VOA
Date:\ March 29, 2020
By: Ralph Jennings/

Wall Street Journal China Bureau Chief Jonathan Cheng, left, poses for a photo with Journal reporters, from left, Julie Wernau, Stephanie Yang, and Stu Woo before their departure at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, March 28, 2020.

TAIPEI – Taiwan’s invitation to American journalists harassed by China to locate here instead would free them from government pressure but distance them from Asia’s hub for international news.

Foreign minister Joseph Wu tweeted the invitation Saturday. He mentioned three media organizations whose reporters had been thrown out of China, apparently in response to U.S. curbs against journalists working for state-run Chinese media in the United States.

“He said as that as New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post journalists face intensifying hostility in China, I would like to welcome you to be stationed in Taiwan, a country that’s a beacon of freedom and democracy,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said, referring to Wu’s tweet.    [FULL  STORY]

• Fast response, transparency and efficacy have been credited for island’s success in controlling the disease locally so far, experts say
• Taiwan will be tested in the weeks to come as Taiwanese return home from Europe and North America, where case numbers are rising

South China Morning Post
Date: 29 Mar, 2020
By: Lawrence Chung

Taiwan’s initial success at controlling the spread of deadly coronavirus infections on the island has won it global recognition.

But with scores of new infections and deaths being reported daily in the popular Taiwanese tourist destinations of Europe and the US, it remains to be seen whether the island’s efforts to check the disease will remain as effective as when the virus first spread from the mainland Chinese city of Wuhan, experts say.

With half a million Taiwanese working on the mainland and a million people from the mainland visiting the self-governed island per year, some health experts had predicted that Taiwan would be the hardest hit locality when Covid-19 was first reported in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, which is less than two hours away from Taipei by air.

As of the weekend, Taiwan had reported close to 300 confirmed cases and two deaths, compared with the mainland’s 3,300 deaths and more than 81,000 cases, according to Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC). By comparison, Italy has had more than 10,000 deaths and 92,000 cases, the US 2,500 deaths and 122,000 cases and Spain almost 6,000 deaths and 73,000 cases.    [FULL  STORY]

How Audrey Tang is using “very promising” distributed ledger technology to help government listen to its citizens at scale.

Decrypt
Date: Mar 29, 2020
By: Robert Stevens

Taiwan is still figuring out how to “do” democracy, the country’s Digital Minister, Audrey Tang, told Decrypt. Taiwan’s democratic era only started after the country came out of martial law in the 90s—its first election was in 1996—making its constitution one of the first written in the Internet era.

“In many other parts of the world, democracy is part of their culture, part of their tradition. To change it, you have to learn about hundreds of years of proud republican tradition,” she told Decrypt. But in Taiwan, “The people who designed the democracy systems are all still around and very active,” she added.

Tang, the 38-year-old radical who’s leading Taiwan’s drive for technological innovation in governance, said that researching how blockchain can improve governance is a “top priority”. 

“Ledgers”—Tang prefers the term to blockchain—“are very promising. [They are] a cheap way to build accountability and some sort of legitimacy across sectors,” she said, which makes them particularly useful for governance.    [FULL  STORY]

Party proposes constitutional amendments to lower voting age to 18, age of candidacy to 20

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/29
By:  Central News Agency

Taiwan's main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), expressed hope Sunday that a recent proposal raised by the party to lower the legal voting age to 18 by means of constitutional amendment can be realized soon and put into practice before the 2022 local government elections.

The proposal by the KMT to amend the Constitution to lower the legal voting age to 18 from the current 20 and lower the age of candidacy to 20 from 23 was sent to committee review Friday (March 27).

The party's newly elected chairman, Chiang Chi-chen (江啟臣), then called on the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to establish a constitutional reform committee to discuss the issue.

Speaking during a press event Sunday, KMT legislative deputy caucus whip Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said the party hopes that the proposal will be supported by the public and that the amendments to the Constitution can be passed soon.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/29/2020
By: Matt Yu and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, March 29 (CNA) 55 Taiwanese tourists flew from Peru to the United States on a private chartered jet Sunday, the second group of Taiwanese nationals to do so since the South American country closed its borders due to fears over the COVID-19 coronavirus disease.

The passengers landed at Miami International Airport at 10 a.m. Sunday, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and will now be free to decide whether to return to Taiwan.

The flight, chartered by LATAM Airlines, departed from Cusco, a southeastern city in Peru, with 38 Taiwanese on board, then flew to the capital, Lima, to pick up an additional 17 Taiwanese nationals, said MOFA spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安).

Also on the flight were another 84 passengers of four different nationalities — Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the U.S. — bringing the total number of passengers to 139, Ou said.
[FULL  STORY]

Mistake resulted from botched reminder of 8 days crucial to fight against coronavirus: CTiTV

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — CTiTV News has taken down a message that said Taiwan is just six days away from a complete lockdown, reports said Saturday (March 28).

While the island nation’s number of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases has been rising steadily, reaching 283 on Saturday, the authorities have not announced any local or national lockdowns.

However, on Saturday morning, a message appeared on the screen of a CTiTV news program saying Taiwan was counting down six days to a lockdown, CNA reported. Viewers alerted the National Communications Commission (NCC), which said it would discuss the incident, though it remains to be seen whether it will fine the station.    [FULL  STORY]

Train frequency to be halved outside of peak hours from April 6 until June 14

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taoyuan Airport Mass Rapid Transit line will reduce the frequency of its trains from April to June as the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affects the number of passengers, reports said Saturday (March 28).

The system will also be respecting a Ministry of Transportation measure, which comes into force on April 1, to refuse access to passengers whose temperature exceeds 37.5 degrees, according to CNA.

During peak hours, trains on the Taoyuan Airport MRT will continue running at intervals of 15 minutes, but between April 6 and June 14, services during the rest of the day will be cut.

From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m to 10 p.m., there will only be one train every 30 minutes, while on holidays, express trains will arrive at a half-hour frequency all day long.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/28/2020

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) A Taiwanese father and son who endured a two-month ordeal in quarantine on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, being treated for the COVID-19 coronavirus in Japan, followed by self-isolation at home in Kaohsiung, have a simple message for the 50,000 Taiwanese currently under home quarantine: Stay at home — your cooperation could save lives.

In an interview with CNA — the first in which Taiwanese COVID-19 survivors have agreed to disclose their identities — 85-year-old Mai Wen-ta (麥文達) and 49-year-old Mai Chia-shuo (麥家碩) recounted their experience with the disease and explained why they think such public health measures are necessary.

The pair's ordeal began on Jan. 20 when they set sail from Yokohama, Japan on the Diamond Princess.

The ship, carrying 3,711 passengers and crew, including 24 Taiwanese, made stops in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan and Okinawa. On Feb. 4, however, it was quarantined in Yokohama Harbor, after it emerged that a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong later tested positive for the virus.
[FULL  STORY]

TEAMWORK: Researcher Kuo Ban-Yuan said he is to lead a team to deploy an OBS array in the Pacific Ocean to create the western wing of an international project

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

Taiwan plans to join the US, Japan and South Korea to survey the Pacific tectonic plate with locally built ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) next year, which would allow scientists to chart new research areas, Academia Sinica Institute of Earth Sciences research fellow Kuo Ban-Yuan (郭本垣) said.

The opportunity arose after he led a team of Taiwanese researchers to deploy an OBS array in the Northern Okinawa Trough onboard the research vessel Legend (勵進) from 2018 to last year in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the University of the Ryukyus, Kuo told the Taipei Times on March 16.

Inaugurated in May 2018, the 2,629 tonne Legend is managed by the Nation6al Applied Research Laboratories’ Taiwan Ocean Research Institute (TORI).

It was the first time that Taiwanese and Japanese scientists had cooperated on research of this kind and scale within Japan’s exclusive economic zones, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 27 March, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

 The National Immigration Agency has sanctioned Air New Zealand for an error that left three passengers stranded in Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport.

Taiwan is barring entry to foreign visitors as part of its efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. It has also recently banned travelers from using its airports for layovers.

However, due to an error by Air New Zealand ground staff, two Japanese nationals and a British national were allowed onto a flight from Auckland to Taipei on Thursday.

When these passengers arrived in Taiwan, they found themselves stranded in the airport terminal.
[FULL  STORY]