Taiwan Today
Date: May 30, 2019

The government is making good progress on tackling issues identified in the 2018 Taiwan White Paper produced by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, according to the Cabinet-level National Development Council May 29.

Around 40 percent of the 71 issues raised in the paper are resolved or on the way to resolution, with the remainder prioritized for attention, the NDC said.

According to the council, eight issues spanning such sectors as cosmetics, labor laws and public sector procurements have been satisfactorily finalized through interministerial coordination and regulatory amendments.

Greater effort will be dedicated to addressing other areas of concern in the digital economy, energy, and travel and tourism sectors so as to keep Taiwan’s business environment on the development track, the NDC said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei police are known for their high efficiency in helping out foreign visitors

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/30
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A Taipei police officer managed to help three Thai tourists traveling in the capital Taipei earlier this month retrieve a lost wallet – through the social media Instagram.

On May 17, three visitors from Thailand reported to the police that one of them had lost a purse on a bus when touring Taipei. The visitors, apparently in a state of panic and unacquainted with the streets of Taipei, failed to provide information about the bus routes they had taken.

Then it suddenly dawned on an officer surnamed Ting at a police station in the Zhongshan Precinct that social media might help reveal the whereabouts of the travelers onboard the bus if any one of them had used the cellphone to film the street scenes and posted the video on social networking platforms.

It turned out that one of the three visitors happened to shoot a short clip of Taipei streets using the popular photo and video-sharing app Instagram, and the sharp-eyed officer, scrutinizing the video, spotted reflections on a building that revealed the “identity” of the bus they had been riding – the bus number.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/30
By: Liu Li-jung, Liao Yu-yang and William Yen

Taipei, May 30 (CNA) Tatun Volcanoes in Taipei City and the volcanic island of Guishan off Yilan County have both been revealed to be active, after a long-term study, according to an Academia Sinica researcher Wednesday.

The study was conducted by researcher Lin Cheng-hung (林正洪) and his team, after setting up the Taiwan Volcano Observatory-Tatun (TVO-T), a monitoring and research facility for volcanic activity in Taipei’s Yangmingshan National Park, in 2011.

During a press conference, Lin said that for a volcano to be classified as active it must have erupted within the past 10,000 years and have a magma reservoir underneath it.

A key property of S-waves, one of the two main types of elastic body waves in seismology, is that they are unable to penetrate liquid magma, Lin said, adding that data from the vicinity of Guishan Island showed S-wave shadows and strong S-wave reflections, suggesting the location of a possible magma reservoir in the area.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 29 May, 2019
By: Leslie Liao

A scooter-sharing system has appeared on the streets of Taiwan, but it is not clear whether these standing scooters can be operated legally.

On the perimeter of the campus of National Taiwan University, a line of standing electric scooters has seemingly popped-up overnight. This is Taiwan’s very first scooter-sharing system, provided by a Singapore-based company. However, there are questions about the legality of operating such vehicles on the streets.

The transportation ministry says these standing scooters are unclassified vehicles. Therefore they are not allowed on the road.

Wang Yan-chu, a section chief with Taipei’s transportation department, says that because the school’s campus is private property, scooters can be ridden inside as long as University officials approve.

The university says that the school’s student association decided to bring the scooters in for a trial run. School administrators say they will remind students to stay safe while using them. Unlawful operation of these scooters will result in a fine of up to NT$3,600.
[FULL  STORY]

The National Interest
Date: May 29, 2019
By: David Axe Follow @daxe on TwitterL

Taiwan reportedly has solved a problem that has prevented the island country from developing its own medium-altitude attack drones.

In signing a deal with an Australian company to provide American-designed engines, Taipei has assembled all the basic components it needs to develop a killer drone in the class of the U.S. MQ-9.

Taiwan’s Chinese Academy of Sciences in April 2018 conducted the first test flight of the Teng Yun unmanned aerial vehicle.

A propeller-driven, medium-altitude UAV similar in dimension to the 36-feet-long MQ-9, the Teng Yun, in theory, could be a surveillance platform and an attack aircraft that’s capable of firing missiles and dropping bombs.    [FULL  STORY]

Washington has legal obligation to intervene in KMT and DPP presidential primary elections

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/28
By: Pin Min-ming, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), passed in 1979 and celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2019, is the domestic law of the United States governing relations with Taiwan.

The law was designed to safeguard human rights in the Western Pacific and to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait.

Some of its major provisions under Section Two, part B include the following:

– To consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States

– To maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.

[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/29
By: Chen Wei-ting and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, May 29 (CNA) Taiwan will attend a meeting of the International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) next month in Amsterdam as an official member, the head of the Taiwanese delegation said Wednesday.

During an ICH assembly last year, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) officially became one of the pharmaceutical regulatory members of the international body, said TFDA Director General Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅), the leader of the delegation.

At the biannual meeting June 1-6 this year, Taiwan will show its power in the pharmaceutical and health sector, Wu said.

The TFDA’s participation in the international pharmaceutical and technical efforts would not only boost the development of Taiwan’s pharmaceutical industry but also promote its people’s wellbeing by giving them greater access to pharmaceutical products, she said.
[FULL  STORY]

TAIPEI BASE: Scientists have proven the existence of magma chambers under Datunshan in Yangmingshan National Park by evaluating seismic wave movements

Taipei Times
Date: May 30, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Volcanic activity detected beneath Turtle Island (Gueishan Island, 龜山島) and the Datun

Volcano Group (大屯山火山群) prove that they are active groups, Taiwan Volcano Observatory Director Lin Cheng-horng (林正洪), who is also an earth science researcher at Academia Sinica, said yesterday.

An active volcano is defined as having a magma reservoir or having erupted in the past 10,000 years, Lin said as he told a news conference about his team’s research over the past decade at the observatory on Datunshan (大屯山) in Taipei’s Yangmingshan National Park.

Almost no geologists in Taiwan thought the volcano group might be active about 15 years ago, as earlier studies had suggested its latest eruption might have occurred about 100,000 years ago, he said.

However, his team has documented the existence of magma chambers beneath Datunshan through the variations in primary waves (P waves) and secondary waves (S waves) of earthquakes since the observatory was set up in 2011, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 28 May, 2019
By: Paula Chao

Sporadic clashes broke out between ruling and opposition lawmakers on Tuesday.
The legislature has approved the government’s nomination of Lee Chin-yung as the chair of the Central Election Commission. That’s despite scuffles between the ruling and opposition lawmakers.

The former Yunlin County commissioner received 65 votes on Tuesday, over half of the votes cast by lawmakers who were present.

Lee’s nomination is divisive because Lee is a former member of the ruling DPP. Opposition KMT lawmakers say that Lee only asked to have his party membership revoked after he’d already been nominated. They say this calls Lee’s suitability into question, as the electoral commission is non-partisan and its chair should be impartial.

KMT lawmakers are particularly concerned about Lee’s background because Taiwan is scheduled to hold elections next January. At Tuesday’s confirmation vote, KMT lawmakers occupied the podium and grabbed the ballot box in an effort to keep their DDP counterparts from casting their ballots. Sporadic clashes broke out between the two camps throughout the day.    [FULL  STORY]