CHINESE PRODUCTS: A netizen who posted photos of packaged meals labeled as pork and noodles said that they tasted better than rations in the Taiwanese military

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 21, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

No Chinese ready-to-eat meals (MREs) with pork ingredients have been imported into

Taiwan, the Customs Administration said yesterday after a netizen posted a photograph on Facebook of the products, sparking concern that they could be a pathway for African swine fever to enter the nation.

MREs are packaged food that were developed as rations for soldiers.

Netizen Liu Chi-wei (劉志偉) on Thursday shared a photo of several Chinese-made MREs, two of which said in simplified Chinese characters that they were shredded pork with noodles and beef sausage.

Liu wrote that they tasted better than rations provided to Taiwanese military personnel.
[FULL  STORY]

Dubbed the ‘King of Hualien,’ Fu Kun-chi greeted by adoring supporters and 6.1 mag. earthquake upon release from prison

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/04/20
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The former magistrate of Hualien County, Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁), was released from prison and returned to Hualien on Thursday, April 18, just hours before a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck the city.

Fu Kun-shi was released early from a prison in Taichung on Thursday morning around 9:00 a.m., after serving a reduced sentence of 8 months related to stock market manipulation dating back in the early 2000s.

After being released, Fu headed back to Hualien City where he was greeted by a crowd of nearly 1,000 supporters, including the leaders of several political and business organizations along with the heads of 13 townships in Hualien.

Fu, who has been dubbed by netizens as the “King of Hualien” took to the stage and hugged his wife, Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚), who is the current Magistrate of Hualien County.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 19 April, 2019
By: Paula Chao

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu has thanked the international community for its concern for Taiwan following a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that struck the island on Thursday.

The earthquake has left 17 injured.

Among them is one Malaysian national who was hit by a rock that fell on a hiking trail during the shaking. The man is conscious though he remains in critical condition. Another Taiwanese woman who was also struck by a falling rock is in stable condition.

In the hours after the shaking subsided, expressions of international concern began to arrive. Japan’s representative to Taiwan, Numata Mikio, expressed his sympathies Thursday night, both on Facebook and through the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the American Institute in Taiwan also expressed its sympathies on Facebook. The institute wrote “Taiwan has shown the United States friendship during our times of need and we hope we can support Taiwan during this difficult period.”
[FULL  STORY]

Lai believes holding primaries is key for boosting party morale

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/19
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – In response to calls by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for

cooperation entailing his dropping out of the presidential race, former Premier William Lai (賴清德) reiterated his faith in the virtue of a primary that upholds the rules of democratic fair play.

Lai made the remarks at an event Friday (April 19) marking the birthday of a deity enshrined at the Baoan Temple in Taipei, when he addressed the issue of less-than-satisfactory approval ratings shared by him and Tsai, compared to those of two prominent Kuomintang figures, reports Liberty Times.

He insisted, in a repeated claim, that the decision to toss his hat into the ring was not for personal gain, but for creating better chances for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) winning the presidential election next year.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/19
By: Lu Tai-cheng and Emerson Lim

Taipei, April 19 (CNA) After three months of treatment, including seven operations in Taiwan since December last year, a 28-year-old mother from Malaysia has finally been able to fulfill her dream to be by her daughter’s side and watch her grow up.

The mother, identified only as “Lyn-lyn” (琳琳) by Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, was discharged from the hospital Friday. During a simple celebration prepared by the hospital, Lyn-lyn cut a cake and expressed her appreciation to the hospital.

“I want to thank the medical team of the Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, my family, kind-hearted people from Malaysia, volunteers from Tzu Chi and all others who offered help to me,” Lyn-lyn said.

“My face has changed. I am reborn,” she said, adding that “what I want to do most is to fly home and hug my 6-year-old daughter.”     [FULL  STORY]

‘Josambro’ chatted with TNL’s Cat Thomas ahead of an April 25 book reading in Taipei of ‘Formosa Moon,’ co-authored with Stephanie Huffman.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/04/19
By: Cat Thomas

Growing up “on the streets of New York,” Joshua Samuel Brown (also known as Josambro) always knew he’d wind up being a writer. In 1994, as he turned 24, he expanded his travels beyond New York State, first moving to Taiwan where he quickly settled in with a standard issue teaching gig in Taichung. Not long thereafter, he began his career as a freelance journalist mainly focused on travel writing. With the Taiwan of yesteryear not attracting much in the way of interest from travel publications, he moved over to China spending three years building his chops as a travel writer based largely in Beijing, Kunming and Yangshuo.

After a further two years living on Lamma Island in Hong Kong, he returned to the shores of Taiwan to write up his first Lonely Planet guide, choosing to base himself largely in Penghu for “weird” reasons. Fans of his work will not be remotely rattled by that explanation as a strong streak of the other and love of the strange, disturbing, and wonderful runs through his work.

The next four years or so were largely nomadic as he embarked on work on a series of Lonely Planet guides – Belize; Singapore City Guide; Greater Mekong; Singapore Encounter; Central America on a Shoestring – before settling for a while in Portland where he worked as a travel guide.

Over the course of his career, Josambro has been featured in a wide array of publications – including Bicycle Times, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Standard, China Post, Taiwan News, Colorado Daily, Beijing Scene, City Weekend, Business Traveler Asia, Cat Fancy, Dim Sum Literary Journal, Destination Belize, Travel in Taiwan, The Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, Funny Times, Taiwan Business TOPICS and numerous in-flight magazines – covering cycling, music, culture, politics and of course, travel, with his distinctive writing. He also authored “Vignettes of Taiwan” (2006) and “How Not to Avoid Jet Lag & Other Tales of Travel Madness” (2014) and contributed to several other travel-based food guidebooks.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 18 April, 2019
By: Paula Chao

Would you pay US$12 for a high-quality mango grown in Taiwan? That’s what mango grower Lu Wang-sheng is charging, and his business is still booming! Lu’s tropical fruit has received many of orders from overseas, especially from Japan.

Mango grower Lu Wang-sheng enjoys working at his orchard in the southern county of Pingtung. On Lu’s farm, details are everything: every mango must get just the right amount of sunshine so that their sweetness is perfectly released.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s battle against disinformation opens the door to familiar questions about the importance of freedom vs. security.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/04/18
By: Roy Ngerng

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a report entitled “How’s Life in the Digital Age?” last month, exploring the impact of digital transformation on individuals. In particular, it focuses “on individual, rather than economic and societal impacts of the digital transformation […] to assess how the digital transformation affects well-being at the individual level.” In other words, the report looks at how individuals like you and I are directly affected by digital changes, and not just on broad economic terms. A critique of Taiwan’s approach in its digital strategy has been that it is too focused on the economic potential of digitalization, but lacks focus on the human aspect. OECD’s report could thus provide insight as to how Taiwan’s digital strategy could incorporate the needs of individuals better.

The “How’s Life in the Digital Age?” report is part of the OECD’s Better Life Initiative which measures well-being via indicators in 11 dimensions, broadly encompassing wealth and inequality, jobs and education, healthcare, work-life balance, political engagement and subjective well-being and security. Accordingly, the report compiles cross-country comparison data of indicators such as the unequal access to digital tools, the risks of job polarization which could result from automation, and job strain and satisfaction that can arise from digital use, among others. The report is quite a long one (and is worth a read!) but in this article, I will focus on its relevance to some of the most current issues that are ongoing in Taiwan right now: on the relationship between “fake news” and trust, the spread of false information by foreign governments, open data and its accessibility, and the threat of digital insecurity to digital transformation. This article will highlight the key data from OECD’s report in these areas, and provide comparison data from Taiwan, as well as expand on the issues discussed, to explore their impact in the context of Taiwan and parts of Asia.    [FULL  STORY]