Tsai Ing-wen thanks Lions Club International Taiwan for their role in helping Taiwanese society and diplomacy

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/09/11
By: Scott Morgan, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) commended Lions Club International Taiwan’s efforts to support Taiwan’s social services and their role in national diplomacy, while meeting senior club leaders on Sept. 11.

Tsai said she was impressed with the Lions Club’s motto of “we serve” and selfless care is an important driving force to the advancement of humanity, reported Liberty Times.

Lions Club International is a non-political and voluntary organization set up to perform charitable works. The club was first established in Chicago, U.S. in 1916. The current Taiwan branch first began service in June 1953.

The president expressed gratitude for their services to national diplomacy, involvement in social services, and for standing up for Taiwan at the annual meeting of Lions Clubs.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-09-10

The controversy over food safety issues on nutritional supplements from U.S.-based

Abbott Laboratories has escalated as more products were found with quality issues. So far, over 2.46 million cans of supplements have been removed from shelves across Taiwan.

Officials of Taipei’s Department of Health began their spot check in supermarkets to ensure that stores have removed problematic nutritional supplements from Abbott Laboratories, a U.S.-based pharmaceutical company.

Several members of the public recently posted photos of their liquid supplements showing abnormal caking. A parent also reported a foul smell in PediaSure, a nutritional supplement drink for children.    [FULL STORY]

Ten years after arriving in Taiwan, Tsai Ting-jung lost her husband to illness just as her son was born. Looking back, she shares a winding tale of pain and blessing.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/10
Oral account: Tsai Ting-jung (蔡定蓉)
Interviewers: Tsai Kuei-tien (蔡桂恬) & Cheng Chi-han (鄭至涵)
Writer: Cheng Chi-han (鄭至涵)

Time has flown by. It has now been 21 years since I first arrived in Taiwan. Before I came here, I was a high school dropout. My parents’ salaries were unable to pay for me and my more than 20 siblings. As a result, I voluntarily dropped out of school at the age of 17.

To ease my family’s financial burden, I went to work at a local sewing factory owned by Taiwanese businessmen. During that period, busy with work and exhausted after my shifts, I could not learn to cook from my mom, so I didn’t inherit my mom and sister’s culinary skills. The salary I earned from working at the factory managed to help subsidize my family’s expenses, but it was far from enough to completely solve our problems.

When I was 23, I learned that many young girls from my hometown had opted to get married and relocate to Taiwan. They all came to Taiwan under marriage with the help of matchmakers in Taiwan and Vietnam, though I didn’t know why. I finally realized that many Vietnamese girls did this so they could work legally in Taiwan to help their families back home with expenses and financial burdens.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/09/10
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Hong Kong police on Sunday nabbed a British man who possessed marijuana and stamps with LSD drug, Hong Kong media reports said.

According to reports, Hong Kong police had been investigating a drug case after receiving reports from informants. Police stopped a British man identified only as James around 2 a.m., reports said. James, 36, was emotional and started to attack two police officers at the scene, causing them to suffer injuries in the stomach and the knee, respectively, according to reports. Both of them were sent to a local hospital.

Police found 30 grams of suspected marijuana and four stamps with LSD drug, reports said. Later police dispatched sniffer dogs to assist in searching drug in a private car, but the search produced no results, according to reports.

Report said drug dealers usually soaked paper in liquid LSD, printed patterns on the paper and then cut it into small rectangles to make them look like stamps for the purpose of evading police. Stamps with LSD drug are rare in Hong Kong, reports said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/10
By: Yang Su-min and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) Passengers who were caught trying to carry meat products into Taiwan from China through customs were consequently fined while another has been charged by prosecutors for using air parcel service to deliver Chinese sausages into the country, the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA) said on Monday.

The penalties were issued amid growing concerns over a highly contagious and deadly virus that causes African swine fever (ASF). The virus has been spreading rapidly across China after the country reported its first outbreak on Aug. 3.

Taiwan has since been strengthening quarantine controls at its borders and implementing cross-department cooperation to effectively prevent the ASF virus from entering the country.    [FULL  STORY]

INDEFINITE: Kuo Tei-wei has ignored the education ministry’s order that the school hold a new poll and instead thrown his support behind Kuan Chung-ming, the group said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 11, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

A group of National Taiwan University (NTU) professors, alumni and their supporters

yesterday urged the Ministry of Education to fire NTU acting president Kuo Tei-wei (郭大維) after he refused to hold a new presidential election.

Kuo is no longer qualified to serve as acting president, because he has violated the Public Functionary Service Act (公務員服務法), the University Act (大學法) and other regulations by disobeying the ministry, delaying a university council meeting and blocking several proposals to resolve controversies surrounding the university’s presidential eslection, they said in a joint statement.

Kuo’s term as acting president has been extended indefinitely since April, when he ignored the ministry’s order to hold a new presidential selection and instead filed for an administrative appeal, requesting that the ministry appoint NTU professor Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔), who was elected by the university’s presidential election committee in January, but later deemed unqualified by the ministry due to a conflict of interest in the election process.    [FULL  STORY]

Saudi Gazette
Date: Sept. 9, 2018

MUSAFIR.COM, the UAE’s first premium-experience travel website, announces a landmark partnership with Taiwan Tourism Board to raise awareness about Taiwan as a compelling leisure destination in the Middle East.

Under the new agreement, Musafir.com and Taiwan Tourism Board will collaborate and conduct joint marketing campaigns in order to diversify the tourism culture in the UAE. In an effort to push the limits of destination marketing, both Musafir.com and Taiwan Tourism Board aim to position the island nation as the top destination amongst travelers out of the UAE as both countries increasingly appeal to the leisure and MICE sector.

The news comes at a key time for Musafir.com, as the company continues its rapid expansion in the UAE and the wider Middle East region.    [FULL  STORY]

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

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–Drivers will be able to park at roadside parking spaces at selected areas and pay the parking charge on their own, starting Sept. 6, according to a Parking Management and Development Office news release.

The PMDO is working with Acer, ALTOB, and Green Ideas Technology to implement the first phase of self-administered roadside parking mechanism at three sections of city roads: Songzhi Road (east side of the city hall); Heping East Road Section 1 (between Xinsheng South Road Section 2 and Taishun Street), and Changchun Road (between Linsen North Road and Xinsheng North road).

The PMDO said “smart roadside parking” is an indicator of a smart city and a trend, providing drivers more accurate real-time parking information, and that the smart facilities will be also applied to roadside parking spaces to change the original ticketing and payment behavior. Drivers now will park their cars, issue their own parking tickets, and pay the fees through the smart payment platform pay.taipei, e-bill, or pre-authorized payment, according to the agency.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/09
By: Chang Jung-hsiang and William Yen

Taipei, Sept. 9 (CNA) An El Salvadorian student learning Chinese in Taiwan has decided

to stay and become a freshman at one of Taiwan’s national universities, despite the severing of diplomatic relations last month.

Janeth Ramirez, who has already completed a year of study at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Tainan, southern Taiwan, is preparing to start her studies in the university’s Department of Chemistry this semester.

According to NCKU’s school calender, classes for the semester start Monday.

A total of three El Salvadorian students originally planned to enroll at NCKU this semester but following the severing of ties between the Central American country and Taiwan on Aug. 21, two students have since withdrawn, leaving Ramirez the only one to go ahead with her original plans.    [FULL  STORY]