Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-16

Nantou County in central Taiwan is encouraging local hotels and restaurants to become certified Muslim-friendly establishments. The push is part of a bid to attract more Muslim tourists from Southeast Asia.

The county is home to eight of the hundred-plus establishments across Taiwan that are already halal-certified.

The county’s secretary-general, Hung Jui-chi, says that the county government has been working to tap into the Southeast Asian travel market after Chinese tourist numbers dropped off two years ago. The certification program allows local businesses to accommodate the large number of Muslim travelers from Southeast Asia.

Hung says that in addition to starting to prepare halal food, hotels must also make other adjustments in order to be certified. These include including pointers in hotel rooms showing the direction of Mecca for prayer purposes.    [SOURCE]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/05/16
By: Maureen Welscher

Maureen Welscher (1966) is a Dutch journalist who writes human interest stories for consumer magazines about health, pregnancy and childlessness. She is a specialist in adoption. and wrote three books about this subject: In conversation with adopted adolescents, Round trip ticket to your roots and Home in two countries. She and her husband adopted two children from Taiwan: Luc (15) and Annemei (18).
This is a story from our feature series “Roots-finding in Taiwan”. The full series can be viewed here.

Interview conducted by Maureen Welscher

When I was 12, I began to suffer because of my adoption. I wondered who I was and why I had been given away. Most poignantly, I contemplated my dual heritage: my mother is Taiwanese, my father is from Nigeria. You can see that in my looks, which confuses people.

When I was 15, I began to search for my biological family. With the help of Cathwel, the children’s home that oversaw my adoption, I was able to contact my biological family through Facebook and find the real story behind my roots.

My father was in Taiwan to learn Chinese. My parents met each other and fell in love. My grandfather and grandmother were against the relationship: My father is not only black but also a lot older than my mother. But my parents did not care about that, and my mother got pregnant.

A month before my mother had to give birth, my father was arrested for drug smuggling and went to prison for 12 years. He thought he could score easy money to support his family. My grandmother then made sure I was ceded for adoption.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei City Department of Labor ruled on Monday to impose fines of NT$1 million on Chunghwa Telecom and its contractor for overtime violations stemming from Chunghwa Telecom’s introduction of a popular NT$499 flat-rate package

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/16
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Taipei City Department of Labor (DOL) ruled on Monday to impose

fines of NT$1 million on Chunghwa Telecom and its contractor Honghwa International for overtime violations stemming from Chunghwa Telecom’s introduction of a popular NT$499 flat-rate package.

On May 11, the DOL dispatched inspectors to Chunghwa Telecom and its contractor Honghwa International to verify if any regulatory violations had occurred. The telecom giant recently introduced a NT$499 flat-rate package, garnering long queues outside of its stores across the nation.

The inspectors reviewed random attendance records for the month of May and found that many employees had worked 12 consecutive hours or more on a workday, which is a violation of Labor Standards Act.

Factoring in the evidence, impact scale, and both companies’ failure to make improvement, DOL ruled on imposing fines of NT$1 million on both companies respectively.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-15

President Tsai Ing-wen has also thanked Tuvalu for its support of Taiwan’s participation in

the World Health Assembly.

On Tuesday, President Tsai met the prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, at the Presidential Office in Taipei. The president thanked Tuvalu, one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific region, for its support for Taiwan’s international participation. She also said she looked forward to continued cooperation in the Pacific region, including implementing the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Tsai said this is the fourth time she has met Prime Minister Sopoaga in the two years since taking office. She said this bears testament to the close friendship between Taiwan and Tuvalu.    [FULL  STORY]

The likes of Laos and Myanmar can avoid the middle-income trap by establishing mechanisms to invest their resource-driven revenues.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/05/15
By: Hiroyuki Taguchi
According to the World Bank’s classification, all of the economies of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) except Brunei and Singapore now belong to the middle-income class.

These countries are expected to sustain their economic growth to escape the “middle-income trap.” Those among them that have abundant natural resources would naturally like to use them for productive purposes and to the maximum extent. History, however, tells us a paradoxical story. It reveals the problem of a “resource curse,” whereby resource-rich economies show poor economic growth performance.

The namesake example is “Dutch Disease” — the story of the Netherlands in the late 1950s, which discovered natural gas in the North Sea. In the aftermath, its manufacturing activities were “crowded out” through an export boom leading to the appreciation of its currency.    [FULL  STORY]

Cabinet is unveiling plans to counter the trend

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/05/15
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – If present trends continue, Taiwan’s population will shrink by 20

percent from its current level of 23 million to 18 million in 2061, the government said Tuesday.

The Cabinet-level National Development Council (NDC, 國發會) predicts that negative population growth will start in 2025 after reaching a record high of 23.74 million the previous year, leading the government to unveil plans Tuesday and Wednesday to boost the number of births and attract more foreign workers.

The regular NDC population report predicts that in 2061, Taiwan will count 18.37 million residents, or only 78 percent of the population for 2016.

A dramatic drop in the birthrate will lead to the number of births falling by half by 2061, with the school population continuing to drop over the next 20 years while the workforce will grow significantly older, Yahoo! reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/15
By Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, May 15 (CNA) The Cabinet on Tuesday unveiled measures to allow young migrant

workers and international students to stay in Taiwan as medium-skilled workers to help combat a manpower shortage and the country’s declining birth rate.

According to a draft economic immigration bill, the measure is aimed at retaining overseas students who receive high school or vocational school degrees in Taiwan and migrant workers with six years of work experience in Taiwan to meet demand for medium-skilled labor.

International students enrolled in specific education programs, such as the Overseas Youth Vocational Training School or Industry-University Cooperation Courses designed for youth from Southeast Asian and South Asian countries are also eligible.

If the bill passes the Legislature as proposed, Hong Kong and Macau residents who meet the criteria can also apply to work in Taiwan as a mid-level skilled worker.  [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: May 16, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday vowed to appeal a decision by the

Taiwan High Court to convict him of leaking classified information, saying that he aims to not only defend his rights, but also to seek clarification on the boundaries of the presidential mandate.

“As [yesterday’s] ruling reached a different conclusion than the three previous verdicts, we need to clarify this issue,” Ma said in response to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a public event in Taipei.

The case is essentially litigating constitutional matters, Ma said, adding that he has to fight not only for his own rights, but also to ensure that the mandate of the nation’s presidents will not be restricted.

“I will definitely appeal the ruling,” Ma said while surrounded by scores of supporters, some of whom waved Republic of China flags and held cardboard posters that read: “Oppose political persecution.”    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-05-14

Taiwan is set to open two White Terror Parks on International Museum Day, May 18. The White Terror period was from 1949-1987 when political dissidents were oppressed in Taiwan. In addition to these new museum parks, the culture ministry encouraged the public to check out innovative features at Taiwan’s museums.

International Museum Day is May 18 and this year’s theme is “Hyperconnected Museums: New approaches, New Publics”. Many museums feature new ways of enjoying art and culture. In Taiwan, this includes new immigrants from Southeast Asia becoming museum guides using their native languages. Many Taiwan museums offer AR and VR experiences such as interacting and even be chased by dinosaurs. National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts also presents an exhibit that can be touched for the visually challenged.

Minister of Culture Cheng Li-Chiun says that museums are a window to that generation and how it chooses to express its thoughts. Cheng invites the public to go to museums on International Museum Day. She also encourages museums to continue to use creative ways of expression.

On May 17 and 18 the White Terror Memorial Parks on Green Island and Jing-Mei open. The Tainan Branch of the National Museum of Prehistory will open at the end of this year.
[FULL  STORY]