Taipei Times
Date: Aug 16, 2018 
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) plans to establish an office

in Taipei to promote exchanges with local law enforcement agencies, a US narcotics official said on Tuesday.

Phillip Esch, narcotics attache for the DEA Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Office, made the announcement at a two-day international workshop on combating transnational crime and forensic science that opened in Taipei on Tuesday under the US-Taiwan Global Cooperation and Training Framework.

The DEA hopes the proposed Taipei office will help enhance cooperation between law enforcement agencies, and that the two sides will be able to further exchange information on cross-border crime, Esch said.

However, the date for establishing the office has yet to be determined, he added.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/15
By: Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Taiwan is still pushing Japan to face the “comfort

women” issue, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Wednesday, although it said that the unveiling of the country’s first “comfort women” statue in Tainan a day earlier has nothing to do with the government.

A bronze statue symbolizing women forced to work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military was unveiled in the southern city, the first such memorial erected in the country.

Former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), attended the unveiling and made an address, calling on the Japanese government to apologize and compensate the brutalized “comfort women.” He also criticized the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration of being too soft on the issue.

The Tainan City government said the statue was jointly erected by a local nongovernmental organization and the opposition KMT.   [FULL  STORY]

The Japan Times
Date: Aug 14, 2018

SEOUL/TAINAN, TAIWAN – A bronze statue symbolizing women forced to

work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military was unveiled at a ceremony in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan on Tuesday, marking the first installation of such a memorial in the country.

Although the statue could cast a shadow over Japan-Taiwan ties, a Taiwanese government source said Taipei is in no way involved.

In Taiwan, 58 women have been recognized as being forced to work in Japan’s wartime military brothels and are euphemistically called “comfort women”. Of those, two are alive today.

The ceremony, attended by former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang, was organized by a local group established to memorialize the history of comfort women.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/08/14
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Buoyed by fair weather, the 2018 Taiwan International Balloon Festival in Taiwan’s eastern county of Taitung attracted a record number of 900,000 visitors in 45 days, according to a Central News Agency report.

The 45-day hot air balloon festival, which began on June 30, drew to an end after the finale light sculpture concert was held on the grassland of Lyue Highland on Monday night.

Taitung Tourism Bureau Director Chiang Hui-ching (江慧卿) said that this year’s hot air balloon activity has created multiple records, the report said. This year’s event attracted a total of 900,000 visitors, compared to just 480,000 visitors last year, breaking the attendance record of 2012 and becoming the most attended hot air balloon event since 2011, when the event was held for the first time. The event has brought in estimated revenues of NT$2 billion to local economy, according to the report.

Taitung County Magistrate Justin Huang ( 黃健庭) said this year saw 39 hot air balloons participating in the event and 24 of them rising from the ground on the opening day, both a record.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/08/14
By: Sophia Yeh, Tsao Yu-fan and Elizabeth Hsu 

Los Angeles, Aug. 13 (CNA) Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)

praised former U.S. President Ronald Reagan for standing up for the values of democracy and freedom and voiced her appreciation for his support of Taiwan during a visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Monday.

Tsai evoked Reagan in telling gathered Taiwanese media, “Anything can be negotiated except that our freedom and our future cannot be compromised.”

“I believe this is also how we Taiwanese feel now,” Tsai said, referring to current relations between Taiwan and China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

The quote apparently goes back to something Reagan said after failing to agree with then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on arms reduction in Iceland in 1986: “I went to Reykjavik determined that everything was negotiable except two things: our freedom and our future.”
[FULL  STORY]

FIGHTING CRIME: The AIT director and premier were among those who gave speeches at a conference held under the US-Taiwan Global Cooperation and Training Framework

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 15, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The new director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday lauded

Taiwan’s democratic development and its contribution to the world, which he said are deserving of the international community’s dignity and respect.

Brent Christensen made the remarks at the opening ceremony of a two-day international workshop on combating transnational crime and forensic science that is being held in Taipei under the US-Taiwan Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF).

It was his first public appearance since returning to Taiwan on Saturday last week to take up his post.

The workshop, sponsored by the AIT, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau, is the first to focus on law enforcement since the GCTF was established in 2015.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-08-13

Premier William Lai is calling on government agencies to prevent Chinese

intervention and the spread of fake news from affecting elections in Taiwan.

Lai’s comments came Monday during a seminar about strengthening law enforcement ahead of the elections. He was referring to the upcoming mayoral and county commissioner elections, scheduled for late November.

The premier says that while the government is quite experienced in fighting crime and cracking down on vote-buying, extra care is needed in this year’s elections. He says that there are new ways of buying votes and that people with gang affiliations are running for public office, either with political party backing, or in the name of religion.    [FULL  STORY]

Tsai’s high-profile transit visit certain to irk Beijing, with a call for overseas Taiwanese to return to serve the self-ruled island

South China Morning Post 
Date: 13 August, 2018
By: Zhenhua Lu, US correspondentLawrence Chung

A trio of pro-Taiwan US House representatives in California joined Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen during her stopover in Los Angeles with one of them calling on the US government to grant her an unprecedented visit in the US capital.

The three US House lawmakers, including Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce, the committee’s Asia and Pacific subcommittee ranking member Brad Sherman and Congresswoman Judy Chu, greeted Tsai in Los Angeles, the first transit stop during her nine-day trip to the island’s two South American allies.    [FULL  STORY]

10 more taboos to watch out for during Ghost Month in Taiwan

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/08/13
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Now that Ghost Month (鬼月) is has been underway for a couple days now, it is time to become versed in some of the other taboos major observed by many Taiwanese during this period.

Taiwan’s Ghost Month, observed in the 7th month of the lunar calendar, which this year runs from Aug. 11 to Sept. 9, is when Taoists and Buddhists believe that the gates of hell are opened for “hungry ghosts” to roam the world of the living in search of food, money, entertainment, and possibly souls. A “hungry ghost” is a being that has been sent to the underworld to suffer an eternal state of hunger for their misdeeds or for not having a proper burial.

Last week, Taiwan News created a list of the top 10 most serious taboos to avoid, but because there are so many taboos associated with Ghost Month, the following are 10 additional ghoulish gaffes to watch out for:
[FULL  STORY]