33 air quality monitoring stations flashed either an orange or red warning around noon

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/02/25
By:  Central News Agency

TAIPEI (CNA) — The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) warned of poor air

quality in western Taiwan on Sunday as 33 air quality monitoring stations flashed either an orange or red warning around noon, indicating generally unhealthy air.

As of 1:00 p.m., the EPA’s Air Quality Index (AQI) flashed red, signaling unhealthy air for the general public, at 6 monitoring stations in the western half of the island, including Chiayi, Tainan, as well as Kaohsiung in the south, according to the AQI network (http://taqm.epa.gov.tw/taqm/en/).

Meanwhile, 27 monitoring stations in Taiwan, as well as the outlying county of Kinmen, flashed orange, indicating unhealthy air for sensitive groups, the website showed.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/25
By: Wang Shu-fen and William Yen

Kaohsiung, Feb. 25 (CNA) An 87-year-old Japanese alumna of Kaohsiung Municipal

Kaohsiung Girls’ Senior High School (KGHS) revisited her old school after 72 years Sunday.

Michiko Matsuo was welcomed with warm hugs as fond memories of her old days brought up tears of joy and nostalgia.

When touring the school, Matsuo came across a familiar banyan tree. “Oh, old banyan tree,” Matsuo said, making reference to the 90-year-old tree, adding “this tree was rather small when I was here.”

Born in 1931, Matsuo and her family came to Taiwan at the age of 12 with her father who was employed by the military and lived in Fengshan near downtown Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]

SEEING RED: China threatened to have the African nation deny any Taiwanese entry if participants dared to show up to a Hakka Affairs Council culinary and musical event

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 26, 2018
By: Wu Hsin-tien and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) yesterday condemned China for pressuring a Mauritius

hotel into canceling a cultural exchange event planned to take place there this week.

The event, a celebration of Hakka cuisine, was to be held from tomorrow until Wednesday next week at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis, the capital, but the hotel on Saturday afternoon notified the council that it would cancel the event, citing pressure from the local Chinese embassy, HAC Deputy Minister Yang Chang-chen (楊長鎮) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

The embassy also threatened that any attempt by council Department of Culture and Education Director Fan Tso-ming (范佐銘) or others associated with the planned event to visit Mauritius would result in them being denied entry and might affect the ability of other Taiwanese to visit the country, he said.

The council is today holding the same event in South Africa, where activities began yesterday, after which it planned to take the event to Mauritius tomorrow, as 80 percent of ethnic Chinese residents there are of Hakka heritage.    [FULL  STORY]

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Date: Feb 24, 2018
By: Keith Bradsher, The New York Times

BEIJING — As China ratchets up pressure on Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its territory, the United States is cautiously starting to push back.

In recent months, Chinese strategic bombers have been conducting “island encirclement” flights, escorted by fighter jets. The Chinese government has discouraged tourism to Taiwan and imports of goods such as fish over the past year and a half, hurting its economy. And China persuaded the island’s most important remaining diplomatic ally, Panama, to switch diplomatic recognition last summer from Taipei to Beijing.

Concern about Taiwan’s fate now appears to be building slowly in Washington, even as President Donald Trump continues to seek China’s help on other issues. Through his first year in office, Trump pressed Beijing to put more pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, with limited success. He has also sought to limit China’s nearly $400 billion trade surplus with the United States, which has nonetheless continued to widen.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/02/24
By:  Central News Agency

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) Taiwan’s cabinet, the Executive Yuan, has vowed to act if it finds

local toilet paper vendors have colluded to raise prices without good reason.

In a statement released on Friday, the Executive Yuan said the government’s price stabilization task force under the Cabinet has asked the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and the Consumer Protection Committee to look into an announcement made by toilet paper brands earlier in the day that they intend to raise prices.

Retailers in Taiwan, including large-sized hypermarket operators, said they have been informed by toilet paper suppliers that product prices will rise by 10-30 percent, starting from mid-March at the earliest due to a spike in pulp prices in the international market.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/24
By: Liu Chien-pang and Kuan-lin Liu

Taipei, Feb. 24 (CNA) A National Immigration Agency (NIA) specialized operation brigade in Taipei busted a prostitution ring on Thursday and arrested 10 Vietnamese women and three Taiwanese johns, the agency said Saturday.

Chiu Yao-yung (邱耀雍), deputy head of the Taipei brigade, said the NIA received a tip in January that several Vietnamese migrant workers who were unaccounted for were working as prostitutes in the Greater Taipei area.

In a surveillance operation that spanned more than a month, the brigade tracked the migrant workers to a commercial and residential building near Minsheng East Road, Section 2 in the city’s Zhongshan District.    [FULL  STORY]