Ferry service between Fugang Port in Taiwan’s southeastern county of Taitung and the outlying Green Island and Orchid Island has been suspended from Sep 25 (Tuesday) afternoon to Sep 28

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/09/25
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Ferry service between Fugang Port in Taiwan’s southeastern county of Taitung and the outlying Green Island and Orchid Island (Lanyu) has been suspended from Sep 25 (Tuesday) afternoon to Sep 28 as winds from the outer ring of Super Typhoon Trami began to pick up and create larger waves off Taitung County, according to news reports.

Central Weather Bureau forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping (官欣平) said on Tuesday that Super Typhoon Trami is expected to be closest to Taiwan on Sep 28 and 29 even though the chance of it directly affecting Taiwan is low. However, the outer ring of the thunderstorms will bring rains to Taiwan, Kuan added.

Regular and additional ferry services were operated on Tuesday morning to transport nearly 1,000 vacationers back to Fugang Port in Taitung County from Orchid Island and Green Island, but quite a few of them were seasick due to the choppy waters, reports said.

Ferry operators said the ferry service to and from the two islands would be suspended from Tuesday afternoon to Sep 28, and whether the service will be resumed on Sep 29 will have to be decided by ferry captains after consulting typhoon updates.    [SOURCE]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/25
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan 

Taipei, Sept. 25 (CNA) A decisive response from all nations, especially the major economies, is key to reaching the desired level of greenhouse gas emissions, and the European Union is sharing its experience with Taiwan to meet its reduction objectives, EU Representative to Taiwan Madeleine Majorenko said Tuesday.

The action plans the Paris Agreement set out are not enough to reach the common objective of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, Majorenko, head of the European Economic and Trade Office (EETO), said at the opening ceremony of the EU Climate Action Week.

“This is why we cannot give up now. We have to continue. We have to do more,” Majorenko said, specifically pointing out the need for major economies to take urgent action because together they account for 80 percent of global emissions.

Majorenko said that the EU has already been working with Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to make sure Taiwan’s emission reduction systems are functioning.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-09-24

Asia’s most acclaimed dance group, Taiwan’s Cloudgate Dance Theater,

celebrates its 45th anniversary with a special retrospective performance.

Cloudgate Dance Theater has been presenting innovative dances rooted in Asian culture for 45 years. This year they celebrate their anniversary with a retrospective performance highlighting classic works. These include the landmark work Portrait of the Families, the first major theatrical work addressing Taiwan’s traumatic 1947 massacre. The audience will enjoy 15 highlights from 9 beautiful pieces such as Rice, Cursive, Pine Smoke and Moon Water.

Cloudgate founder and choreographer Lin Hwai-min will retire in a year. He speaks about his past works. “They have crossed different eras and express different sentiments and stories,” Lin said. “That’s what Taiwan is. There’s so much to Taiwan and this performance in some way expresses some of these facets.”    [FULL  STORY]

Yahoo News
Date: September 24, 2018
By: Reuters 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department has approved the

possible sale to Taiwan of spare parts for F-16 fighter planes and other military aircraft worth up to $330 million, the Pentagon said on Monday.

U.S. military sales to self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its sacred territory under its “one China” policy, is an irritant in the relations between the world’s two largest economies.

“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security and defensive capability of the recipient, which has been and continues to be an important force for political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region,” the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

China is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward Taiwan, which is equipped with mostly U.S.-made weaponry and wants Washington to sell it more advanced equipment, including new fighter jets.    [FULL  STORY]

Bio-architecture Formosana (BAF) and Carlo Ratti Architects win design competition for new Taiwan National Library and Repository in Tainan

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/09/24
By: Scott Morgan, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A collaboration between Taiwan’s Bio-architecture Formosana (BAF) and Italy’s Carlo Ratti Associati won the international design competition for the southern branch of the Taiwan National Library and Repository in Tainan City (臺南市) on Sept. 15.

The design is based around the idea of a library being beyond a “public monument” and rather an open environment of “rooms of knowledge,” according to BAF.

The new library is commissioned by the National Central Library (國家圖書館) and is comprised of a library, book museum, and a joint archives center. As part of the archives center, a digital preservation center will preserve Taiwan’s valuable academic materials, reported Blouin Artinfo.

The location of the library will be in Tainan’s Xinying District (新營區), on a currently undeveloped suburban plot.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/24
By: Emerson Lim, Wu Hsin-yun and William Yen

Manila, Sept. 24 (CNA) The 8th International E-Waste Management

Network Workshop, a five-day event jointly organized by the United States and Taiwan to share electronic waste (e-waste) management experience, kicked off Monday in Quezon City, the Philippines.

The workshop is being jointly organized by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and hosted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources of the Philippines.

Over 50 experts and scholars from various countries attended the opening ceremony to participate in exchanges about management experiences regarding electrical and electronic equipment waste.    [FULL  STORY]

DISTINCTION: A former chief of general staff, Chiu Kuo-cheng was the first Taiwanese to make it to the US Army College’s illustrious list in recognition of his achievements

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 25, 2018
By: Lo Tien-pin and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Veterans Affairs Council Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) has been

inducted into the US Army War College International Fellows Hall of Fame, the first Taiwanese to receive such an honor, the council said on Sunday.

Chiu, a former chief of general staff, attended the induction ceremony in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 30, the council said.

The US Army recognized Chiu’s exceptional achievements and chose him to be the 68th person to be awarded a fellowship at the international hall of fame, it said.

No Republic of China (ROC) military officer had ever received such a distinction before, the council said.

Prior to the induction ceremony, Chiu attended the American Legion of Honor’s annual convention.

The American Legion has proposed numerous resolutions supporting Taiwan, and Chiu attended the convention as a way of expressing the nation’s gratitude to the legion, the council said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/23
By Ozzy Yin and Evelyn Kao

New York, Sept. 22 (CNA) Taiwanese legislators and hundreds of Taiwanese expatriates held a march in New York on Saturday to promote Taiwan’s ambition to join the United Nations.

The march came days after the 73rd session of the U.N. General Assembly opened Tuesday, with the annual general debate scheduled for Sept. 25 to Oct. 1.

People from Taiwanese communities in New York, Boston and Washington started the 3.2-kilometer march from the Chinese Consulate-General in New York and headed toward Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of U.N. headquarters.

Opposition New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), who has participated twice in marches pushing for U.N. membership for Taiwan, said China has spared no effort to squeeze Taiwan’s international space and has used its influence to keep Taiwan out of the world body.    [FULL  STORY]

FAMILY BUSINESS: Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong Mayling used the KMT’s one-party rule to accrue immense wealth for the Women’s League, the assets committee said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 24, 2018
By: Chen Yu-fu  /  Staff reporter

The National Women’s League’s assets have earned it more than NT$30 billion

(US$976.7 million) in interest income since the 1990s, the Cabinet’s Ill-gotten Party

Assets Settlement Committee said in a report published late on Wednesday.

The report is part of the committee’s investigation to determine whether the league’s assets were obtained through illegitimate means and whether they should be nationalized.

A public hearing is scheduled to be held on Oct. 4 to discuss the matter.

It followed the committee’s designation in February of the league, founded in 1950 and run for decades by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡) as an affiliate with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Soong capitalized on the KMT’s one-party rule and helped the league accumulate assets comparable to the wealth of a nation by collecting donations from importers’ and exporters’ associations, and other organizations, the report said, citing evidence the committee has collected.    [FULL  STORY]