WARNING: The weather agency said that although Wutip was likely to be downgraded, people in eastern areas should watch for rogue waves

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 25, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Wutip has become the first typhoon to be upgraded to a stronger typhoon in the month of February since

1911, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday.

The nation’s typhoon season generally lasts from July to September, the bureau said.

Although tropical storms and typhoons have previously formed in winter, they have rarely been upgraded to stronger typhoons, it said.

Wutip was upgraded at 8pm on Saturday, bureau data showed. Its center was 2,440km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) as of 2pm yesterday. It was moving northwest at 7kph, with a radius of 227km and maximum wind speeds of 184kph.    [FULL  STORY]

CNN
Date: February 2019
Source: CNN 

Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, sits down for an exclusive interview with CNN’s Matt Rivers to discuss Taiwan’s relationship with China.    [SOURCE]

The score results are used to portray academic excellence as the only model of success

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/23
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A joint campaign mounted by two of Taiwan’s most prominent high schools to

cease the tradition of publishing college entrance exam results has garnered mass support of schools and students across the island Saturday.

Taiwan is due to release the results for the latest round of college entrance exams on Feb. 25.

In a letter, the all-boys Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Senior High School joined hands with Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Girls’ Senior High School in the southern city of Taiwan to call for an end to the practice of leaking students’ scores to the media.

The practice is slammed by the students as leading to wide media coverage hailing outstanding academic achievement as the only model of success while causing privacy concerns, according to reports.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/23
By: Fan Cheng-hsiang and Frances Huang

Taipei, Feb. 23 (CNA) Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), currently on a visit to St. Lucia, has

affirmed that Taiwan’s relations with the Caribbean island country are strong and could even become closer.

Su wrote on his Facebook page that he and Prime Minister Allen Chastanet discussed cooperation between the two countries at a breakfast meeting Friday and that they both hoped for closer ties in the future.

Su did not elaborate on what closer ties might entail, other than a vague reference to expanding exchanges and cooperation, but he said he had faith in the strong friendship between the two countries because Taiwan and St. Lucia have been true partners in pursuing sustainable development.

The legislative speaker left Taiwan Wednesday for St. Lucia for a seven-day trip as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) special envoy to celebrations marking its 40th anniversary of independence.
[FULL  STORY]

WIDER NET: By removing certain elements from the virus’ surface, an Academia Sinica team managed to develop a vaccine that made mice immune to more strains of the flu

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 24, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Academia Sinica researchers have developed a “more potent” vaccine against cross-strain influenza

viruses using chicken eggs, the institution said yesterday, adding that the technology has been sold to a transnational pharmaceutical firm.

Due to the variability of the flu virus, which alters its surface proteins, vaccines are only effective against closely matched virus strains and must be regularly updated, which is a headache for vaccine developers, the team said in a news release.

Led by Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), a distinguished research fellow, and Alex Ma (馬徹), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center, the team used the eggs to produce monoglycosylated inactivated split H1N1 virus vaccine, which induced better immune responses on mice.

The new vaccine is expected to be three of four times more effective than traditional flu vaccines, the researchers said.    [FULL  STORY]

For Beijing, forging a peace deal with Taipei is like making a promise with its fingers crossed.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/22

In Doraemon, Takeshi “Gian” Gouda (Big G) always likes bullying Nobita Noby (Noby), beating him senseless and causing chaos within their class. In one episode, Suneo Honekawa (Sneech) comes up with what he thinks is an ingenious idea, which is to have Big G and Noby “pinky swear” to reconcile their differences in front of the whole class and vow never to violate the promise. Worried for Noby, Shizuka Minamoto (Sue) instantly objects: “That won’t work, a pinky promise doesn’t count! I think we should have Big G and Noby sign an actual agreement and post that publicly on the class bulletin board.” When Big G hears their idea he breaks out in laughter, because to him a pinky promise or a signature on a bulletin board means nothing to him. Either way, he will still beat up Noby after class.

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (席習近) reiterated on Jan. 2 his idea of a “one country, two systems” policy for Taiwan, the Taiwanese media has frequently reported that politicians such as the Kuomintang (KMT)’s Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Eric Chu (朱立倫) have suggested the possibility of signing a “cross-Strait peace agreement” with China. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and many others have explicitly expressed their opposition.

Credit: Facebook / Wu Den-yihKMT chairman Wu Den-yih.
Chiang Huang-chih (姜皇池), a professor of international law at the National Taiwan University College of Law, also pointed out that a peace “agreement” comes under “domestic law” – if Taiwan were to sign the agreement, it would fall into China’s so-called “domestic jurisdiction” trap. Taiwan would have to return to a central framework, turning Taiwan’s issues into Chinese ones and increasing the difficulty of either the U.S., Japan or any other nation getting involved. Chiang’s argument has quickly spread among the pan-Green camp and was instantly turned into a meme featuring the words: “Signing means recognizing Taiwan as China!”

Chiang Huang-chih is one of Taiwan’s most well-known international affairs and international law scholars and one of its most respected legal experts. However, not only is Professor Chiang’s theory that the cross-Strait peace agreement has no effect in international law wrong on a strict international law basis, but it has also completely missed the point of the discussion.    [FULL  STORY]

No appeals will be possible after High Court verdict

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/22
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Friday attended a Taiwan High Court

session in the final stage of the trial focusing on his alleged leaking of confidential information from a judicial investigation.

In 2013, Ma came out with allegations about influence peddling by then-Legislative Speaker and fellow Kuomintang (KMT) politician Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on behalf of senior Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘). The incident triggered a major crisis within the KMT but also led to accusations that Ma had illegally revealed information from the judicial investigation into the case which should have remained confidential.

The Taipei District Court found Ma not guilty, but the Taiwan High Court sentenced him to four years in prison. The Supreme Court however sent the verdict back for reconsideration, and after the next High Court decision, no appeals will be possible anymore.

Ma and Ker both appeared at the court session Friday morning. The former president argued that he revealed the case to his premier and an aide because they needed to be prepared for when a political crisis would erupt over the allegations against Wang. According to Ma, both the District Court verdict and the Supreme Court’s disagreement with the High Court ruling showed that he was innocent.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/22
By: Kuan Chung-wei and Ko Lin

Taipei, Feb. 22 (CNA) Three more cases of measles have been confirmed in Taiwan, bringing the number

since the beginning of the year to 20, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Friday.

The new cases include a man in his 30s who had visited Macau during the Lunar New Year holiday, and a woman, also in her 30s, who had not traveled overseas in recent months.

The two patients developed symptoms Feb. 15 and Feb. 16, respectively, the CDC said.

The third patient is a university student in his 20s who had recently come into contact with a patient seeking treatment at a hospital in Taipei for a case of measles imported from Vietnam.    [FULL  STORY]

A daily breakdown of Taiwan’s top stories and why they matter.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/21
By: TNL Daily News

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) rejected the idea of signing a peace treaty with China in a Wednesday “hallway chat” with reporters, saying no such agreement could be forged while Beijing refuses to eliminate the possibly of using force to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan.

“I believe that Taiwanese society will never accept any political agreements that would destroy or harm national sovereignty and Taiwan’s democracy,” said Tsai at the Presidential Office Building.

Tsai also told CNN in an interview published later Wednesday that Asia should be wary of the growing military threat posed by China. “If it’s Taiwan today, people should ask who’s next?” said Tsai. “Any country in the region – if it no longer wants to submit to the will of China, they would face similar military threats.”

Tsai announced on Tuesday she would seek re-election as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate for the 2020 presidential election.    [FULL  STORY]