Page Two

Recall vote for mayor of S. Taiwan city of Kaohsiung set for June 6

At least 570,000 citizens need to vote against Han for recall to be successful: Reports

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The citizens of Kaohsiung will be able to decide on the fate of their Kuomintang (KMT) mayor, Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), in a recall vote on June 6, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced Friday (April 17) after a last-minute legal challenge was defeated.

Never before has such a high official been targeted with a recall vote, reports said. Han unexpectedly won the mayoral election in November 2018, but he rapidly lost public support amid grandiose promises and careless statements that earned him comparisons to United States President Donald Trump. He also went on to lose January’s presidential election by a wide margin.

Activists in a group called “We Care Kaohsiung” launched a petition drive which ended up with more than 377,000 valid endorsements from the public, far above the legal minimum threshold of 228,000, CNA reported.

The June 6 vote will require at least 570,000 citizens, or one quarter of Kaohsiung’s 2.28 million eligible voters, to cast a ballot in favor of the recall motion to be successful. An even more basic requirement, of course, is that the recall supporters outnumber their opponents. Between May 22 and June 5, there will be televised programs explaining the motivation for the recall vote, reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

CORONAVIRUS/Taiwan records no new COVID-19 cases for third time this week

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/17/2020
By: William Yen

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (Photo courtesy of the CECC)

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) Taiwan reported no new daily confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus for a second consecutive day Friday and also for the third time this week, keeping the total number of those infected in the country at 395, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said that day.

Taiwan also confirmed no new cases Tuesday and Thursday this week, as well as March 8 and March 9.

A total of 166 of the COVID-19 patients in the country have already been released from quarantine, while the death toll remains at six, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the CECC, told reporters at a daily briefing in Taipei.

Despite Taiwan recording no new cases for the third time this week, Chen reiterated that the global pandemic has not subsided.    [FULL  STORY]

Virus Outbreak: US-based couple under probe over health report

CASE NOS. 384 and 393: The couple, who have lived in the US for decades, allegedly showed symptoms of COVID-19 infection before boarding flights to Taiwan

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 18, 2020
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

Taoyuan prosecutors are investigating whether a US-based Taiwanese couple who have tested positive for COVID-19 had given false information about their health before boarding flights to Taiwan, endangering the flight crews and fellow passengers.

The couple took separate flights from New York to Taiwan, with the husband, who is in his 70s, arriving on Friday last week, and the wife, who is in her 60s, the following day. The two tested positive for the virus, with the man becoming the nation’s 384th case and the woman its 393rd case. They are receiving treatment in an isolation ward.

The Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday ordered Taoyuan prosecutors to investigate the couple for potential breaches of Article 13 of the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例), which states: “Individuals suffering from or suspected of suffering from severe pneumonia with novel pathogens [who] fail to abide by the instructions of competent health authorities of any level and thus are at risk of infecting others shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not more than two years or criminal detention, and may in addition thereto, be fined no less than NT$200,000 [US$6,644] and no more than NT$2 million.

“Preliminary reports indicate that while in the US, the couple already exhibited symptoms of COVID-19, but they still flew to Taiwan. Our office has initiated an investigation, which is headed by our chief prosecutor,” Taoyuan prosecutor Lin Hsiu-min (林秀敏) said, adding that dozens of people on the two flights are in quarantine after the couple tested positive.    [FULL  STORY]

Nearly 15,000 workers on unpaid leave as COVID-19 hits economy

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 16 April, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Nearly 15,000 workers on unpaid leave as COVID-19 hits economy (CNA file photo)

The number of Taiwanese workers on unpaid leave has jumped by more than 6000 within the space of a week, approaching 15,000 on Thursday. That’s as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to hit the economy.

This is the highest number of workers on unpaid leave since December 2011.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei-Based Policy Expert Explains How Taiwan’s Emergence As A Global Player During The COVID-19 Crisis Has Earned China’s Contempt

Hoover Institution
Date: April 9, 2020
By: Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Negative perceptions about the People’s Republic of China during the COVID-19 crisis have greatly enhanced Taiwan’s position globally and have set the small island nation on a collision course with Beijing, argued Taipei-based policy analyst J. Michael Cole in a Hoover Institution webinar on Friday, April 9.

The discussion was part of a series of events within Hoover’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific project, chaired by Senior Fellow Larry Diamond and managed by Visiting Fellow Glenn Tiffert.

Cole argued that the pandemic has raised tensions in cross-strait relations that had already been intensified by the 2016 Taiwan election, which swept the independence-oriented Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into power in the Legislative Yuan, and its leader Tsai Ing-Wen into the presidency.

The DPP’s domination of national politics came in the wake of the 2014 Sunflower Movement, when activist students occupied the Legislative and Executive Yuans to protest a free-trade agreement that was being negotiated with Beijing.    [FULL  STORY]

Avian flu outbreak at SW Taiwan chicken farm results in culling of 8,624 chickens

Abnormal deaths of farm chickens confirmed to have been caused by H5N5 outbreak

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/16
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

(Tainan City Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office office)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A confirmed and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI A) (H5N5) outbreak at a chicken farm in Yanshuei District, Tainan City on Thursday (April 16) resulted in the culling of 8,624 chickens in the farm.

The chicken farm reported to the city’s Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office that there were abnormal deaths of the chickens at the farm, which were confirmed to have been caused by an H5N5 outbreak. In addition to the culling of all chickens at the farm on Thursday, 560 kilograms of eggs were also sent to incinerators to be destroyed, CNA reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan donates 2 million masks to Japan

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/16/2020
By: Emerson Lim

Chiou I-jen (right) shaking hands with Izumi Hiroyasu/ Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Taipei, April 16 (CNA) Taiwan donated 2 million surgical face masks to Japan on Thursday to help its northern neighbor contain the spread of the coronavirus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement.

Chiou I-jen (邱義仁), chairman of the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association (TJRA), presented a giant face mask to Izumi Hiroyasu (泉裕泰), chief representative of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association (JTEA) Taipei Office, Thursday afternoon as part of a symbolic ceremony, MOFA said.

The donated masks will be delivered to Japan within a few days to help frontline health workers better protect themselves, MOFA said.

According to the ministry, legislators and civil groups in Japan have requested assistance from Taiwan on medical personal protective equipment due to many coronavirus infections within medical facilities.    [FULL  STORY]

Officials warn of Chinese militia

TAKE CAUTION: The Ministry of National Defense said that it would approach the coming fishing season with caution to prevent an escalation of cross-strait tensions

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 17, 2020
By Huang Hsin-po and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Photo: CNA

The Ocean Affairs Council yesterday said that it has not ruled out the possibility that China is using maritime militias to provoke cross-strait conflict, even though the Ministry of National Defense said that a clash last month between Chinese fishing boats and Coast Guard Administration (CGA) vessels was an isolated incident.

At a cross-agency briefing for the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee, council Minister Lee Chung-wei (李仲威) said that Chinese militias were to blame when Chinese fishing boats rammed coast guard vessels attempting to chase off boats fishing in Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone.

The majority of Chinese maritime militias are in the East China Sea, as well as the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) and the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea, Lee said.     [FULL  STORY]

COVID-19: Taiwan mulls testing returnees from high-risk countries

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 15 April, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

Deputy Health Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan

The health ministry says it may mandate COVID-19 tests for all people returning from countries where the disease has taken a high toll. That’s a departure from the current policy of requiring all arrivals go into quarantine but not requiring tests.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Taiwan has increased the number of testing stations nationwide from 11 to 34. With its current testing capacity, Taiwan could conduct 3,800 tests a day if needed.    [FULL  STORY]

As U.S. discouraged mask use for public, White House team raced to secure face coverings from Taiwan for senior staff

A journalist wears a mask as President Trump and members of the coronavirus task force brief reporters at the White House on Monday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Washington Post
April 15, 2020
By: Carol D. Leonnig, Elizabeth Dwoskin and John Hudson 

A journalist wears a mask as President Trump and members of the coronavirus task force brief reporters at the White House on Monday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

In mid-March, a National Security Council team rushed to fix what they saw as a threat to the U.S. government’s ability to function amid the advancing pandemic: a lack of masks to protect enough staff on the White House complex.

Alarmed by the small cache and the growing signs of an acute shortage of protective gear in the United States, a senior NSC official turned to a foreign government for help, according to people familiar with the situation.

The outreach resulted in a donation of hundreds of thousands of surgical masks from Taiwan, which had plentiful domestic production and had sharply curtailed the spread of the coronavirus on the island.

While the bulk of Taiwan’s goodwill shipment went to the Strategic National Stockpile, 3,600 were set aside for White House staff and officials, administration officials said.    [FULL  STORY]