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Homeless American English teacher allegedly sets fire to bar in S. Taiwan

American English teacher allegedly sets fire to bar, caught drinking and driving motorcycle

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/09/23
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Burned out bar. (Photo from reader)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A homeless American English teacher allegedly set fire to a bar in a campground in southern Taiwan on Friday (Sept. 20) and was arrested today (Sept. 23) for driving a motorcycle while under the influence of alcohol.

After engaging in a dispute with the owner of a campground in Pingtung County, the suspect identified as Harris allegedly set fire to a small bar on the premises on Friday night. After fleeing the scene of the crime and confessing to it on Facebook, he was stopped by police this afternoon for driving erratically on a motorcycle.

Acquaintances say that Harris, who lists his hometown as Vero Beach, Florida, had lost his job at an English cram school in Tainan City and moved into a rental hut on the three-acre Rock Garden camping area in Pingtung County's Manzhou Township. On Sept. 17, the owner of the campground evicted the former lecturer at Southern Taiwan University of Technology from the property, apparently causing him to become highly agitated.

Harris left a long, ranting manifesto on Sept 17 on his Facebook page giving his side of the story of the eviction. He claimed that the owner of the campground had allowed him to pay his rent by working for him for 30 hours a week.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan expresses regret over expelling of delegation in Iraq

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/09/23
By: Huang Tzu-chiang, Tsai Peng-min and Ko Lin

A screenshot of William Wu’s Facebook post

Taipei, Sept. 23 (CNA) Taiwan trade official Walter Yeh (葉明水) expressed his regret Monday over the Iraqi government's recent move to expel a visiting Taiwanese business delegation from the country.

The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) was abruptly notified that the delegation's visas had been canceled a few days after its members had arrived in the country, said Yeh, TAITRA's president and chief executive.

The Taiwan Investment and Trade Mission to the Middle East organized by TAITRA was supposed to be a 12-day trip aimed at promoting business between Taiwan, Iraq and Bahrain.

According to TAITRA, the delegation was scheduled to visit Baghdad from Sept. 13 to 16, then head to Erbil from Sept. 17 to 19, and finish the tour in Manama, Bahrain from Sept. 20 to 24.
[FULL  STORY]

Fault lines should nix reactor proposal: group

‘A PENDING DISASTER’: A geological survey shows that there are five active fault lines near New Taipei City’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, an academic said

Taipei Tiomes
Date: Sep 24, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The nation’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant should not be activated, because a geological survey has

National Taiwan University Department of Geosciences professor Chen Wen-shan, left, accompanied by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen, speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

confirmed that it sits close to active fault lines, activists said yesterday.

The survey shows that there are five active faults near the mothballed power plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), which has never been put into operation, National Taiwan University Department of Geosciences professor Chen Wen-shan (陳文山) said at a news conference.

For safety reasons, the plant should not be activated as recommended by Kaohsiung Mayor and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), as well as some advocates of nuclear energy, Chen added.

If the government ultimately decides to proceed with the project, the plant would be incapable of withstanding a strong earthquake because it is not designed to do so, he said.   [FULL  STORY]

Commentary: Fighter jet sales to Taiwan and the complex US-China balance of power

The move to sell US fighter jets to Taiwan has stirred fresh debate about the region’s balance of power, amid a brewing US-China rivalry, says defence observer Mike Yeo.

Channel News Asia
Date: 22 Sep 2019
By Mike Yeo

MELBOURNE: The recent announcement by the Trump administration approving the sale of new fighter jets to Taiwan has predictably drawn ire from China and stirred fresh debate about American arms sales to the East Asian island.

According to a notification to the Congress issued by the United States’ Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) in August, we are likely to see the sale of 66 Lockheed-Martin F-16C/D Block 70 multirole fighter jets to Taiwan in an US$8 billion arms package that include advanced electronically scanned array radars, weapons integration, spares, and additional contractor and logistics support.

The new-build fighters will replace the 40 or so 1970s-era Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II interceptors currently in service with the Taiwanese air force, and will be broadly similar to the capabilities offered by Taiwan’s current 140-odd F-16A/B Block 20 fighters, after these have been put through a US$5.3 billion Lockheed-Martin upgrade programme that Taiwan signed up for in 2011.

This approval is the latest arms sale to Taiwan following its approval of a Taiwanese request for 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks and 250 short-range surface-to-air missiles worth US$2.2 billion in July, and is the 16th such arms sale request approved for Taiwan since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.    [FULL  STORY]

Hong Kong’s resistance offers lessons for Taiwan

Stars And Stripes
Date: September 21, 2019
By: George F. Will, Washington Post Writers Group

TAIPEI, Taiwan — What happens on Hong Kong Island does not stay there. The ongoing tsunami of discontent washes over this island, which, like Hong Kong, is navigating the choppy waters of relations with the same large and menacing mainland neighbor. This nation — which is such psychologically, if not in diplomatic nomenclature — has a presidential election in January that seems certain to be influenced by alarm about Hong Kong’s current unhappy experience with the legalistic fudge of “one country, two systems,” which the incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s first female president, rejects.

Hong Kong is officially, if with increasing resentment, a “special administrative region” of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is, officially and with varying degrees of pugnacity, the independent — and determined to stay that way — Republic of China. This is a reality the PRC denies with fluctuating, but currently intensifying, truculence.

The increase probably derives from the PRC’s decreasing economic vigor. The regime, meaning the Chinese Communist Party, has presented this non-negotiable bargain to Hong Kong’s 7.5 million subjects: You will be obedient and we will make you prosperous. Now, however, prosperity is becoming attenuated, partly because of the inevitable corruption that riddles thoroughly politicized economies, where every decision is political, partly because any government-”managed” economy will be badly managed, and partly because of the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Essentially no one here believes the PRC’s economic statistics, which claim that China’s growth has slowed but only to a still-brisk 6% rate. Officials here think the real rate could be 3% or even negative. And they discern an inverse relationship between the PRC’s economic vigor and the regime’s resort to bellicose nationalism to rally or distract the nation. So, Beijing presents Hong Kong’s demonstrations against Beijing’s encroachments on established liberties as an attempt to dismember China.    [FULL  STORY]

Blue work truck smashes into breakfast shop in central Taiwan

Accident on Saturday morning in Changhua involved two vehicles, resulted in 10 injuries

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/09/21
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Scene of accident in Yuanlin City, Changhua, Sept. 21
Scene of accident in Yuanlin City, Changhua, Sept. 21 (By Central News Agency)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Saturday (Sept. 21) just before 9:00 a.m. a blue work truck, after hitting another vehicle, slammed into a breakfast café in Changhua County’s Yuanlin City (員林市), causing 10 people in the restaurant to be seriously injured.

Police in Yuanlin received a report at approximately 9:00 a.m. of a car accident that occurred at the intersection of Juguang Rd. (莒光路) and Jingxiu Rd. (靜修路). Emergency medical personnel were immediately dispatched to the scene to provide first aid.   [FULL  STORY]

Legendary independence activist Su Beng dies at 100

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/09/21
By: Chi Jo-yao

Taipei, Sept. 21 (CNA) Su Beng (史明), one of the pioneers of the Taiwan independence movement,

CNA file photo

died Friday at the age of 100 in Taipei, according to his foundation.

Su Beng died of pneumonia on Friday evening, Su Beng Education Foundation chairwoman Huang Min-hung (黃敏紅) said Saturday.

"The life of Su Beng was long and splendid," Huang said. "Taiwan now has to decide which path to take."

Su Beng once said his dream of establishing Taiwan as an independent state would not come true in his life but would be realized someday "without a doubt."    [FULL  STORY]

Bank staff help 52 people avoid scams, police say

STAYING ALERT: Of the 52 transfers intercepted by employees at banks and convenient stores in July and last month, 22 cases were friendship or romance scams

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 22, 2019
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

Warm weather tends to bring out money scams, but workers at Taipei banks and convenience stores helped 52 people have a victim-free summer by preventing transfers totaling more than NT$28 million (US$903,809), according to the Taipei City Police Department.

Taipei Police Commissioner Chen Jia-chang (陳嘉昌) instructed all police units to keep channels of communication open with banks, convenience stores and shops so that employees could take action if they suspect someone to be the victim of a scam, the department said on Friday.

Of the 52 transfers that were intercepted by banks and convenience stores in July and last month, 22 cases, or 42 percent, were friendship or romance scams.

In one romance scam, a woman surnamed Lee (李) met a man who claimed to be Chinese-American on an online dating site, the Zhongzheng First Precinct said.    [FULL  STORY]

US concerned over Chinese interference in Taiwan’s 2020 election

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 20 September, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

Officials in Washington are concerned that China could interfere in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential

Deputy Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council Chiu Chui-cheng

election. That’s according to Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng, who is currently visiting the US capital.

Chiu is in in the US to explain Taiwan’s stance on cross-strait relations to US officials. He is also clarifying developments in cross-strait ties.
[FULL  STORY]

OPINION: Annette Lu Belongs In the Dustbin of History

Annette Lu is a politician of the yesterday who's still sticking around past her given screen time.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/09/20
By: Brian Hioe

Annette Lu proves how many of yesterday’s revolutionaries have become today’s reactionaries in

Photo Credit: CNA

Taiwan. Individuals such as Lu or many others of her generation continue to be involved in contemporary Taiwanese politics, ultimately threatening the future of Taiwan.

Though not currently holding any political position, Lu announced on Monday that she would run as the presidential candidate of the Formosa Alliance, a recently formed third party primarily consisting of elderly pro-independence hardliners.

Although some might dismiss Lu as not having any actual impact on the 2020 presidential election, the race seems likely to be a close one, in which even a 1- or 2-percent difference in votes could lead to a KMT victory instead of a DPP one. While President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) now enjoys a clear lead in recent polls, past polling has shown Tsai neck and neck with Han Kuo-Yu (韓國瑜) in scenarios with multiple presidential candidates. A split vote could easily lead to a Han victory, like how a split pan-Blue vote led to Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) 2000 election victory.

Lu’s supporters would credit her career during the early Taiwanese democracy movement as a storied and remarkable one. She was a pioneering feminist and was one of the eight individuals arrested during the Kaohsiung Incident in 1979. Lu was sentenced to 12 years in prison and served almost six years in jail before being released.    [FULL  STORY]