipei, April 27 (CNA) The The Air Force Command Headquarters rejected

Monday as false and unfounded media reports suggesting that one of the Air Force’s F-CK-1 (經國號戰機) jet fighters had been locked on by the People’s Liberation Army’s missile defense system during a routine patrol last year.

According to the media reports, the CK-1 jet fighter flying out of Tainan’s 443rd Tactical Fighter Wing was locked on by China’s S-300 surface-to-air missile battery in Longtian, Fujian Province, sometime last year, and that in response, the pilot immediately performed a tactical retreat to safety.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-27
By: CNA

Some Hong Kong citizens are considering emigrating to Taiwan due to political

instability in the special administrative region, especially since last September’s Occupy Central protest for democracy, people familiar with Hong Kong are saying.

Chang Tieh-chih, chief editor of City Magazine in Hong Kong, recently moved back to Taipei after living in Hong Kong for two and a half years.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/27
By: Chen Wei-ting and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, April 24 (CNA) The vast majority of the members of an independent

airline pilots union in Taiwan has voted to go on strike, threatening to disrupt the operations of China Airlines (CAL), Taiwan’s biggest airline, beginning next month.

Of the 670 members of the Taoyuan Union of Pilots, 596 voted to call a strike and two others cast invalid ballots during the voting period from April 9 to 25, said the union, which is not affiliated with CAL but whose members are mostly CAL pilots.

The result marks the first time in Taiwan’s history that local airline employees acted on their legal right to strike.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-27
By: CNA

Former Taiwan Control Yuan president Wang Chien-hsien has proposed that the

ruling Kuomintang (KMT) should back Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou as an independent candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

In a letter to the China Times published on Sunday, Wang said the KMT cannot find a candidate for the presidential election because it has realized it will lose by a big margin no matter who represents it following a crushing defeat in nationwide local elections in 2014.    [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-26
By: CNA

A condiment manufacturer in New Taipei has been found to be using

industrial-grade magnesium carbonate in its pepper powder products, the city’s Public Health Department said Saturday.

An initial investigation found that four types of pepper powder products produced by Taiwan’s First Company contain industrial-grade, instead of food-grade, magnesium carbonate, the department said.

The substandard products could have been sold to many fried chicken vendors around Taiwan, and further investigation is needed to obtain a full list of the company’s downstream buyers, it said.

The problem was discovered during an inspection of the company.

Prosecutors conducted a search of the company on Friday and brought several of the company’s executives back for questioning.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/26
By: Claudia Liu, Hsieh Chia-chen, Chen Wei-ting and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, April 26 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday that Taiwan and

Japan should work together to restore Taiwanese people’s confidence in Japanese food products, a Presidential Office spokesman said.

Taiwan’s relevant agencies will explain Taiwan’s policy on Japanese food products, Ma said, according to the spokesman, just days before a Japanese delegation is to visit Taiwan, with the safety issue high on the agenda when it meets with Taiwanese lawmakers.

Taiwanese consumers have grown wary of food items from Japan after several were found on local store shelves with falsified labels to hide the fact they were produced in places affected by Japan’s nuclear disaster in March 2011.

After the disaster, Taiwan imposed a ban on the import of food produced in the five nuclear-affected prefectures– Gunma, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Chiba.     [FULL  STORY]