Tourism visa does not allow visitors to make speeches: NIA

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/04/11
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Chinese academic planning to lecture about unification has to leave Taiwan by the end of Thursday (screenshot from 中华复兴網（台灣）Facebook page).

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A Chinese academic known for advocating the use of force to unify Taiwan with China will have to leave the island Thursday because he was planning to speak in public while only having applied for a tourist visa, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said.

Li Yi (李毅), described as a sociologist working in the United States, had been invited by small pro-unification groups to speak at a forum planned for Saturday in Taichung, the Central News Agency reported.

Following online comments by a writer pointing out his background and plans on the island, the NIA found out he had entered Taiwan on April 9 on a multiple-entry tourist visa, which did not allow him to make public speeches, according to CNA. Li would have to leave Taiwan by the end of Thursday, and if he did not do so voluntarily, he would be forcibly expelled, the reports said.

The event’s schedule showed a picture of Li under photos of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and of Tiananmen Square with the portrait of communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東). Organizers said a protest march and forum would still go ahead in Taichung on April 13, regardless of whether Li could attend or not.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/04/11
By: Yang Shu-min, Huang Huei-min and William Yen

A carcass of a pig infected with ASF found on a beach in the offshore county of Kinmen’s Jincheng Township on Monday / Photo courtesy of Council of Agriculture’s Animal Health Research Institute
Taipei, April 11 (CNA) Four more Chinese pork products and another pig carcass discovered in the offshore county of Kinmen have tested positive for African swine fever (ASF), Taiwan’s Central Emergency Operation Center for ASF said Thursday.

The Chinese pork products that tested positive for ASF included a pack of sausages that was sent for testing March 26 after being found discarded in a bin at Shuitou Pier in the offshore county of Kinmen, the center said.

Other ASF infected products included a second pack of sausages and a pack of cured ham that were found in a bin at Taichung International Airport after being dumped by a passenger who flew in from Macau and sent for testing March 27, the center said.

A pack of dried pork jerky was also found to be infected with ASF on being sent for testing March 31 after it was found in a bin at Kaohsiung International Airport, the center said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 10 April, 2019
By: Shirley Lin

Penghu International Fireworks Festival to kickoff next week

A preview to the fireworks blasting off next week. (Photo by Penghu County Government)
The 2019 Penghu International Fireworks Festival is set to start with a bang on April 18.

The annual festival has become a summertime institution in the outlying Penghu islands, attracting vacationers with regular displays over the course of weeks.

In addition to the fireworks, there will be a drone display, artificial water curtains, and a creative lantern area.

Tourists are being encouraged to rent paddle boards and take in the fireworks from the sea.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan English News
Date: April 9, 2019 
By: Phillip Charlier

A 40-year-old man accused by a 17-year-old French girl of using his position of power and influence to entice her into a sex act, had charges against him dropped after prosecutors decided the relationship was probably consensual.

Local media reports say that a hearing was held by Hsinchu District Prosecutors yesterday, April 8. It appears from the reports that the alleged victim was not present at the hearing, and that evidence was presented from statements made to police, and the subsequent police investigation.

According to the police investigation, the 17 year old high school student, with “fair skin, and a nice figure,” came to Taiwan last year as an exchange student with the Rotary Youth Exchange program.

According to the student’s statements, Mr Zhao (趙), president of the Hsinchu chapter of Rotary Club International at the time, invited the 17-year-old high school student to lunch November 30, 2018.  [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/041/10
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

This image shows a ring of light around a black hole at the heart of Messier 87, a massive galaxy some 55 million light-years from Earth. The image, which was released by an international astronomical project in which Taiwan has been participating, is the first direct visual evidence of a black hole. Photo courtesy of Academia Sinica April 10, 2019

Taipei, April 10 (CNA) An international astronomical project, in which Taiwan has been participating, on Wednesday released the world’s first picture of a black hole, a region of space with a gravitational field so intense that not even light can escape.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observation campaign, comprising 13 research units from around the world, including Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, captured the image in the heart of the massive distant galaxy Messier 87, some 55 million light-years from Earth.

Astronomers capture first Image of a black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87
CNA photo April 10, 2019

The black hole, one in category known as supermassive, has a mass 6.5-billion times that of the Sun.

“This (photo) is a pioneering find in the study of black hole astro-physics,” said Keiichi Asada, an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica and a science council member of the EHT who has been directly involved in the global project to capture the image.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 09 April, 2019
By: Paula Chao

President Tsai Ing-wen is calling for unity within her Democratic Progressive Party as

President Tsai Ing-wen

possible primary contest approaches.

Tsai plans to run for a second term as president in 2020. However, her former premier, William Lai, has announced that he will contest her spot on the party’s ticket. The party is holding negotiations between the two candidates, but if these fail, it will choose one based on the results of an opinion poll.

Tsai said a divided DPP has never won a presidential election before. She said the party will only hold on to the presidency through cooperation, adding that she is willing to cooperate with anyone. She said that winning next year’s presidential election should be the party’s only consideration if it does hold a primary race.    [FULL  STORY]

Han’s rabid popularity and cross-Strait stance may make his nomination an inevitability for the KMT.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/04/09
By: Kent Wang

Credit: AP / TPG

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is well liked in Washington for her reluctance to pick fights with China. But she is not popular at home. Recent polls have put her approval rating below 20 percent. Her bid for re-election next year, already iffy, became even more complicated when her former premier, WillIam Lai (賴清德), declared his intention to challenge Tsai in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential nomination. It is the first time an incumbent president in Taiwan has been subjected to a primary challenge. The contest may anger China, since Lai is a more vocal supporter than Tsai of the idea that Taiwan should formally declare itself to be a distinct country from China – a move Beijing says would be grounds for war.

Taiwan’s 2020 general election is set to take place in January of next year, the result of which will determine the President and the composition of the Legislative Yuan in the next four years at a time when China continues to increase political and military pressure against the island nation. Lai’s March 18 bombshell decision to join the primary was described by DPP observers as an “ambush.” Party-government echelons were kept in the dark. Members of Lai’s New Tide faction comrades tried to dissuade him but to no avail. Only a minority of pro-independence elders knew of Lai’s decision in advance.

Lai’s manifesto stated that “Taiwan does not want to be another Hong Kong or Tibet,” hoisting banners for the Taiwan independence double march. Tsai, surprisingly, could not respond immediately. Lai challenged Tsai internally, while externally he zeroed in on Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) as his principal opponent, saying that this was not only a struggle for the path of the DPP but also a battle over the future development of Taiwan and the struggle over its path of national governance. To put it simply, Lai did not agree with Tsai’s conservative approach to cross-Strait issues. On the matter of national governance, he, however, believed that the Tsai government’s impotence could not win people’s hearts, believing that he should replace her.

In order to stump for Kuomintang (KMT) candidates in the mid-March legislative by-elections, Han dashed south to north; in the end, the KMT failed to conquer two dyed-in-the-wool Green districts in New Taipei and Tainan. However, the KMT did not really lose; it performed reasonably well, making both contests uncomfortably close for the DPP.
[FULL  STORY]