UNINVITED: One DPP Taipei city councilor and two hopefuls slammed Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je on a radio show to try and assuage voters’ fears they support him

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 06, 2018
By: Su Fan-ho and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates yesterday hinted they would

distance themselves from Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) in deference to voters, as a backlash from the pan-green camp mounts.

DPP Taipei City Councilor Yan Juo-fang (顏若芳), who is seeking re-election, told Hit FM radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻) on her morning show that many DPP voters are irate over Ko’s stance on China.

Ko’s talk about Taiwan and China being one family has deeply offended her constituency in the 4th electoral district of Taipei, which is comprised of Zhongshan (中山) and Datong (大同) districts, Yan said.

Calling her voters staunch supporters of traditional DPP values, Yan said that many of them told her they would abandon the DPP in the Nov. 24 elections if the party endorses Ko in the mayoral election.    [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/04/04
By: Nick Aspinwall

New initiatives such as a proposed DNA database to identify illegally harvested wood show promise, but questions remain as to whether the government is doing enough at the point of sale.

In Taiwan’s old-growth forests, the illegal timber trade remains big business. Poachers venture into the mountains in search of the endangered Hinoki cypress and red cedar trees, preferring those which have developed unique wood patterns over time – Hinoki trees can live up to 3,000 years.

Artisans carve the timber into elaborate sculptures, and the finished products are sold to eager Taiwanese and Chinese buyers in markets like those of Sanyi, a tourist town and Taiwan’s woodcarving mecca. The process begins in the mountain forests as a tightly wrapped secret, but once wood reaches the point of sale, it finds no further need to hide.
[FULL  STORY]

Group of 20 overstayed their visa

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

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The New Taipei City National Immigration Agency detained 20

visitors from China who had misused their visa to perform at street markets and tourist sites, making NT$4 million (US$136,700) per month in the process.

A man surnamed Yang (楊) and a 36-year-old woman named Feng (馮) were believed to be the leaders of the group. Police confiscated her microphone, loudspeakers, smartphone and a name list, the Apple Daily reported, added that the woman was not a real singer but had been lip syncing during performances which even attracted the attention of the media.

The group had been active internationally as far as Singapore and Malaysia, and made so much money from donations by the public that each month bonuses totaling NT$200,000 (US$6,800) were paid out, the Apple Daily reported.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018/04/04
By: Kou Chu-chen and Elizabeth Hsu

Overpriced food and accommodation; crowded, dirty streets; peak season traffic jams; overbuilding; and poor service.

This litany of woes besetting Kenting, one of Taiwan’s most popular beach resorts, has been driving tourists away, but only recently have some of the town’s people and stakeholders awoken to the new reality and sought ways to reverse its tarnished reputation.

In July 2017, a group of community volunteers that occasionally organizes charity activities and pays visits to seniors felt it could no longer ignore visitors’ negative comments and began a movement to clean Kenting Road.

Every day, one of the leaders of the Kenting Community Association, Tseng Chun-hui (曾春惠), leads the volunteers in cleaning the road, the main traffic artery serving the town, which is inside a vast national park on Taiwan’s southernmost tip in Pingtung County.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 05, 2018
By: Nadia Tsao and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporter in WASHINGTON, with staff writer

The nation’s youth have a strong Taiwanese identity and favor a pragmatic policy

approach toward China, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy president Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) said yesterday.

There is little evidence that Taiwanese youth are highly satisfied with President Tsai Ying-wen’s (蔡英文) policy, he said.

Hsu made the remarks at a Global Taiwan Institute conference chaired by its executive director, Russell Hsiao (蕭良其), which International Republican Institute president Daniel Twining and Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) also attended.

Citing a poll by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center commissioned by the foundation, Hsu said Taiwanese youth have a strong commitment to democratic values and national defense.

While Taiwanese aged 20 to 29 are highly nationalistic in their identification with Taiwan, they are also more strongly committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” than those in other age groups, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

US support for Taiwan may prove red rag to bullish China given trade war and military rivalry

The Guardian
Date: 3 Apr 2018
By: Simon Tisdall

China could do to Taiwan what Russia did to Crimea if Beijing’s relations with Washington, strained by an expanding trade war and military rivalry in the East and South China seas, deteriorate further.

The warning from maritime security experts follows a series of recent Chinese moves to put pressure on Taiwan’s pro-independence government. These include a vow last month by China’s president that Taiwan would face the “punishment of history” if it pursued a separatist course. “Any actions and tricks to split China are doomed to failure and will meet with the people’s condemnation,” Xi Jinping said.

The latest rupture came at the weekend after Taiwan’s premier, William Lai, told parliament in Taipei he was a “Taiwan independence worker” and that Taiwan was a sovereign, independent country. China, which calls Taiwan a renegade province, quickly condemned his comments as “dangerous and presumptuous”. The Chinese Communist party-published Global Times said an international warrant could be issued for Lai’s arrest under the 2005 anti-secession law. “If evidence of his crimes is cast-iron, then a global ‘wanted’ notice can be issued for him,” it said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese woman spotted at Taoyuan airport with funny bag saying it ‘contains a gun, a bomb, a very large knife and loads of drugs’

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/04/03
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A netizen in the U.S. shared a hilarious photo on social media

showing a Taiwanese woman holding an astonishingly inappropriate bag for air travel at the Taoyuan International Airport which claimed to list a number of strictly banned and dangerous items inside.

This morning (April 3), a user of the social media platform Reddit posted a photograph which he said had been taken by a friend on a recent trip to Taipei and showed a Taiwanese woman waiting in the security line at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport carrying a bag which read in all caps “THIS BAG CONTAINS A GUN, A BOMB, A VERY LARGE KNIFE AND LOADS OF DRUGS.”

Within seven hours the post has already received 40,000 up votes and nearly 1,000 comments on Reddit. Many comments fixated on the strict standards of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners in the United States:     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/04/03
By: Lee Shien-feng and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, April 3 (CNA) A Thai woman who entered Taiwan March 11 on a visitor visa and

was detained by Taitung County police for engaging in sex work was recently confirmed to be infected with HIV, the county’s Public Health Bureau reported Tuesday.

The sex worker, who is 24-years-old and used the name Patty, sought out clients using social media platform LINE and could have had dozens of customers, the bureau said in a statement.

The woman has since been repatriated to Thailand, the bureau said, while advising those who had unprotected sex with her from March 13-22 to get tested for HIV within three months.

Free HIV and syphilis tests are available at public health centers around Taiwan or at a number of clinics that provide anonymous HIV testing around the country. Further information can be found at http://goo.gl/qk6z3Y or HIV/AIDS information service hotline: 089-352995.   [SOURCE]