Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/19
By: Chen Ching-fang and Flor Wang 

Taipei, July 19 (CNA) In an effort to attract more Taiwanese tourists to North Korea, the country opened an official tourism promotion center in Taipei Thursday.

Following the opening ceremony, two tour group packages were offered to Taiwanese who now can directly book packages to visit the hermit kingdom.

The two packages, NT$30,000 (about US$1,000) for a three-night tour and NT$50,000 for a five-night stay, were the first to be offered by the center — a joint venture between a North Korean government-sponsored travel agency and Taipei-based Chung Hsing Travel Service.

All the destinations included in the two tour group packages are scenic spots authorized by North Korea’s tourism bureau to target foreign visitors, an executive of the center said.    [FULL  STORY]

NPP COOPERATION: The Green Party Taiwan and SDP urged the NPP to work with other minor parties, as it has ‘refused to communicate, discuss or negotiate with us’

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 20, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

The Social Welfare State Front, a coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SDP),

Taiwan Radical Wings and the Green Party Taiwan, yesterday said it aims to win at least three councilor seats each in Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Tainan and Kaohsiung in the Nov. 24 elections, and to establish united party caucuses in the cities.

The three parties on June 19 founded the front with mediation from former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chen Zau-nan (陳昭南) to promote their shared platform policies, which include improving public housing, childcare and transportation, and establishing subsidies for start-ups.

The front has candidates in 24 constituencies, Chen said, adding that while the final candidate lists for 20 constituencies have already been determined, those for the remaining four are still being discussed.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-18

Lin Hwai-min, founder of the world-renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, has

announced that he will retire in 2019 after a career spanning five decades.

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre is putting together some of its best dance pieces for an upcoming tour to celebrate the retirement of Lin Hwai-min, the troupe’s founder and its art director for 45 years.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Lin announced his plan to retire next year. He looked back at the history of Cloud Gate and said the group has kept up their creative effort amid the major political and social shifts that Taiwan has undergone in the last four decades.     [FULL  STORY]

Six-day exercise in the East China Sea also meant to send message to United States and Japan over ties with Taipei, observers say

South China Morning Post 
Date: 18 July, 2018
By: Kristin Huang

Beijing is testing its miliary muscle in a six-day, live-fire drill over an area “roughly the size of Taiwan” in the East China Sea, just days after President Xi Jinping pledged to work for peaceful cross-strait development.

Analysts said the exercise was in line with Beijing’s effort to increase military readiness while showing resolve to defend the “one China” policy, under which Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province awaiting reunification.

The drill started on Wednesday but Beijing has so far released few other details.

But the Zhejiang Maritime Safety Administration announced on Monday that an area close to the port of Zhoushan, in Zhejiang province, to waters east of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, would be cordoned off to all marine traffic from Wednesday to Monday for military activity involving live ammunition.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/07/18
By:  Central News Agency

The Garden of Hope Foundation, a social welfare institution dedicated to helping

abused women in Taiwan, will host the Fourth World Conference of Women’s Shelters (4WCWS) in 2019, the foundation said at a press conference held Wednesday.

The conference is scheduled to take place at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center Nov. 5-8, 2019 and is expected to attract 1,500- 2,000 participants from 120 countries, the Taiwan-based foundation said.

The 4WCWS will focus on issues related to helping women who suffer from domestic violence how to manage living on their own, an objective to which the Garden of Hope Foundation has been devoted with a project called “Go the Second Mile” since 2013, the foundation said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/07/18
By: Ku Chuan and S.C. Chang

Taipei, July 18 (CNA) Premier Lai Ching-te (賴清德) has decided that in two years’

time, the government will no longer go through brokers to hire contract workers but instead will allow all its central agencies to recruit such workers directly, Cabinet spokesperson Kolas Yotaka said Wednesday.

Kolas said the decision to roll out that policy in 2020 was made to better protect the rights and interests of government contract workers, who are usually employed in areas such as forestry management and protection, forestry survey, lab testing and experimentation, national park patrols, and cultural site maintenance.

Currently, 80 percent of government contract workers are under the direct supervision of government agencies, while the division of labor and assignment of responsibility are managed by labor brokers and government agencies, according to Kolas.    [FULL  STORY]

UNDERSELLING? Ma Ying-jeou cited the sale of CTV shares to Jungli Investment Co for NT$892.5 million, even though they had a book value of about NT$700 million

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 19, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said that the Taipei District

Prosecutors’ Office was “following orders” when it decided to indict him and reassured the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee that he did not undersell the party’s assets when he was party chairman.

Ma was invited by KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to address the committee regarding his sales of Central Motion Picture Corp, Broadcasting Corp of China and China Television Co (CTV).

Although the KMT on Saturday last week said in a news release that the invitation was extended as a demonstration of the party’s belief in Ma’s integrity, Wu yesterday said that the party was “not trying to fight a certain government agency, nor endorsing a specific individual.”

“We are simply hoping to examine the appropriateness of Ma’s handling of the companies’ sales through a fair and objective lens,” Wu said, adding that Ma, as a former KMT chairman, deserved a chance to explain his side of the story.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-07-17

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is in Central America, meeting with leaders and

officials in two of Taiwan’s allies in the region.

Wu earlier traveled to El Salvador, where he met the country’s president and vice president, the head of the country’s legislature, and the country’s acting foreign minister. While in El Salvador, Wu also met with the secretary general of the Central American Integration System (SICA).

Wu is now in Belize, where he has met with the prime minister, the president of the Senate, and the foreign minister.

The foreign ministry says the foreign minister’s trip aims to show the importance President Tsai Ing-wen places on Taiwan’s friendship with its allies and to show Taiwan’s willingness to strengthen its cooperative ties.    [FULL  STORY]

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Your daily bulletin of Taiwan news, courtesy of ICRT.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/07/17
By: International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT)

New Education Minister Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) says he hopes to settle the dispute over the selection of a new National Taiwan University (NTU) president over the next one to two months.

Speaking to reporters following his swearing-in ceremony, Yeh described the timeframe as a “golden period for handling the dispute” and said he is seeking talks with the university on the matter.

According to Yeh, although NTU has retained a lawyer to settle the dispute surrounding the education ministry’s refusal to approve the appointment of Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔), he believes legal proceedings could be time-consuming and should be avoided.

The minister says the education ministry has requested that NTU restart the process to select a new president, citing flaws in Kuan’s selection and leaving the vacancy unfilled for too long will harm the university’s development.
[FULL  STORY]

Exercises will take place from July 18 to 23

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/07/17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan will closely monitor six days of Chinese live-fire

drills off its east coast province of Zhejiang, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

The ministry said the maneuvers were regular exercises and there was no need to give in to threats, the Central News Agency reported.

Chinese government-controlled media announced Tuesday that the drills would take place from 8 a.m. on Wednesday, July 18, until 6 p.m. on July 23 inside an area off the coast of the densely populated province of Zhejiang.

Whatever drills China organized in the proximity of Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said it would closely monitor proceedings and conduct an appropriate response.    [FULL  STORY]