Harrods tea leaves from India contained too many pesticides: FDA

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/16
By:: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan destroyed 35,000 pairs of chopsticks imported from China because they contained the potentially cancer-causing agent formaldehyde, while excessive pesticides were found in tea leaves of the Harrods brand, reports said Tuesday (April 16).

The items featured on a list published by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) showing recent cases of imported products found to pose potential health problems, the Central News Agency reported.

In March, a Taiwanese company imported 3,500 packs containing a total of 35,000 pairs of chopsticks from China. Tests showed the presence of formaldehyde, which is completely banned from such products, leading to the decision to refuse their import and destroy them, the FDA said.

Also on the list were three types of tea leaves from India under the Harrods brand, imported by Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, testing positive for the presence of thiacloprid, a banned pesticide, according to the CNA report. More than 400 kilos were destroyed as a result.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/16
By: Christie Chen 

Taipei, April 16 (CNA) A women’s economic empowerment summit in Taipei has brought together hundreds of participants from more than 15 countries to discuss strategies and initiatives to empower women in Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region.

“Taiwan is a leader in East Asia when it comes to empowering women, and we are proud to call it one of our closest partners in this important area,” Brent Christensen, director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT’s) Taipei office, said at the opening of Tuesday’s summit.

He announced two new U.S.-Taiwan initiatives that he said will make empowering women a central priority.

The first is called StartOpps, which Christensen said is for the United States and Taiwan to “go south together.”    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 17, 2019 
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海集團) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday said

that he would make a decision in the next couple of days on whether to run for president in next year’s election.

Gou made the remarks on the sidelines of the Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei.

Asked whether he is mulling a presidential campaign, Gou said that he barely slept on Monday night, as next year’s presidential race is a critical one and could decide the next two decades of Taiwan’s politics, economics and national defense.

“I asked myself this all of last night: It would be unnecessary if I am only seeking to occupy the top office, but if I am here to get things done, what are the things I am going to do?” Gou said.   [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 15 April, 2019
By: Paula Chao

President Tsai Ing-wen says the Taiwan Relations Act is crucial to Taiwan’s close ties with the United States. Tsai’s was speaking on Monday while receiving a US delegation led by former House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The US delegation is in Taiwan to celebrate the 40th anniversary of not only the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), but also the establishment of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).

The US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act on January 1, 1979 to create a legal basis for Washington’s relations with Taipei. That’s after the United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.  The American Institute in Taiwan is the de facto US embassy in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties.

Tsai said the number of the TRA-related events and discussions both in Taipei and Washington is a testament to the stronger ties between the two sides. She spoke on Monday about the importance of the bill.    [FULL  STORY]

Epoch Times
Date: April 15, 2019
By: Reuters

TAIPEI—Chinese bombers and warships conducted drills around Taiwan on April 15, the latest military maneuvers near the self-ruled island that a senior U.S. official denounced as “coercion” and a threat to stability in the region.

The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.

China has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, whose President Tsai Ing-wen Beijing suspects of pushing for the island’s formal independence, a red line for China which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

“Any attempt to influence Taiwan through threats or coercion, we believe, destabilizes the region and threatens stability in the Taiwan Strait,” James Moriarty, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, said at a ceremony to mark the last four decades of U.S.-Taiwan relations.    [FULL  STORY]

New dark blue uniforms to be introduced on April 18

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/04/15
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The National Police in Taiwan are preparing to roll out brand new officer uniforms this week, with the new digs scheduled to become the regulation uniform from Thursday, April 18, reports UDN.

Some branches throughout the country have already received the uniforms and have been carrying out stress and motion tests in the new gear.

After receiving the new uniforms in March, the Pingzhen (平鎮) Police branch office in Taoyuan City has been conducting some combat and firing exercises wearing the new uniforms.

Some officers have stated that the new uniforms are more durable and comfortable than previous uniforms, according to UDN.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/15
By: Liu Lee-jung and Ko Lin 

Taipei, April 15 (CNA) Taiwan’s new satellite constellation, FormoSat-7/COSMIC-2, was flown out of the country Monday for a scheduled launch in the United States this summer.

FormoSat-7, the second joint development by Taiwan and the U.S., is scheduled to be launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 22.

It will replace FormoSat-3, the first Taiwan-U.S. collaborative space program, with state-of-the-art instruments and equipment that collect meteorological, ionospheric and climate data.

The departure of the satellites from Taiwan was coincidentally the same day FormoSat-3 was launched into space in 2006, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on its Facebook page.    [FULL  STORY]

BENEFITTING MOTORCYCLISTS: An online platform has 30-second videos that test aspects of road hazard perception, the Directorate-General of Highways said

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 16, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Starting in September, people wanting to schedule a motorcycle license test must first

take a practice hazard perception test on an educational platform set up by the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH), the highway authority said yesterday.

“The hazard perception test is only so that test takers can practice. A score on the practice test is not needed to schedule an appointment for a motorcycle license test,” Motor Vehicle Section Deputy Director Wei Wu-sheng (魏武盛) said.

However, materials covered in the practice test are to be included in a mandatory two-hour traffic safety lecture that each test taker must attend before taking the written part of the license test, Wei said.

The online platform has 20 30-second videos that test 11 aspects of road hazard perception, such as failure to keep a safe following distance, not following traffic signs and signals, and not heeding situations ahead, Wei said.    [FULL  STORY]

Unforgivable examines Taiwan’s White Terror through a ludonarrative lens.

ARS Technica
Date: 4/13/2019
By: Brent Crane

Thirty years ago, the grandfather of a Taiwanese-American NYPD detective named Danny Lin was thrown off a cliff in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. The killing took place during what is known today as the White Terror, a 40-year period of violent political suppression and martial law in Taiwan in the middle 20th century. The killer was never identified. Bent on solving his grandfather’s cold case and prompted by the admissions of a mysterious Japanese-Taiwanese woman in a Manhattan ramen restaurant, Lin travels to Taiwan. He knows little about the place, only that, somehow, he must find answers.

Until the last couple of decades, this kind of story, focused on Taiwan’s brutal authoritarianism under military rule, would have been a touchy topic in Taiwan. Today, though, Detective Lin’s saga is the fictional plot behind Unforgivable: Eliza, a popular augmented reality game played on a smartphone, similar to Pokemon Go. The game unfolds as a digitally enhanced tour of New York and then Taipei, with bright manga-esque presentation.

Unforgivable was penned by the Taiwanese-American crime novelist Ed Lin (Incensed, Ghost Month, One Red Bastard) and developed by Allen Yu, the 34-year-old Taiwanese founder of Flushing-based Toii Inc. For these game makers, Lin’s story has been a way to get a new generation to engage with the country’s past. Their efforts parallel a larger trend of younger Taiwanese people exploring their parents’ and grandparents’ lives under military rule.

“People know about this history in Taiwan but don’t really talk about it,” says Yu.
[FULL  STORY8]