OVER PORK IMPORTS: The former lawmaker said she would hold out in front of the Legislative Yuan ‘until I faint,’ while Premier Su urged her to take care of her health

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 13, 2020
By: Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter

Although ractopamine is banned as an animal feed additive in Taiwan due to safety concerns, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that the nation would lift its ban on imports of pork from the US, where the additive is allowed, as well as imports of beef from cattle aged 30 months or older.

Tsai at he time said that the decision was “based on our national economic interests and consistent with our overall strategic goals.”

The policy is to take effect from Jan. 1.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 10 December, 2020
By: Paula Chao

A special exhibit on the rescue of political prisoners in Taiwan during the White Terror era is underway.

The exhibit coincides with Human Rights Day, which is observed on December 10. It is organized by the National Human Rights Museum. The exhibit focuses on the cases of dissidents and on the process of rescuing pro-democracy and human rights activists both in Taiwan and abroad between 1960 and 1992.    [FULL  STORY]

PJ Media
Date: Dec 10, 2020
By: Rick Moran

China took full advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the pandemic they caused to destroy democracy in Hong Kong. Now that they have one major domestic problem solved, they are turning their attention to their biggest unfinished business; bringing Taiwan to heel.

In more than 70 years, Beijing has never wavered an inch in its insistence that Taiwan is a province of China. This has made for an interesting diplomatic dance by the United States who technically recognizes Taiwan as an independent state but rarely treats them like one. Donald Trump sought to change that by selling arms to Taipei and thumbing his nose at China by sending high-level representatives of the U.S. government to the island.

China fumed and raged but did little to retaliate. But with the Hong Kong “problem” solved, China will now turn its full attention and focus its power on crushing the resistance to its rule in Taiwan.
[FULL  STORY]

Drugs found on fishing trawler 4 months after tip-off launches investigation

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/12/10
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A shipment of 126 kilograms of heroin originating in Myanmar was found on a vessel off southwest Taiwan, resulting in the termination of a supply route for the drug, Pingtung County prosecutors said Thursday (Dec. 10).

Investigators estimate the 324 bricks had a total street value of NT$3 billion (US$106 million), CNA reported.

The case began in March when the Coast Guard Administration in Kaohsiung received a tip-off about drug smugglers using fishing trawlers. After four months of investigation, agents boarded the Yi Feng Man off the coast of Pingtung County’s Hengchun Peninsula at 2 a.m. on July 24.

A thorough inspection of the vessel involving dogs and divers turned up five bags of heroin weighing a total of 126 kg. The captain of the ship, Lin Tse-fu (林澤富), and five other suspects were detained and later charged.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 12/10/2020
By: Worthy Shen and Chung Yu-chen

Taipei, Dec. 10 (CNA) Dutch priest Cor Willems, who is better known in Taiwan as "father of polio children" after caring for thousands of children affected by the disease during his time in the country, passed away in his native Netherlands aged 84 on Dec. 7, according to the Beunen Foundation in Taipei.

Born in 1936, Willems came to Taiwan as a missionary at the age of 27. At that time, polio was widespread as the country had a relatively undeveloped health care system, with many children receiving poor healthcare and education. Willems, his fellow Dutch priest Gerard Beunen and others established Wen-Sheng Rehabilitation Center in Jiaoxi, Yilan in 1971. Equipped with hydrotherapy and rehabilitation facilities, the center cared for thousands of children suffering from polio over the years.

In many cases, children with polio were rejected by their families, as many parents were unable to cope with the disease and unable to afford the medical bills stemming from related treatment.

After seeing how such children were treated, Willems persuaded their parents to send them to the Jiaoxi-based center. He even mastered the Taiwanese Hokkien dialect with a local accent, gradually winning the respect and affection of local people.    [FULL  STORY]

NO EXCUSES: The CECC said it has fined three Americans, two Hong Kongers and an Australian NT$10,000 for not providing a PCR test report upon their arrival in Taiwan

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 11, 2020
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported four new imported cases of COVID-19 — a traveler from Indonesia and three from the Philippines — bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Taiwan to 724.

The four people, all migrant workers, arrived in Taiwan on Nov. 25 and 26, and were tested before the end of their mandatory 14-day quarantine, the CECC said, adding that the results came back positive yesterday.

All migrant workers from the Philippines and Indonesia, except those hired as fishers, are required to quarantine for 14 days at a designated government-run center and are tested for COVID-19 a few days before their quarantine ends, the CECC said.

The worker from Indonesia, a woman in her 30s, presented a negative COVID-19 test upon her arrival in Taiwan on Nov. 25, the CECC said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 09 December, 2020
By: Paula Chao

President Tsai Ing-wen says that the values that Taiwan and the United States share are bringing the two countries together “like never before.” Tsai was speaking early Wednesday morning in a speech delivered virtually to the 2020 NDI Celebration of Democracy Gala held by the National Democratic Institute.

Established in 1983, the institute, which is aimed at promoting freedom and democracy, has had close cooperation with NGOs, political parties, and democracy advocacy groups around the world.

In her speech, Tsai congratulated the American people on exercising their democratic rights once again in the November presidential race, in which voter turnout hit a record high.
[FULL  STORY]

The museum denies that criticism of Ping Lin's curatorial choices led to her abrupt resignation. 

Artnet News
Date: December 9, 2020

Ping Lin, director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, has announced that she will resign from her post in January of next year. The unexpected news comes after local elected officials publicly criticized Lin’s inclusion of a mordant, political artwork in an exhibition she co-curated this summer. 

The artwork in question, I-DEN-TI-TY, an installation by local artist Mei Dean E, features 15 golden plates that represent the countries with which Taiwan has broken diplomatic relations, shrouded in textiles bearing phrases such as “shame” and “disgrace.”

First created in 1996, the work was updated this year for “The Secret South: From Cold War Perspective to Global South in Museum Collection,” an exhibition of art from developing countries in southeast and western Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands.

According to ArtAsiaPacific, Taipei city councilor Yu Shu-hui called the installation “an incitation of xenophobia, or a pure rage out of resentment” in a Facebook post that has since been deleted, and demanded that the artwork be removed. Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je added to the controversy by saying that, if one of the countries in Mei’s piece complained, “we should give the director Lin Ping a demerit.”    [FULL  STORY]

US Navy surveillance drone spotted flying just off the southern tip of Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/12/09
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A U.S. Navy (USN) surveillance drone was detected on Wednesday (Dec. 9) by aircraft spotters flying just off the coast of southern Taiwan, well within its air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

At 3:28 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, the Beijing-based South China Sea (SCS) Probing Initiative posted a tweet claiming that a USN Northrup Grumman MQ-4C Triton was operating over the South China sea on that day. Aircraft spotter Jort Enthusiast at 3:30 p.m. announced on Twitter that a USN MQ-4C with the Mode-S hex code AE5C76 was flying just south of Taiwan and "high above the South China Sea."    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 12/09/2020
By: Chen Yu-ting and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Dec. 9 (CNA) The Taipei City Department of Health said Wednesday that the controversial discrepancy in fines imposed recently in two cases of foreign nationals contravening quarantine rules in Taiwan was because of the different circumstances in each case.

The four visiting disc jockeys (DJs) who were each fined NT$10,000 (US$354) in November were housed in a private residence and did not leave the premises, although they did congregate in the living room to eat and rehearse for their show, without wearing masks, the department said.

In the case of the migrant Filipino worker who was fined NT$100,000 in Kaohsiung in November, he was quarantined at a hotel, where people are not permitted to leave their rooms, and he broke that regulation, said Yu Tsan-hua (余燦華), chief of the Taipei City disease control division.

The Filipino was caught on security camera slipping out of his room on Nov. 13 and placing something at the door of another room in the same hallway at the hotel, which took 8 seconds in total, according to the Kaohsiung city government.    [FULL  STORY]