Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/21
By: Flor Wang and Hsiao Po-yang

Taipei, July 21 (CNA) More than 1,500 ducks were culled Sunday on a farm in Changhua County, which was confirmed to be infected with avian flu, according to the county's Animal Disease Control Center (ADCC).

On Saturday, the national Animal Health Research Institute (AHRI)confirmed the presence of the highly pathogenic subtype H5N2 avian flu virus on the farm, which led to the culling of 1,531 ducks, followed by disinfection of the farm and surrounding areas, said ADCC Director Tung Meng-chih (董孟治).

In June, more than 70,000 free-cage chickens in Changhua County were culled due to avian flu outbreaks.

In a bid to prevent further spread of the virus, county personnel have been carrying checks at local poultry farms since July 12.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 22, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

People traveling abroad this summer should protect themselves against mosquito-borne diseases such

as chikungunya fever and dengue fever, which have been on the rise in recent months, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned yesterday.

All confirmed cases of chikungunya fever in Taiwan this year have been imported from Myanmar (three cases), the Maldives (three), Indonesia (two), Thailand (one), the Philippines (one) and Malaysia (one), the centers said, citing data from Monday last week.

The global outbreak of chikungunya fever has been severe this year, with Thailand reporting 4,500 cases, the Maldives nearly 1,300 cases, Malaysia 283 and Singapore 21, the centers said, citing data from June and early July.

In Brazil, more than 66,000 possible cases of chikungunya fever had been reported as of June 8, while about 10,000 cases had been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as of June 9, the centers said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 21, 2019
By: Ko Yu-hao and Hung Ting-hung  /  Staff reporters

Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) drew criticism yesterday when, after parts of the city had

become flooded due to heavy rain on Friday, Deputy Kaohsiung Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) stepped in for him to inspect most of the city’s affected areas.

The city was pummelled by heavy rain on Friday afternoon, with rainfall in some areas reaching 126.5mm, but the floodwater receded from most of the roads in two to three hours, the city government said, adding that the rainfall eased yesterday.

While the flooding caused Han to cancel a presidential campaign stop in Taichung yesterday, he was still not part of the disaster inspections, or part of a second emergency meeting held yesterday morning.

Asked about Han’s absence, Lee said that the emergency had been downgraded after the floods subsided and that he had told Han that he would host the morning meeting.
[FULL  STORY]

Tom Cruise gets new flight jacket patch courtesy of Tencent Pictures

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/20
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

 

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – With the surprise release of a Top Gun 2 trailer at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 19, another example China’s campaign to suppress Taiwan also made an unexpected appearance.

Some netizens watching the trailer for the Top Gun sequel, to be released 35 years after the original, noticed a seemingly minor difference between the leather pilot’s jacket from the original film and the one worn by Tom Cruise’s character Pete Mitchell in the sequel.

On the back of the jacket , the large navy patch that originally included the Japanese and Taiwanese flags has been curiously edited to have them removed. Twitter user Mark McKinnon brought the Twitter-sphere’s attention to the change.

Upon investigation, the reason for the change was easily deduced when netizens discovered that China’s Tencent pictures is one of the primary production partners, after they made a deal with Paramount in 2018 to collaborate on the film.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/20
By: Elaine Hou and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, July 20 (CNA) The pro-independence Formosa Alliance formed a political party on Saturday,

saying that it hoped to field at least 10 candidates in the legislative election next January and give independence-leaning voters an alternative to the current ruling party.

The Formosa Alliance will not compete in the 2020 presidential election, said Lo Jen-kuei (羅仁貴), a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, who was elected chairman of the new party.

He said the Formosa Alliance was formed not out of dissatisfaction with the performance of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) but rather to give pro-independence voters a choice other than her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

In fact, Lo said, it would be a blessing for the Taiwanese people if the DPP won the 2020 presidential election.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatinal
Date: 19 July, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

An NGO leader has called on Taiwan to enact refugee legislation to assist asylum seekers. This comes in light of news that ten Hong Kong residents are seeking asylum in Taiwan. The ten were participants in demonstrations against a proposed bill that would allow extraditions from Hong Kong to China. All played a role in the storming of Hong Kong’s legislature.

Secretary-General of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Eeling Chiu, says that the government needs to establish a set of rules for helping refugees, including those from Hong Kong. During an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Chiu said that without formal legislation dictating the asylum-seeking process, refugees are subject to the arbitrary decisions of whatever administration happens to be in power.    [FULL  STORY]

CNBC
Date: Jul 19 2019
By: Huileng Tan

KEY POINTS

• Taiwan’s president is expected to transit in the U.S. on Friday — for the second time in as many weeks — as she returns from visiting diplomatic allies in the Caribbean. The move is sure to make China angry.
• Her trip comes on the heels of the U.S. State Department approving a $2.2 billion arms sale to Taiwan.
• China has threatened to impose sanctions on U.S. firms associated with the deal.

Taiwan’s president is expected to transit in the U.S. on Friday for the second time this month, when

she returns from visiting diplomatic allies in the Caribbean — a move that will make China very angry.

Tsai Ing-wen, the island’s pro-independence leader, is due to make her second stopover in Denver on Friday.

“China opposes official exchange between the US and Taiwan. This position is firm and clear,” the Chinese foreign ministry said on July 12. The U.S. should not to allow Tsai’s transit and must “stop the official exchange with Taiwan,” said Geng Shuang, spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry.
[FULL  STORY]

Advocates call Taiwanese immigrants to write 'Taiwanese' on 2020 US census race question

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/19
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese-American organization has launched a campaign to encourage Taiwanese immigrants and those with Taiwanese roots to write in "Taiwanese" on the 2020 U.S. census form, instead of marking the box for "Chinese."

The nonprofit group Taiwanese American Citizens League (TACL) has launched a campaign titled the "Write In Taiwanese Census 2020 Campaign" designed to educate Taiwanese that they have the option to write in their identity on the U.S. Census form.

The campaign's director Christina Hu told Taiwan News that there's no check-off box on the form, so the group is informing Taiwanese that they need to check "Other Asian" and write in "Taiwanese" for it to be counted. The group suggests that people who came from Taiwan, have family there, or can trace some of their heritage to the country should write in "Taiwanese."

Hu said there are two important reasons why their census campaign is important.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/07/19
By: Liu Chien-pang and Ko Lin

Taipei, July 19 (CNA) Taiwan job bank 1111 confirmed Friday that the personal data of its online

members was hacked and leaked to a foreign-based hacker forum, and the case is now being investigated by local authorities.

Henry Ho (何啟聖), vice president of 1111 job bank, said the scope of the personal data leakage has yet to be determined, but he indicated the company was working with authorities to get to the bottom of the matter.

According to an online thread on RaidForums, a hacker with the pseudonym "tomholland" openly declared having some 200,000 pieces of user data hacked from 1111 job bank, with personal information containing user ID, name, birthday, email, phone number and address.

In the thread, which appeared Thursday, another poster even provided a sample of the leaked information with a screenshot that showed the personal data of some members of 1111 job bank.
[FULL  STORY]