The TRA retains an excellent safety record, but the recent Yilan derailment should motivate it to reevaluate some longstanding issues along its east coast rail network.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/06
By: By Michael Reilly, Asia Dialogue

On October 21, a Puyuma Express train of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) came off the tracks near Su’ao in northeast Taiwan, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than 150. TRA has a good safety record and fatal accidents involving passengers are rare. This one was the worst in the country since 1981, when 30 people were killed when a train hit a gravel truck.

Whatever the cause of the accident, and at this time of writing it is still far too early to know, it raises wider questions surrounding communications between the east coast of Taiwan and the rest of the country.

Credit: Reuters / Eason Lam18 people were killed and over 150 injured in the Oct. 21 Yilan train derailment.
Travel to and along the coast has always been hindered by geographical obstacles and the area has often seemed remote to many Taiwanese. In Chinese times, the region was the domain of aboriginal tribes and lay outside the area under nominal government control. Links improved under the Japanese but the road along the coast between Su’ao and Hualien remained dangerous and often closed by landslides. The railway link between Taipei and Hualien was not completed until 1980; a link traversing the south coast between Pingtung and Taitung only opened in 1992.

But for many, if not most, travelers, the railway is still preferable to the slow journey by road. Only in 2006, with the opening of the Hsuehshan (雪山) tunnel, were Yilan and Su’ao connected with Taipei by expressway. The tunnel is a triumph of civil engineering: the 5th longest road tunnel in the world and the longest in Asia when it was opened, it took 15 years to complete, largely due to the complicated geology of the area.
[FULL  STORY]

A new amendment is a solution for Taiwan to cope with talent imbalance

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/06
By: Alicia Nguyen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – In order to attract and retain outstanding international students who seek employment in Taiwan, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) on Nov.1 passed a law amendment that allows foreign graduates to extend their stay on the island from 6 months to a year.

Under the previous Regulations Governing Visiting, Residency, and Permanent Residency of Aliens, foreigners coming to Taiwan for investment or employment as well as international students can apply for residency extension on the island for only up to six months after the end of their contract and graduation.

However, the MOI stated that international students who graduate from Taiwanese universities have gain a certain level of understanding of Taiwanese culture, an adaption to the culture, and better language abilities. Thus, they should be given priority and a longer time to seek employment in Taiwan.

The bill was altered to allow international students to extend their stay for 6 months right after graduation. In case they are in the middle of a job search or need more time to complete their work permit application, another six-month extension will be permitted.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/06
By: Liao Yu-yang and Frances Huang 

Taipei, Nov. 6 (CNA) A waiver exempting Taiwan from sanctions on Iranian oil imposed by the United States reflects Taipei’s efforts to build good channels of communication with Washington, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Tuesday.

The United States has granted Taiwan a six-month waiver on oil imports from Iran, an MOEA official said, indicating that the U.S. government realized through effective communications that Taiwan needed time to find alternative sources of supply.

Lining up alternative oil sources will be very important to Taiwan because of its economy’s dependence on energy imports, even if crude oil imports from Iran represent only a small fraction of the total, the official said.

According to state-run oil company CPC Corp. Taiwan, which is supervised by the MOEA, crude from Iran has accounted for 2-3 percent of its total purchases so far this year, far behind 23 percent from the U.S., 23 percent from Saudi Arabia and 19 percent from the United Arab Emirates.    [FULL  STORY]

LABOR ABUSE: Sixty-nine Sri Lankans enrolled at Kang Ning University were told to work at food factories to pay for tuition, which the school denied receiving

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 07, 2018
By: Rachel Lin, Hung Jui-chin and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

The Ministry of Education has established a task force to investigate whether vocational

schools across the nation have contravened laws after it found that foreign students at University of Kang Ning international were engaged in work and not study, Deputy Ministry of Education Yao Leeh-der (姚立德) said yesterday.

Yao said that at the start of last school year, the university admitted 69 Sri Lankan students, who were asked to work at meat and food processing plants and told that their labor was paying for their tuition.

The university later informed the students that it had not received money for their work and that they still owed the school tuition, Yao said.

The university has admitted to oversight on the matter and said it would comply with all Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor inquiries into the issue.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 05 November, 2018
By: Jake Chen

Several alumni of National Kinmen Senior High School have donated their artwork to their alma mater.

Designer Yang Shuh-sen, who’s known for making paintings on driftwood, has donated two of his pieces to his high school. Yang joins watercolor painter Yang Hsiu-chuan and other artists in decorating the high school’s highway with works of art.

The school is located on Kinmen, a group of islands just off the southeast coast of Mainland China, currently under Taiwan’s administration. The islands were once considered a frontline in the battle between the two sides after the end of the Chinese civil war.

Today, the islands’ main economy has transitioned to tourism, and a significant proportion of its residents tend to seek work on the main island of Taiwan.     [SOURCE]

The Ministry of Labor wants to deduct employer hiring quotas by five for every worker who dies due to negligence, and by one for every injured worker.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/05
By: Nick Aspinwall

Taiwan’s migrant workers hit the streets once again last weekend, protesting the failure of the Ministry of Labor (MoL) to ban on-site factory dormitories, which they say are unsafe. They are likewise upset over what they say is a poorly conceived alternate plan.

The issue came to the fore after an April fire in a factory owned by Chin Poon Industrial Company in Taoyuan took the lives of five firemen and two Thai migrant workers who lived on the premises. The deadly blaze happened four months after another fire at a factory owned by Sican Plastics in Taoyuan killed six Vietnamese workers.

conditions in on-site factory dormitories, Oct. 28, 2018.
In June, there were signs of progress. An inter-ministerial meeting was scheduled to respond to the demands of migrant workers and “stipulate the need for a safe distance between dormitories for migrant workers and factories,” according to Focus Taiwan.

But on Oct. 27, the MoL said a ban on on-site dorms would not be implemented any time soon. Instead, Workforce Development Agency section head Hsueh Chien-chung (薛鑑忠) said the ministry had devised a plan to penalize employers who fail to adhere to proper safety measures for migrant workers.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/05
By: Han Ting-ting and Evelyn Kao,Central News Agency

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) The jackpot in Taiwan’s Power Lottery (威力彩) is expected to rise to NT$1.61 billion (US$52.42 million) Monday as there have been no winners in the last 47 draws, Taiwan Lottery said.

The NT$1.61 billion jackpot will be the seventh-biggest in the Power Lottery’s 10-year history and biggest in any of the computer generated lotteries in Taiwan this year, according to the company.

In Monday’s draw, the second prize in the Power Lottery is expected to be around NT$70 million, its second-highest since 2014, as there have been no winners in the last three draws, Taiwan Lottery said.

According to the rules of Taiwan’s Power Lottery, the jackpot goes to ticket holders that match all six numbers in the draw on the first row of the ticket and the one number on the second row. Draws are held every Monday and Thursday.

The biggest jackpot in the Power Lottery’s history was NT$3.003 billion, which went to a single winner on April 23, 2015.    [SOURCE]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/05
By: Huang Li-yun and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) The Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) said Monday that there is no need

to postpone a scheduled live-fire exercise in the run up to the local government elections since it is a routine drill to test the coastguard’s readiness on a small island in the South China Sea.

At a legislative hearing, OAC head Hwung Hwung-hweng (黃煌煇) said the exercise was planned long ago and will be carried out Nov. 21-23 on Taiping Island and in the surrounding waters as scheduled.

It would be awkward to reschedule the Taiping drill at the last minute simply because of the Nov. 24 elections and reports of a U.S. exercise in the South China Sea, he told lawmakers.

The drill is meant to test the Taiwan coastguard’s response readiness on Taiping and Taiwan as a whole, Hwung said, in the wake of a CNN report that the U.S. was planning to conduct freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea later this month.    [FULL  STORY]

NT$10.3b Keelung-Taipei rail proposal to be sent to the Executive Yuan in new year

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/11/04
By: Scott Morgan, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A feasibility study for a proposed Keelung-Taipei City rail link has been completed and is expected to be sent to the Executive Yuan for consideration in the new year, reported CNA.

The proposed NT$10.3 billion (US$340 million) rail link will transport commuters from Keelung City to Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center in about 30 minutes.

The plan hopes to reduce congestion, which occurs due to bottlenecks in trains connecting Taipei with Keelung City, Hualien, and Taitung.

The feasibility study commissioned by the Keelung City Government, was also internally reviewed by the local government early last month, reports suggest.    [FULL  STORY]