Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/08/14
By: Emerson Lim

Taipei, Aug. 14 (CNA) Dozens of protesters on Wednesday picketed the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association (JTEA), the de facto Japanese embassy in Taiwan, to demand justice and compensation for Taiwanese "comfort women" from the Japanese government in commemoration of the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women.

The term refers to women forced to work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military during World War II.

On Aug. 14, 1991, Korean woman Kim Hak-Sun first broke her story of being a wartime sex slave at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. In 2012, several comfort women-related groups decided to set the date as the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women.

The Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (TWRF), an organization aimed at eliminating the trafficking of women and helping victims of sexual exploitation, led Wednesday's protest.
[FULL  STORY]

PRIORITIES: While the EPA is to allocate NT$6 billion to purchase new garbage trucks and uniforms, workers said that ensuring safety should be a more important concern

Taiopei Times
Date:Aug 15, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Dozens of garbage collectors yesterday pressed the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA)

for safer working conditions, including ending the dangerous practice of having workers stand on the back of garbage trucks while on collection rounds.

The protest came on the heels of Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) announcement on Tuesday that the EPA would allocate NT$6 billion (US$191.1 million) to purchase new uniforms for garbage collectors, install new shower facilities and washing machines at their workplaces, and subsidize local municipalities to replace old garbage trucks with new ones.

Su made the announcement before EPA officials were to meet with waste collectors at Taipei’s Grand Hotel.

However, several representatives of waste collectors’ unions protesting outside the EPA’s office in Taipei said that the government did not understand their “real, urgent needs.”
[FULL  STORY]

Demand from Hong Kong protesters and civilians fearing tear gas sees supplies run low in Taipei

Asia Times
Date: August 13, 2019
By: KG Chan

Taiwan’s tear gas mask stocks running out

After helmets and balaclavas, face masks with air filters have been flying off the shelves at stores in Hong Kong as the smell of tear gas fired by police drifts through the restive city, but stocks are running low.

In Kwai Fong, for example, a largely residential town in the New Territories, many streets and the train station still reek of tear gas after a police riot squad clashed with protesters inside the station concourse during a fierce skirmish on Sunday evening.

A member of the Hong Kong police’s riot squad fires tear gas inside the concourse at Kwai Fong MTR station. Photo: Instagram via Felix.image

Now more Hongkongers, incensed by alleged police brutality, are turning to Taiwan to buy masks and filters. They say even if they do not join future demonstrations, they will need the items to protect themselves and their children as the police have shown no qualms about firing the irritating chemical substance at crowds.    [FULL  STORY]

The container camping units are colorful, with roofs shaped like giant building blocks

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/13
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As camping has become trendy in recent years, a newly completed coastal campsite located on Taichung’s Daan coastal area is expected to become operational in November, according to Taichung’s Tourism and Travel Bureau.

The city government has spent NT$30 million (about US$ 1 million) to construct and furnish the Daan coastal campsite, which is really one of a kind, according to the bureau.

The 2-hectare campsite has 26 camping units for year-round camping: 4 container units, 6 sea view pavilion units, 4 units for families, and 4 units for clans, the bureau said.

The bureau noted that the wind resistant container camping units are colorful, with roofs shaped like giant building blocks.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/08/13
By: Yang Sz-ruei, Wang Shwu-fen and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Aug. 13 (CNA) Offices and schools in Tainan were closed Tuesday because of severe flooding in some areas of the southern city caused by overnight thundershowers.

The sporadic but intense thundershowers started late Monday night and lasted until Tuesday morning, causing flooding in several low-lying parts of the metropolitan area, including Yongda Road and Kunda Road in Yongkang District, Taizi Road in Rende District, and Yuyi Road and an underpass on Yunong Road in East District.

Vehicles were unable to get through those flooded areas, which saw up to thigh-high water levels, including at the intersection of Kunda and Dawan Roads outside Kun Shan University.

Some stores in the flooded areas were inundated as water levels rose. One store owner told CNA that the water started flowing into his shop at about 3 a.m. and that water continued to flow in later in the morning despite the use of anti-flooding devices.    [FULL  STORY]

PRISON BAKERY: The growing popularity of the moon cakes made by Changhua Prison inmates is a source of encouragement to them as they prepare to rejoin society

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 14, 2019
By: Chen Kuan-pei and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Sales of Mid-Autumn Festival pastry gift sets made by Changhua Prison inmates are expected to

exceed NT$1 million (US$31,740) this year.

The prison’s eight-year-old bakery, which provides instructional workshops to inmates, begins making moon cases and other special treats for the festival a month in advance, prison warden Huang Kun-cian (黃坤前) said.

The idea for making moon cakes and the recipes for low-sugar salted egg yolk, mung bean and other pastries traditionally consumed during the festival came from an inmate who had been a hotel chef, Huang said.

The bakery began receiving requests from inmates’ relatives to purchase its moon cakes, spread through word of mouth. Two years ago, prison officials decided to allow the bakery to take orders from the public.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 12 August, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

The county chiefs of three outlying Taiwanese island chains have met with Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss a recent travel ban. On August 1, China stopped giving its citizens independent travel permits to visit Taiwan. That means that Chinese tourists to Taiwan can only come as part of a tour group.

The officials from Kinmen, Lienchiang, and Penghu counties say that the new ban has hurt local tourism and industry. As a result, Kinmen County Magistrate Yang Cheng-wu invited Lienchiang Magistrate Liu Cheng-ying and Penghu County Magistrate Lai Feng-wei to join him on a trip to visit officials in Beijing.    [FULL  STORY]

Coach and Givenchy among brands criticised on Chinese social media as Hong Kong protests fan nationalism

The Guardian
Date: 12 Aug 2019
By: Lily Kuo in Beijing

 

A number of global brands have apologised to Chinese customers for implying that Taiwan and Hong Kong are independent countries, as tensions mount between Hong Kong and Beijing.

The Coach and Givenchy luxury labels, the sports brand Asics, the Calvin Klein clothing line and the Fresh beauty brand issued apologies on Monday after Chinese netizens launched online campaigns against them for implying that Taiwan and Hong Kong are not part of China on company websites and on T-shirts.

Mass protests in Hong Kong over Beijing’s growing control over the city have fuelled a wave of nationalism on Chinese social media as netizens criticise companies seen as not supporting the one-China principle, that there is only one China represented by the government in Beijing.
[FULL  STORY]

Ma and Ex-Premier Jiang Yi-huah to be questioned after previous court decision overturned

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/08/12
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taipei District Court has ordered former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to report to court on Aug. 30 for a deposition related to the forced removal of student activists from the Executive Yuan during Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement in 2014.

On the night of March 27, 2014, under orders of Jiang, student activists were removed from the Executive Yuan, including several who had forcibly entered the building. According to a report from the Central News Agency, 24 private individuals have filed a lawsuit against the Ma administration which includes allegations of unlawful detainment, assault, and even attempted murder.

The prosecution asserts that the decision to clear the Executive Yuan came directly from then-President Ma, and that the manner in which the police conducted the removal constituted a breach of law. The case was previously thrown out by the Taipei District Court which ruled that officers’ actions during the forced eviction of student protesters were proportional and measured.    [FULL  STORY]