Catholic Herald
Date: September 15, 2020
By: Courtney Mares/CNA

Taiwan’s foreign ministry says it has received assurances from the Vatican regarding the renewal of the Vatican-China deal.

Amid concern over what a Vatican decision to renew its 2018 accord with Beijing would mean for the Holy See’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, Joanne Ou, spokesperson for Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told journalists that the Vatican had stressed that its agreement was pastoral rather than political.

“The Vatican has assured us repeatedly that the bishop appointment deal with China is a religious rather than a diplomatic matter,” Ou said at a press conference on September 15, according to the national news agency of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC).

The Holy See is the only remaining country in Europe that recognizes Taiwan as a country. For 77 years, the Holy See has had formal diplomatic relations with the ROC, while the Church has not had an official diplomatic presence on the mainland People’s Republic of China (PRC) since it was officially expelled by Beijing in 1951.    [FULL  STORY]

20-meter transparent section of skywalk allows visitors to watch ocean waves, cliffs below

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

.TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Fengbin Township Office in Hualien County has drawn up measures to lend helmets to people visiting the Fengbin Skywalk for free to increase their safety.

Touted as “the most thrilling skywalk in Taiwan,” the 150-meter Fengbin Skywalk is built from an old narrow trail constructed during the Japanese colonial period that traversed the face of cliffs, connecting two coastal villages.

A 20-meter transparent section of the skywalk, built from steel H-beams and tempered glass, is intentionally placed 50 meters above the sea and allows visitors to enjoy the ocean waves crashing against the shore and the majestic cliffs under their feet.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/15/2020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Sept. 15 (CNA) A total of eight television shows featuring such issues as Taiwan's COVID-19 prevention measures and industrial development are being aired in four Southeast Asian countries to promote ties, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

The second season of "Embracing Taiwan" is produced by MOFA in cooperation with TV stations in the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, with the content varying in accordance with different preferences, the ministry said at a press event on Tuesday.

Two 22-minute episodes will air in each country, it said.

The shows, which started last month and will run until the end of September, were made with famous local TV hosts, including Dam Phuong Linh from Vietnam, Yepun Thanat Thanajirachai in Thailand, Sherry Ibrahim from Malaysia, as well as Rovilson Fernandez and Valerie Tan in the Philippines.    [FULL  STORY]

TAIWAN MADE: The system, which is to be used with Formosat-7/COSMIC2, allows for greater flexibility and information security protection, an NSPO researcher said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 16, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporterT

The National Space Organization (NSPO) yesterday said that it has developed the nation’s first cross-platform satellite operation control system, which is to control the Formosat-7/COSMIC2 constellation and would save nearly NT$500 million (US$17.02 million) on project development.

The system was trialed on Formosat-5, a remote sensing satellite launched in 2017, and later used to control the Formosat-7 constellation, National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) president Wu Kuang-chong (吳光鐘) told a news conference at the NSPO in Hsinchu.

A Taiwan-US collaboration, the six-satellite Formosat-7, which conducts weather observations, was launched on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy in June last year.

Four of the Formosat-7 satellites have moved from their 720km deployment orbit to 550km mission orbits on separate planes, while the other two would move to their mission orbits by February next year, the NSPO said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 14 September, 2020
By: Katherine Wei

In a CNN interview on Sunday, Former Vice President Chen Chien-jen shared Taiwan’s experiences in combating the spread of COVID-19.

Chen told CNN host Fareed Zakaria about how Taiwan and the US differed in their efforts to curb the virus. The former vice president said that sealing off a town to prevent the virus from spreading — the way the Chinese city of Wuhan did — was not the best option. He suggested instead: contact tracing, a robust quarantine system, and social distancing.    [FULL  STORY]

NEWS.am
Date: 14.09.2020

China has warned the United States of potentially serious damage to relations between the two countries if Washington does not back down from an upcoming economic meeting with Taiwan, which is expected to be attended by a senior US official, Reuters reported.

Chinese MFA spokesman Wang Wenbin called on the US to end all forms of official exchanges with Taiwan to avoid serious damage to China-US relations, peace, and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese media reported that the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Keith Krach is planning to visit the island later this week for economic and commercial dialogue with the Taiwan government.

China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and is categorically opposed to any official contacts between other countries and the island.    [FULL  STORY]

Han Kuang computer simulation component will last 5 consecutive days

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/14
By: Kelvin Chen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The computer component of the 36th Han Kuang military exercise kicked off Monday (Sept. 14).

The drills will be conducted over five consecutive days, 24-hours each day, in order to hone decision-making capabilities and improve the efficiency of giving orders at all levels of command. Due to the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus, the U.S. military will not send personnel to Taiwan to observe this year; instead, staff from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) will be in attendance, Yahoo News reported.

The live-fire portion of the Han Kuang exercise was held in mid-July and included joint battalion operations, deployment of reserve forces, and the firing of torpedoes. In other years, the U.S. military ordinarily sends a team to observe the drills and give feedback.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said that both the AIT and the U.S. State Department have increased the level of communications with Taiwan during this time. Although this drill is on a computer, the AIT has sent personnel to understand the nation’s military operations, which is a good thing for Taiwan’s security, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/14/2020
By: Huang Li-yun and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Sept. 14 (CNA) Taiwan will grant a further 30-day extension of stay to foreign visitors who entered the country on or before March 21 and have no record of overstaying, the National Immigration Agency announced Monday.

The automatic extension will apply to all foreign nationals who entered Taiwan visa-free or on a visitor's or landing visa on or before that date.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 15, 2020
By: Angelica Oung / Staff reporter, with CNA

Rescuers on Monday recovered the body of a man who disappeared in a flash flood that swept away two tents near Lishi Creek (栗栖溪) in Nantou County’s Renai Township (仁愛) on Sunday.

Search-and-rescue personnel resumed looking for the 53-year-old man surnamed Lu (盧) at about 7am yesterday morning, after low visibility had forced them to halt the search on Sunday evening.

His body was recovered at about 8:30am.

Lu was one of four people from two Taichung families carried off early on Sunday as they slept in their tents.    [FULL  STORY]