Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/17
By: Wang Shwu-fen and Romulo Huang

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) The Executive Yuan approved Tuesday the nomination of

Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Hsu Li-ming (許立明) as acting mayor of the southern Taiwanese port city starting April 20.

After accepting his new post, Hsu said he will continue the city development programs initiated by outgoing Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), bringing a perfect conclusion to Chen’s 12-year tenure as head of the Kaohsiung municipal administration.

Chen, whose term as mayor ends at the end of this year, has been appointed Presidential Office secretary-general by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to fill the position left vacant by Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who was made foreign minister in a Cabinet reshuffle in late February.

Chen, 67, is slated to assume her new post on April 23.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 18, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

Academia Sinica member Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆), who is to take office as minister of education tomorrow, has worked as an adviser at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and another government-funded research institution in China, two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members said yesterday.

The academy’s Institute of High Energy Physics listed Wu as an adviser to its superconductor research team on its Web site, KMT member Yu Shu-hui (游淑慧) said on Facebook.

According the Web site, the team holds a meeting every three months and Wu is responsible for reviewing progress and coordinating work between different groups, Yu said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-04-16

The education ministry and the interior ministry co-organized an event over the weekend

to educate the public about the dangers of natural disasters. The two-day event was held at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei.

A group of young children danced at the opening of a disaster prevention event organized for students from 85 schools around Taiwan.

The Alishan Elementary and Junior High School demonstrated outdoor survival methods used by the indigenous Tsou tribe. An exhibit showed spoons and ladles made from materials like bamboo found in the wild.    [FULL STORY]

As Guatemala goes to the polls over a border dispute with Belize, Taiwan’s economic diplomacy with one of its few remaining diplomatic allies comes into question.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/04/16
By: James Baron

“Officially, the British are unpopular in Guatemala,” wrote Nicholas Wollaston, while

traveling in the Central American country in 1961. “For Britain occupies the whole of Belice Province by force, and calls it British Honduras. There are three empty seats in the Guatemala assembly with blue and white ribbons and marked ‘Belice’ [sic], and every map in Guatemala proves Britain’s guilt.”

Those empty seats are no longer there – the military junta of Efrain Rios Montt having abandoned the charade upon seizing power in 1982. Presumably the evangelical dictator, who died earlier this month aged 91 with the latest of his war crimes trials pending, was too occupied with his “beans and bullets” policy of ethnic cleansing against indigenous groups to bother about territorial bickering with his diminutive neighbor.

Also gone is any particular hostility toward the British, official or otherwise. Travelers to the country would be hard pressed to meet a Guatemalteco who has even heard of the Wyke-Aycinena Treaty of 1859 from which the controversy over Belize’s status sprung.
[FULL  STORY]

Video of French vloggers making fun of countrymen failing to hold steady ‘Asian squat’ gets lots of laughs in Taiwan

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/16
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two French vloggers on April 14 posted a humorous video

showing French people attempting and failing to execute the “Asian squat,” a maneuver most Westerners in Taiwan will have observed and likely had to attempt when using squat toilets.

A pair of French vloggers on April 14 released a video narrated in fluent Mandarin on their YouTube channel Xinshidandan (信誓蛋蛋, Pledge Egg Egg) showing people on the streets of the southern French city of Montpellier attempting to complete an “Asian squat.” An “Asian squat” is when a person goes from a standing position to a squatting position, without touching their hands on the ground, knees completely bent to the point of the buttocks touching the ankles and all the while keeping both feet completely flat.

As bystanders are at first reluctant to attempt the feat, the vloggers offer candy to those who can complete it. Soon they test over 20 volunteers, with the vast majority failing and falling onto their backs.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/16
By: Chiu Po-sheng and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, April 16 (CNA) With a rise in the number of young jobseekers in Taiwan expressing an interest in applying for jobs in China, a senior executive at a local job bank is advising applicants to be aware of the changing nature of employment opportunities there, despite its attitude to Taiwanese talent.

Joe Chen (陳嵩榮), a senior deputy general manager at 104 Job Bank, said Monday that more and more enterprises in China are adjusting their employment policies to focus on “local hiring” and as a result many are no longer offering travel or housing subsidies to overseas recruits.

Moreover, in some first-tier Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, the cost of renting is even higher than in Taipei, Chen added, citing Shanghai’s Jing’an, Changning and Huangpu districts, where the rent for an ensuite room is currently a minimum of 6,500 Chinese yuan (US$1,035) per month.    [FULL  STORY]

FIRED UP: The legislature’s Health, Environment and Labor Committee met to review the project, amid protest outside and heated comments before and after the meeting

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 17, 2018
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

The controversy over the Shenao Power Plant heated up yesterday as Environmental

Protection Administration (EPA) and New Taipei City Government officials quibbled over the project’s potential impact on a fisheries conservation area and other issues.

State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) wants to build a coal-fired plant on the site of the old Shenao plant, which was near Rueifang District’s (瑞芳) Shenao Harbor (深澳灣).

The company’s original plan to build a new plant on the site passed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) in 2006, and the EPA on March 14 approved the firm’s environmental impact difference analysis report covering proposed changes to the project.

That decision triggered widespread controversy and protests by local residents, environmental groups and lawmakers.    [FULL  STORY]

The Malay Mail 
Date: April 15, 2018

TAIPEI, April 15 — At the edge of a bustling shopping district, Taiwan’s graffiti artists are

finding a safe haven for their art at a revitalised park.

More parts of the island have welcomed legal graffiti zones as Taiwan seeks to cast itself as a hub for creativity and design.

One of the best known is the Taipei Cinema Park, just blocks away from the neon-lit Ximending district — the heart of youth culture in the capital.

Adorning walls around the plaza and along the surrounding alleyways, colourful murals have transformed a once derelict area into a beguiling visitor attraction.

Not only is graffiti in the zone sanctioned by authorities, artists can also rest assured their artwork will be seen and respected, said Jimmy Cheng, who manages the graffiti space.
[FULL  STORY]

The Suhua Highway in eastern Taiwan has been reopened to traffic since Monday morning after overnight efforts to clear the roadway blocked by mudslides due to heavy rains

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—The Suhua Highway in eastern Taiwan has been reopened to

traffic since Monday morning after overnight efforts to clear the roadway blocked by mudslides due to heavy rains, Taiwan’s Directorate General of Highways (DGH) announced on Sunday morning.

The DGH said that the Chongde-Heren section of the Suhua Hihway received a maximum of 110mm of rainfall per hour on Saturday, which caused mudslides and mud flows at the 168K+500, 168K+600, 169K+900 kilometer marks. The impassable road conditions forced the authority to close the section in both directions, trapping 109 people in 30 vehicles.

A total of 32 workers participated in efforts to clear the roadway overnight, the DGH said, adding that all the trapped people had been evacuated by 10:48 p.m. Saturday night.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/15
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan

Taipei, April 15 (CNA) An annual literary contest aimed at giving a voice to immigrants and

migrant workers opened Sunday in Taipei with a call for submissions from expatriates not only in Taiwan, but also in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.

This year’s Taiwan Literature Award for Migrants competition kicked off with Joseph Christian P. Aranas, a Filipino migrant worker, reading “Cry of the Poor” — his winning piece in last year’s awards — in Tagalog, one of the major languages spoken in the Philippines.

The reading was followed by a play performed by Filipino migrant workers depicting inhuman working conditions endured by migrant crew members that concluded with the workers standing up for their rights.    [FULL  STORY]