Switch might cause domino effect in Pacific: Australian diplomat

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/05/01
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Newly elected Solomon Islands Premier Manasseh Sogavare is considering switching ties away from Taiwan to recognize China, its biggest trading partner, The Australian reported Wednesday (May 1).

The islands are one of Taiwan’s 17 remaining allies, and Sogavare, who recently came back to power following an indecisive general election, had been considered a good friend of Taipei.

However, in an interview with the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), he said his populous and strategic archipelago could gain advantages from a switch.

Sogavare said he was maintaining the status quo, “but it’s something that we will continue to develop; it is not hard and fast and fixed,” SIBC quoted him as saying.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/05/01
By: Yu Hsiao-han and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 1 (CNA) The Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the country’s main gateway, will continue to deal with problems concerning rising electricity consumption, runway congestion and a clogged sewer system, three of the major headaches faced by the airport, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said Wednesday.

Yeh Hsieh-lung (葉協隆), acting director-general of the MOTC’s Department of Navigation and Aviation, said at a press conference that after an annual checkup, the airport still suffers from the three problems, even though the MOTC has budgeted NT$199.9 billion (US$6.47 billion) over the 2018-2031 period to improve fundamental facilities of the airport.

Yeh said the Taoyuan International Airport Corp. (TIAC), which operates the airport, will continue to address the problems at a time when the airport has seen the volume of flights increasing.

According to TIAC, the airport needs to handle 700 to 800 flights per day, up 86.7 percent in a single decade, with the peak flight volume at almost 50 per hour.    [FULL  STORY]

STANDARDS: Even if plastic accounts for less than 10% of a straw’s weight, it would be banned, as paper straws have been developed that do not require a plastic coating

Taipei Times
Date: May 02, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

A ban on giving single-use plastic straws in about 8,000 venues is to take effect from July,

and is expected to reduce the number of plastic straws used by 100 million per year, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.

After announcing a draft for the ban on June 8 last year, the agency held several public hearings to gather opinions and revised some of its content.

Starting from July, about 8,000 venues ranging from government agencies, public and private schools, department stores, shopping malls and fast-food chains would be prohibited from offering customers eating at the venues single-use plastic straws, EPA Deputy Minister Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said.

Those purchasing takeaways would not be affected for the moment, he said, adding that the agency would evaluate how to limit the use of plastic straws in take-out orders in a year’s time.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: May 01, 2019
By: Lin Liang-sheng, Chen Jou-chen and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and participants of the Sunflower movement “sinners” for damaging Taiwan’s economy.

He said that under their blind obstruction, the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement fell through.

The agreement and other proposals he made were prioritized around Taiwan and beneficial for the public, but the DPP, with its anti-China sentiment, “opposed [them] for the sake of opposing,” he said at a conference held by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation in Taipei, adding that the agreement was a lost opportunity.

During his eight years in office, the number of births defied expectations and increased by 15,000 per year, while last year, there were only 181,000 births, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 30 April, 2019
By: Paula Chao

President Tsai Ing-wen is urging Japan to join Taiwan in maintaining peace in the surrounding region. Tsai was speaking Tuesday while meeting with visiting Japanese parliamentarian Akihisa Nagashima.

Nagashima is Japan’s former Vice Minister of Defense. He now serves as the deputy chair of an all-party group in the Japanese Diet that works to promote exchanges between Japanese and Taiwanese lawmakers.

Last year, the group passed a resolution supporting Taiwan’s bid to participate in international organizations. It also condemned Beijing’s efforts to lure away Taiwan’s allies and its moves to threaten regional stability.

During Tuesday’s meeting, President Tsai talked about the need for cooperation with Japan.    [FULL  STORY]

Tom Price, ex-Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services under Trump in Taiwan for health workshop

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/04/30
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Today in Taipei, a joint health conference hosted by Taiwan, the United States, and Japan took place, with leaders calling for Taiwan’s increased participation in World Health Organization (WHO) activities.

In attendance at the workshop aimed at combating Tuberculosis, was former U.S. Health Secretary under the Trump administration, Tom Price, who advocated for Taiwan’s inclusion as a “country” in the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The world cannot succeed in improving the health of all unless all are able to participate in their strategic development for solutions and their implementation,” said Price, as reported by CNA.

Price spoke at the “International Workshop on the Programmatic Management of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis” on Tuesday, which is part of the Taiwan-U.S. Global Cooperation Training Framework (GCTF) established to promote ties between the two nations.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:2019/04/30
By: Yeh Su-ping and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, April 30 (CNA) Guatemala President Jimmy Morales said Tuesday on his first state visit to Taiwan that his country’s support for and friendship toward Taiwan was unwavering.

Speaking shortly after his arrival, at a military welcome ceremony hosted by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Morales said he was happy to meet with the Taiwan leader for the third time in three years.

The two had previously met in Guatemala in January 2017 and at the inauguration of Paraguay President Mario Abdo Benitez in August 2018.

Morales, who took office as president in January 2017, said Tuesday that Taiwan and Guatemala are allies because they have shared values of peace and democracy.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/29
By: William A. Stanton, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

THE TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT CHANGED U.S. POLICY TOWARD TAIWAN

The recent 40th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was an important

reminder that foreign policy changes over time to reflect a country’s changing interests and perspectives. The TRA, signed into U.S. law on April 10, 1979, was in fact a unilateral revision of U.S. policy toward Taiwan as set forth in the first two Sino-U.S. communiqués of Feb. 28, 1972 and Jan. 1, 1979. The TRA reflected the recognition that the United States, in its eagerness to establish diplomatic relations with China, had not seriously addressed what to do about the significant multifaceted U.S. interests in, and relations with, Taiwan, or the needs of U.S. citizens in Taiwan, much less the interests of the people of Taiwan.

THE THREE COMMUNIQUÉS ARE COLD WAR RELICS

In retrospect, the eagerness of President Nixon and Henry Kissinger to establish relations with China in 1971-72 was nonsensical when we consider that the chaotic Cultural Revolution which devastated China was still continuing. While Kissinger and Nixon were negotiating the communiqués, China was disorganized, very poor, and very weak. But the Vietnam War was at the forefront of Nixon’s concerns and the collapse of the Soviet Union would not occur for another two decades and so Hanoi and Moscow preoccupied Washington, and the threats that China now presents to the United States were seemingly unimaginable. So it was that President Jimmy Carter, who ironically made human rights a centerpiece of his foreign policy, would sign the 2nd Communiqué establishing U.S. diplomatic relations with the PRC, but then turn around and also sign off on the TRA.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/29
By: Wu Hsin-yun and Chi Jo-yao

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) The phenomenon of coral reefs simultaneously releasing their tiny eggs and sperm into the ocean, known as coral spawning, has been recorded off Taiwan’s eastern coast for the first time, according to a team from Academia Sinica.

The coral spawning, which creates the appearance of an underwater blizzard with billions of colorful flakes, takes place once a year on cues from the lunar cycle and water temperature and often coincides with the birthday of the sea goddess Matsu in the spring.

The Biodiversity Research Center (BRC) of Academia Sinica has spent most of its time and resources in the past recording the spectacle in Kenting in southern Taiwan and in the Penghu Islands off the coast of western Taiwan during the coral’s breeding season.

This year, however, center researchers went to Taitung County in southeastern Taiwan on April 25 and 26 and discovered coral spawning off the coast of the port town of Jihui (基翬) for the first time.    [FULL  STORY]