Radio Taiwan International
Date: 05 May, 2020
By: John Van Trieste

Indian businessman Prabhat Ranjan (right) has decided to send his Taiwanese wife and his son back to Taiwan on a charter flight to limit their risk of getting COVID-19 while he stays in India to continue running his business.

A charter flight bringing Taiwanese citizens and some foreigners back from New Delhi on Tuesday has left some transnational families with difficult choices.

The flight was the latest effort by the foreign ministry to repatriate those who wish to return to Taiwan amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as travel has become difficult.    [FULL  STORY]

The Nation Newspaper
Date: May 5, 2020
By: Robert Egbe

Three men, who allegedly presented forged documents to the Taiwanese Embassy in Lagos for visa processing, were on Tuesday brought before the Igbosere Magistrates’ Court in Lagos.

Joseph Otisi, 29, was arraigned before Chief Magistrate Folashade Botoku in a charge marked B/19/2020, while Chukwu Ezedinachi and Nosiru Oladimeji were jointly charged before Magistrate T.B Are.

Police Counsel Wewe Adegbayi, an Assistant Superintendent (ASP), prosecuted both cases.

He alleged that the defendants committed the offences last March at the Taiwanese Embassy on No. 23A Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s Tzu Chi Hospital successfully transfers donated bone marrow to Singapore medical staff at Hualien Airport

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/05
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Medical staff from Taiwan's Tzu Chi Hospital in April were able to complete an extremely difficult task of delivering donated bone marrow to a leukemia patient from Singapore at the Hualien Airport in the eastern part of the country.

According to the Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, a Singaporean patient in her 40s was urgently in need of a bone marrow transplant after having been diagnosed with acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage at the end of last year. Since the Singaporean hospitals were unable to locate a match for the patient, they decided to reach out to the Tzu Chi Stem Cells Center and were informed that a perfect donor had been found.

However, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has continued to escalate, both Taiwan and Singapore have imposed strict border controls as well as cancelled most non-essential flights, resulting in the delivery of the bone marrow donation being postponed.

Luckily, with the arrangement from the Hualien Airport, the medical professionals from both countries were able to carry out the difficult transporting process in less than an hour while adhering to the pandemic prevention guidelines set by Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC). The airport director Wu Fu-Ho (吳富和) said this was also the first time in Taiwanese history that a bone marrow donation was transferred to overseas medical workers without them needing to pass immigration.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/05/2020
By: Wen Juei-hsiang, Ku Chuan and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 5 (CNA) Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) defended himself against a recall vote, scheduled to take place in early June.

In a written defense released by the Central Election Commission (CEC) Tuesday, Han listed 15 achievements since he took office in December 2018, including how his administration pushed for investment to increase new jobs for the city, saying that "he will brave the storms and move ahead."

In his 5,600 word defense, Han said that through the efforts of his administration to boost the tourism industry in the city, a business group from the United States submitted an application in January to team up with Kaohsiung to develop a "Love Ferris Wheel" project in the city.

During his mayoral campaign, Han had promoted the "Love Ferris Wheel," which is planned to be built by the city's Love River side, as a landmark and attraction for tourists to Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]

NOT THE CDC: The fake e-mails claim the recipient had come into contact with a person confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus

Taipei Times
Date: May 06, 2020
By: Huang Chao-hsiang, Dennis Xie and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writers and CNA

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not contact the public via e-mail, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said on Monday, urging people who receive such e-mails not to reply to or forward them, or click on any links they contain.

Several people have reported receiving e-mails from an address (notices@cdc.gov.tw) purporting to belong to the CDC.

The e-mails claim to provide a “final notice” for COVID-19 testing and say the recipient had come into contact with a person confirmed to have been infected, the CECC said.

The e-mails are an attempt at phishing, and since its establishment, the CECC has only contacted the public through notices on its official Web site and social media accounts, it said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Intertnational
Date: 04 May, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

The government is giving out subsidies and vouchers to help those hit hard by  COVID-19. It has given out NT$30 billion (about US$1 billion) to nearly 1.8 million people hit hard by the pandemic. That was the word from Premier Su Tseng-chang on Monday. 

The premier said the government has given NT$10,000 (US$335) each to people without labor insurance. These include temp workers, sidewalk vendors and people with a low household income. 

The government is also helping workers in the agriculture and fishing industries. Some have received NT$30,000 (about US$1,000) in subsidies. Others, whose annual income is less than NT$500,000 (US$16,750), have received NT$10,000 (US$335) in aid.

 

New Europe
Date: May 4, 2020
By: Elena Pavlovska

Taiwan on Monday said it has “not yet” received an invitation to a meeting this month of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly. It added, however, it will seek to take part of it.

The country has been largely excluded from involvement with the WHO due to pressure from China, which refuses to acknowledge the island’s sovereignty.

Last week, the WHO said the assembly will take place virtually from May 18. Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said the government had “not yet received an invitation from WHO” and was “still awaiting” it so a delegation could attend as an observer and share the island’s experience in fighting the coronavirus.

Taiwan attended the World Health Assembly as an observer from 2009-2016 when Taipei-Beijing relations warmed, but China blocked further participation after the election of Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen. Relations between Taiwan and China have been on the decline since 2016 when Tsai, who has taken a more pro-Taiwan stance than her main competitor, was first elected president.
[FULL  STORY]

Scale of event will depend on course of coronavirus pandemic in coming months

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/04
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — This year’s Taiwan International Balloon Festival will be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taitung County Tourism Department Director Yu Ming-hsun (余明勳) announced on Monday (May 4).

The balloon festival, a marquee event on the county’s summer tourism calendar, was originally scheduled to take place from June 27 to Aug. 16. It will now run from July 11 through Aug. 30, CNA reported on Monday.

The 51-day event will be held at Luye Highland. However, the Taitung County government said that the size of the event will be dependent on how the pandemic pans out.

Since the pandemic is still spreading across the globe, foreign balloon teams invited to the event will have to go through a compulsory 14-day quarantine once they enter Taiwan and another after they return home. The county government said this may discourage some aeronauts from leaving their countries to participate.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/04/2020
By: Chen Yi-wei, Matt Yu and Ko Lin

PACAF Commander General Charles Q. Brown Jr. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Mikaley Kline) / Image taken from PACAF's website.

Taipei, May 4 (CNA) Taiwan was among 19 countries that participated in a video conference on the response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which was held last week by the United States Pacific Air Forces (PACAF).

The virtual conference on April 29 focused on "sharing lessons learned regarding COVID-19 response, desires for resuming engagement and exercises in a post COVID world, and a commitment to continued cooperation across the Indo-Pacific region," PACAF said in press release on the weekend.

The participants also addressed opportunities for cooperation in areas such as supply chain support, protocols on transport of patients, and applications for COVID-19 testing and tracing, PACAF said.

A Taiwanese military official, who asked not to be named, told CNA Monday that military exchanges between Taiwan and the U.S., such as the PACAF teleconference, were nothing new.
[FULL  STORY]