Mayor Lu Shiow-yen is battling the central government over funding for a new circular railway line.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/01/07
By: Liang Minghao (梁銘浩)

When the new Mayor of Taichung, Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕), took office on Dec. 25, 2018, she had the intention to stop the construction of the Greater Taichung Shanshou Line due to a disagreement over central government subsidies for the project.

Does her opposition to the project stem from a lack of long-term vision for her city, or does she have well-intentioned political calculations? Regardless of her motives, opposing the Shanshou Line (山手線) represents a short-sighted, narrow-minded mentality toward the well-being of the people of Taichung.

The Shanshou Line can be considered the centerpiece of the transportation infrastructure projects of previous mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). Its main objective: To connect two separate TRA railway lines, the mountain and coastal lines, that lay on opposite sides of Taichung, with a view towards combining them with the Blue and Green lines of the MRT to form a complete urban transportation system encircling the city and including the coastal line into the future development of the Greater Taichung area.

Circular transportation lines are nothing new in foreign countries as they act as stable transportation system operating efficiently with set operation times, allowing for large numbers of commuters to accurately plan their journeys through and around the city.
[FULL  STORY]

Yunlin County Government is more ironhanded by acting early to totally ban the practice of using kitchen leftovers as pig feed, reports said

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/07
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Some of Taiwan’s local governments seem to be more zealous than the central government about encouraging pig farmers not to use kitchen scraps to feed their pigs amidst the African swine fever scare, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News report on Monday.

Council of Agriculture’s (COA) earlier announced that only when a disease outbreak happens in Taiwan, will the agency move to totally ban the practice of feeding pigs with kitchen scraps. The agency also said pig farms uncertified for using leftovers as pig feed must pass inspection in a week, or change to using fodder or face closure.

Compared to the COA’s moderate stance, Yunlin County Government is more ironhanded by acting early to totally ban the practice of using kitchen leftovers as pig feed in the county at the end of last year, Economic Daily News reported.

The report also said Kaohsiung City Animal Protection Office had given 35 pig farms not on the government’s radar a week’s notice to change from using leftovers as feed to using fodder or face closure.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/07
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Jan. 7 (CNA) Taiwan on Monday welcomed Pope Francis’ appointment of a special envoy to attend a National Eucharistic Congress to be held in the country in March, saying that the decision again shows strong and cordial bilateral ties between the island and the Vatican.

The Holy See announced last Saturday that the Pope had appointed Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, to the concluding celebration of the 4th National Eucharistic Congress in Taiwan, to be held in Yunlin County on March 1.

Asked to comment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Monday that the Pope’s decision to send a special envoy to the national congress demonstrated strong ties between Taiwan and the Holy See, its only diplomatic ally in the Europe.

This will also mark the first time that Cardinal Fernando Filoni, a close friend of Taiwan, visits the country since he took office as the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in May 2011, said MOFA in a statement.
[FULL  STORY]

If Beijing is serious about using force to reclaim ‘sacred territory,’ things could get ugly for the world.

The Hamilton Spectator
Date: Jan 6, 2019
By: Gwynne Dyer 

“Independence for Taiwan would only bring profound disaster to Taiwan,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in Beijing on Wednesday, and he ought to know. He is the one who would make sure the disaster happened.

Speaking on the 40th anniversary of U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Chinese People’s Republic, Xi said that Taiwan was “sacred territory” for Beijing. He would never tolerate “separatist activities” there: “We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary means.”

There is a peculiar ambiguity to Beijing’s official statements on Taiwan. On the one hand, nobody in the Communist regime is in a great rush to gather Taiwan back into the fold. It will happen eventually, they believe, and they can wait.

On the other hand, the regime’s credibility (such as it is) comes from only two sources: its nationalist posturing, and its ability to deliver rising living standards. With the latter asset rapidly depreciating — the Chinese economy is heading south — the nationalism becomes more important, so a bit of chest-beating is inevitable.    [FULL  STORY]

Over three years spent delivering PACs, already having saved seven lives

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/06
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A group of Taiwanese mountain enthusiasts spent three and a half years to complete a mission to carry portable altitude chambers (PACs) to dozens of mountain huts and high-altitude attractions to save lives. The mission was initiated by an emergency-room physician who, with his classmates, encountered a mountaineering accident when he was a college student, and their lives were saved by a rescue operation, according to a Central News Agency report on Sunday.

Wang Shih-hao (王士豪) was the president of his college’s mountaineering club in 1999, when he and four other club members went on a trip to climb Cilai Mountain (奇萊山), which is over 3,500 meters in height, the report said. However, they encountered a snowstorm and were trapped on the mountain. They asked for help and were successfully rescued by a helicopter.

After he came down from the mountain, his father told him, “Your life was saved by the country, so when you have a chance, you should give back to society,” CNA reported.

Driven by his passion for mountaineering, Wang began to devote himself to the study and research of alpine medicine in 2006. After one year’s field investigation, he found that the occurrence rate of altitude sickness was as high as 36%, meaning that one out of every three mountaineers had experienced altitude sickness, CNA reported.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/01/06
By: Wu Hsin-yun and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Jan. 6 (CNA) The second pig carcass found on the Kinmen County shoreline last week has tested negative for African swine fever (ASF), the Council of Agriculture (COA) said Sunday.

The dead pig, found on Xiaoqiu islet Friday, was the second one to be found on the shores of the island county in four days amid fears over ASF, which has been spreading across China.

The COA said the carcass found on Xiaoqiu by coast guard officers was most likely brought there by the tide since there are no pig farms on the islet.

The first dead pig, which was found Monday on a beach in Kinmen’s Jinsha Township, was confirmed Thursday to be infected with the ASF virus.    [FULL  STORY]

SEEKING ANSWERS: The Ministry of the Interior said there is a correlation between marriages and births, and their decline might be because of improved education

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 07, 2019
By: Chen Yu-fu  /  Staff reporter

The nation recorded an eight-year low of 181,601 births last year, while the number of

marriages also dropped, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday.

The population was 23,588,932 at the end of last year, with 11,876,000 females and 11,712,000 males, the data showed.

The birthrate has declined to 7.56 per 1,000 people, the data showed.

In the period after World War II, 300,000 to 400,000 babies were born annually, but the number was less than 200,000 in 2008 amid the global financial crisis and dropped to 166,886 in 2010, the data showed.    [FULL  STORY]

The Straits Times
Date: Jan 5, 2019
By: Tan Dawn Wei, China Bureau Chief

On Dec 31, President Donald Trump signed into law the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which will beef up US presence in the Indo-Pacific region and support measures. The Straits Times’ China and India bureaus look at the implications.

There ought to be more than a few things in the newly passed Asia Reassurance Initiative Act that China would not be pleased with.

But the one that truly annoys Beijing is the United States’ insistence on cosying up to Taiwan, long regarded by China as a breakaway province with no option but to return to the motherland.

On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry said it “resolutely opposed” the signing of the Bill, which calls for more official exchanges between the US and Taiwan and regular arm sales to the island, and had formally registered its displeasure with Washington.
[FULL  STORY]

YeFu believes Taiwan’s transition to democracy ought to be used as a model when the CCP falls

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/05
By: Ryan Drillsma, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Renowned Chinese novelist and poet Zheng Shiping (鄭世

平), more often known by his penname YeFu (也夫), has said China ought to use Taiwan as a model for democratic transition.

CNA reports the author recently penned an article that states the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has lost the ability to correct its own mistakes, after witnessing many of the countless calamities it has caused over the past 70 years.

Only by consigning itself to the annals of history, Zheng wrote, can the party allow the people’s fundamental interests be restored. But if the public is unwilling to speak out, he conceded, they are not ready to see the end China’s autocracy.

Zheng suggested China looks to how Taiwan relinquished its one-party dictatorship as an example. He stressed that if there was no democratic opposition fighting for freedom, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) would have never made the decisions that led Taiwan along its transition to democracy.    [FULL  STORY]