Top attractions tourists in Southern Taiwan’s Pingtung must see

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/27
By: David Spencer, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Last week, we reported on the latest campaign by the Pingtung

County Government to attract visitors to the region from Singapore. They have paid for advertising on 100 cabs across the city, which will say, “Don’t tell me you’ve visited Taiwan without ever coming to Pingtung (沒來過屏東，別說你到過台灣)”.

There will also be a video entitled “I left my heart in Pingtung” playing on the inbuilt screens of more than 300 taxis across the city-state, hoping to catch the eye of passengers. But, if Singaporean tourists do decide to make the short hop over the Taiwan Strait to Pingtung, what should they think about doing while they are there?

Pingtung is Taiwan’s southern-most county, but ask many non-Taiwanese what they could do there and, apart from Kenting, many would struggle to suggest anything. So, to give them some pointers, here is a selection of the other top attractions which tourists from Singapore, and indeed anywhere else, might want to visit:    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/27
By: Justin Su and Y.F. Low

Taipei, April 27 (CNA) The Legislative Yuan confirmed Friday the nomination of Chiang

Hui-ming (江惠民), currently chief prosecutor of the Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office, as the country’s next prosecutor-general.

The confirmation vote was passed 84-1, with two invalid ballots.

Chiang was nominated by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in late March to replace Yen Da-ho (顏大和), whose four-year term ends May 7.

The 63-year old Chiang is a graduate of National Taiwan University’s Department of Law and has previously served as chief and head prosecutor of several district prosecutors’ offices, including those in Kaohsiung, Taichung, Miaoli and Pingtung, and in branches of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office.    [FULL  STORY]

SHOW OF MIGHT: While support for and against the president on the national defense front was close, the majority agreed that China’s cross-strait comments were not helpful

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 28, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Public reaction to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) handling of national defense issues

and cross-strait relations is divided, as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) steps up its military activities in the Taiwan Strait, a survey by the Cross-Strait Policy Association showed yesterday.

The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, came on the heels of a series of exercises staged by the PLA around Taiwan this month, including a live-fire drill on Wednesday last week about 20km from the coast of Quanzhou Bay in China’s Fujian Province.

In what was perceived as a counteraction, Tsai for the first time since assuming office in May 2016 boarded a warship — the Kidd-class destroyer Keelung — on April 13 to observe a joint anti-surface sea and air exercise by the military in waters off Taiwan’s east coast.

Although the majority, or 56 percent, of respondents supported Tsai’s warship move, those who approved and disapproved of her performance on the national defense front were close at 47.1 percent and 45.4 percent respectively, the poll showed.
[FULL  STORY]

Channel News Asia
Date: 26 Apr 2018 

BEIJING: China flew bombers and fighter jets around Taiwan on Thursday (Apr 26), the air

force said, the latest show of force by Beijing following warnings against any drive for independence on the self-ruled island.

H-6K bombers, early warning aircraft, reconnaissance planes and several types of fighter jets took off from multiple airports for “combat drills”, the air force said in a statement on its official microblog.

The planes flew over Bashi Strait, south of Taiwan and the Miyako Strait, near Japan’s Okinawa Island, it said.

The air force said its H-6K bombers have completed several drills that involved circling Taiwan since Apr 18 “to strengthen its capacity to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.    [FULL  STORY]

Earth Day campaign was major success with 500 participants

Taiwan News 
Date: Date: 2018/04/26
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Facing falling numbers of visitors, beaches in Kenting (墾丁) will

be targeted for more cleanup campaigns over the next few months, the Pingtung County Government said Thursday.

The resort town near Taiwan’s southern tip has been facing increasing complaints about the high prices of its lodgings and food, the shoddy nature of its night market, but also the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of its sandy beaches.

On April 22, Earth Day, the town’s hotels and restaurants mobilized more than 500 volunteers to clean up the beaches.

However, in order to keep up the good work and improve Kenting’s image, the county government said Thursday it would organize six similar campaigns during May and June, the Central News Agency reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/26
By: Huang Guo-fang and Kuan-lin Liu 

Taipei, April 26 (CNA) A professor at National Chung Cheng University (NCCU) who invented a chip that can detect tumor markers in the early stages of cancer in just 30 minutes is looking to partner with medical suppliers and producers to introduce the technology to the commercial market.

According to a Thursday press release from NCCU, the technology — the protein preconcentrator with nano-interstices — that Jen Chun-ping (任春平) invented, can detect tumor markers, which are made up of proteins, in the bloodstream when they are at low levels in the beginning stages of cancer.

The technology can lead to an early diagnosis, since traditional methods of diagnosis are only able to detect the markers when there is a large concentration in the later stages of cancer.    [FULL  STORY]

‘DOUBLE STANDARD’: KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao accused DPP lawmakers of treating pension reform protesters differently from those in the Sunflower movement

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 27, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday stifled proceedings at a meeting of

the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee over a pending actuarial report on military pension reforms, while criticizing Wednesday’s hearing assembled by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus on the issue as a “formality.”

DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇), the party’s convener on the committee, yesterday held a question-and-answer session on the pension reform bill.

The session was attended by Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa (嚴德發) and Veteran Affairs Council Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正).

Immediately after the meeting began, KMT lawmakers, who had occupied the speaker’s podium in the early morning, began shouting slogans, demanding that the DPP improve its communication with retired military retirees before holding a question-and-answer session.    [FULL  STORY]

Gerrit van der Wees argues that a confluence of trends means that 2018 will be a defining year for the United States and Taiwan.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/04/25
By: Gerrit van der Wees, Taiwan Insight

The year 2018 is promising to be a watershed for U.S.-Taiwan relations.

The key event setting things in motion was the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act by Congress, which was signed by President Trump on March 16, 2018. Together with a number of related developments this represents a significant turning point for the island of Taiwan, and in particular its relations with the United States.

Congress brings Taiwan in from the cold
The fundamental shift occurring at the moment is being made possible by a number of key changes in the political landscape. First: for several years, the U.S. Congress has expressed increasing unhappiness about the way a free and democratic Taiwan was kept lingering in diplomatic isolation internationally. This in spite of the fact that the country had made its momentous transition to democracy in the early 1990s.    [FULL  STORY]