‘FATIGUE FLIGHTS’: By refusing to add pilots on longer flights, China Airlines was ignoring lessons from the deadly derailment of a Puyuma Express train last year, unions said

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 10, 2019
By: Lee I-chia  /  Staff reporter

As a strike by China Airlines (CAL) pilots continued for a second day yesterday, several

labor unions spoke out in support of them.

The strike, led by the Taoyuan Union of Pilots, has caused more than 20 flights to be canceled and a number of flights to be delayed.

The union said the pilots went on strike because, as of Thursday afternoon, China Airlines had failed to agree to the union’s five demands, including improving “fatigue flights” by adding a fourth pilot on flights longer than 12 hours.

In a letter to the public, the pilots said: “We are very sorry, but we have been forced to go on strike as a last-ditch effort… Please support us so that we can be alert and focused as we ensure the complete safety of each passenger on every flight.”    [FULL  STORY]

Speculation that China would negotiate with the KMT for the quiet release of the Taiwanese democracy advocate feels like ancient history.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/08
By: Brian Hioe, 破土 New Bloom

As Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-che (李明哲) approaches his 700th day in jail, Chinese actions to retaliate against his family for efforts to continue to advocate for his release have escalated. Namely, Lee has been transferred jails several times without any adequate explanation as to why from Chinese authorities in the past half year. And while Lee Ming-che’s wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜), was previously allowed to visit him, China recently refused all further visits from Lee Ching-yu until April.

It remains largely unknown as to why Lee Ming-che was arrested and tried by China. Lee, a former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) staffer and human rights NGO worker, disappeared after entering China from Macau in March 2017. Lee was charged with attempting to “subvert state power” on the basis of that Lee had been in communication with Chinese nationals regarding Taiwan’s experience of democratization. As such, Lee was sentenced to five years in jail.

Credit: WeiboLee MIng-che (R) while on trial.
Lee’s case was notable as an incident of a Taiwanese citizen being treated as a Chinese citizen. Lee’s case was also thought to be the first case of a foreign NGO worker detained on the basis of then-recently passed Chinese law aimed at cracking down on foreign NGOs working in China. It is generally thought that China decided to imprison Lee as a means of intimidating Taiwan.

As Lee Ching-yu should have spousal rights to visit Lee Ming-che, Lee Ching-yu previously was allowed to visit him, and she and family members of his visited him five times. As his spouse, Lee Ching-yu was also allowed to attend his trial. However, Lee Ching-yu was denied visitation rights for Lee Ming-che from September and December of last year. Although Lee Ching-yu was allowed to visit Lee Ming-che in December, Lee Ching-yu has again been denied the rights to visit Lee until April, and it is possible that China more or less intends to indefinitely prevent Lee Ching-yu from visiting Lee Ming-che.    [FULL  STORY]

Leftist predecessor chose Beijing last August after more than 70 years of ties with Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/08
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The president-elect of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, was reconsidering his predecessor’s decision last year to abandon diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognize China instead, reports said Friday.

Bukele won the February 3 election by a landslide and will be the first president in decades not to come from the two traditional political parties in the Central American nation. Outgoing leftist President Salvador Sanchez Ceren ended more than 70 years of relations with Taiwan last August.

During the election campaign, Bukele reportedly questioned the benefits of the move toward China, the Liberty Times reported. Once his administration takes office in June, it will conduct a thorough review of the reasons for the diplomatic switch, reports said.

Bukele campaign officials allegedly described the move as benefiting only the then-governing party, rather than the whole nation.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/08
By: Rita Cheng and Joseph Yeh 

Washington, Feb. 7 (CNA) The United States continues to support Taiwan through the “faithful implementation” of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) which ensures the country has sufficient defense capability in the face of the growing threat from China, said Randall Schriver, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, Thursday.

Answering questions at a seminar in Washington D.C. on China’s global rise, Schriver said the U.S. is well aware of China’s increasing aggressiveness in pursuit of “reunification” with Taiwan, whether by stealing away its diplomatic allies or conducting military drills around the island.

However, he also noted that there is a lot of support and goodwill for Taiwan, a democratic economy that is the 11 largest trading partner of the U.S.

Calling Washington-Taipei ties an important relationship, Schriver said the U.S. will ensure the people of Taiwan have a say about Taiwan’s future.    [FULL  STORY]

PRE-WAR HISTORY: The police station is known as the place where authorities held Chiang Wei-shui, an important figure in Taiwan’s 1920s cultural movement

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 09, 2019
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Once a police station, the Taiwan New Cultural Movement Memorial Hall now attracts day

trippers, who go there mainly to see a detention center and torture chamber that were housed in the building’s dingy interior.

Built in 1933 during the Japanese colonial era, the baroque-style building on Ningxia Road in Taipei’s Datong District (大同) was nothing special, said a police officer who worked there for 12 years before moving to a new precinct nearby.

During the Japanese colonial era it was the Taipei North Police Station and after World War II it became Datong Police Station, which was staffed by about 200 officers crowded into the drab interior, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Files were stacked haphazardly everywhere and noises from the street penetrated the walls day and night, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 07 February, 2019
By: Natalie Tso

People were active outdoors on the third day of the Year of the Pig (CNA photo)
Many people enjoyed cycling and other outdoor activities on the third day of the Year of the Pig. That’s as Taiwan saw sunny and partly cloudy skies throughout the island that day.

The weather will change though on Thursday evening and bring a few days of intermittent showers to Taiwan in the north and east. But central and southern Taiwan will still enjoy sunny weather and temperatures of a high of 28 degrees Celsius in the center and 30 degrees Celsius in the south.    [FULL  STORY]

Repair costs could exceed NT$1 million: reports

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/07
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The driver of a Toyota Corolla Altis costing an estimated NT$700,000 (US$22,700) and a motorcyclist slammed into a Bentley Continental GT worth at least NT$14 million (US$454,000) in New Taipei City early Thursday morning, according to media reports.

Initial estimates of the cost to repair the latter exceeded NT$1 million (US$32,000), the Apple Daily reported.

A 31-year-old man surnamed Huang (黃) was driving his Toyota in the Zhonghe District at around 4 a.m. Thursday when he made a sudden move which launched his car against a Bentley coming from the other direction, according to the paper.

Neither the driver of the Toyota nor the man behind the wheel of the British luxury car, also surnamed Huang, 38, had been drinking, breathalyzer tests showed.

Focuas Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/07
By: Evelyn Kao 

Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) The Pilots Union Taoyuan said Thursday it will go ahead with preparations to strike after China Airlines (CAL) refused to meet the union’s demand for better working conditions for pilots.

Although central and local authorities have suggested CAL should accept the union’s proposed improved conditions for pilots, after its members voted in favor of taking strike action on Feb. 1, CAL has declined to do so, leaving CAL pilots with no choice other than to strike, the union said in a statement Thursday.

However, the pilots’ demand for additional manpower, better pay and extended rest periods would increase personnel costs and could hurt the company’s competitiveness, CAL said in a response to Taoyuan City’s labor department.

The union also accused the labor department of sending a staffer to pick up an application from the company for mediation services to settle the labor dispute on Tuesday, Lunar New Year’s Day.    [FULL  STORY]

‘EXTRAORDINARY STORY’: An illustration of whether freedom or totalitarianism works can be made simply by comparing Taiwan with China, the US senator said

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 08, 2019
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

US Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday said he has a signed a letter to House of

Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging her to invite President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to visit Washington and give an address to the US Congress.

During a question-and-answer session after he gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on the Senate’s role in US foreign policy, Cruz was asked by a Central News Agency reporter how he would like to see the US’ Taiwan Travel Act enforced, and if he supported a visit by Tsai this year.

Cruz was a cosponsor of the act, which encourages visits by high-level US and Taiwanese officials.

“Yes, I support President Tsai coming and delivering a speech to Congress. I just recently signed a letter, urging the Speaker of the House to invite her,” he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 06 February, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

What kind of fortune will the new year bring? How will Taiwan fare in the coming months? These are always the questions on people’s minds when the Lunar New Year gets underway.

The answers are of course unknowable to us mortals. So believers in Taiwan’s folk religion put these questions instead to the gods.

Fortune will smile on Taiwan in the Year of the Pig. That’s the verdict of the gods at two Taipei-area temples.

On Monday, Taipei’s Dalongdong Baoan Temple performed a ceremony to determine Taiwan’s luck for the coming year. The ceremony involves drawing lots, each associated with a poem. The poem is then interpreted for signs of what is to come.
[FULL  STORY]