Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/11
By: Kuan-lin Liu and Wang Yang-yu

Taipei, Jan. 11 (CNA) The Legal Aid Foundation launched an interpreter service

program at the beginning of this month for foreign nationals from Southeast Asia who do not speak Chinese and require legal assistance in Taiwan.

According to a press statement released Thursday, the foundation now offers interpreter services for the official languages of seven Southeast Asian nations — Indonesian, Vietnamese, Malay, Thai, Filipino, Burmese and Khmer (the official language of Cambodia).

The service, launched Jan. 1, is intended to facilitate the process through which Southeast Asian nationals in Taiwan can apply for the Legal Aid Foundation’s help, and provides interpreters who will be by the applicant’s side during the application and review process.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: January 10, 2018

The Republic of China (Taiwan) passport ranked 32nd in the latest Visa Restrictions

Index released Jan. 9 by London-headquartered citizenship and residency advisory firm Hanley and Partners.

For the 2018 report, the company evaluated passports from 199 countries and territories based on their visa-free and visa-on-arrival privileges in 219 destinations around the globe. According to the index, ROC passport holders enjoy such access in 134 countries and territories worldwide.

The latest tallies compiled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which also take e-visas into account, indicate that ROC passport holders enjoy preferential visa treatment in 166 countries and territories.    [FULL  STORY]

The Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival is the center’s first own-brand festival

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/10
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Reporter

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) –The Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center (TTTC) has announced the first Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival, which will run from March to May, featuring traditional performing arts.

TTTC Director Wu Rung-Shun noted at a press conference on Wednesday that the Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival is the center’s first own-brand festival, which is planned to be an annual event in the future. The festival will showcase Taiwan’s traditional performances in three main themes: traditional performing of Taiwan, traditional performing of the world, and traditional performing of the future.

The festival aims not only to interpret the uniqueness of Taiwanese traditional performing arts, but also to reveal the arts’ unlimited possibilities of renovation and collaboration with other art forms. Besides domestic traditional performances, the TTTC will also invite traditional performing troupes from around the world to stage their signature performances. This year, a special troupe from Korea will bring Taiwanese audience the country’s traditional performing art known as talchum or t’alch’um, a Korean dance performed while wearing a mask, miming, speaking and even sometimes singing.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/10
By: Hsiao Po-yang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Jan. 10 (CNA) The Yushan National Park Headquarters launched snow season controls Wednesday after the snowline on Yushan, Taiwan’s highest mountain, dropped to White Forest at an altitude of 3,000 meters.

Snow stopped falling at 12:25 p.m. that day at the North Peak weather monitoring station on Yushan, according to Central Weather Bureau data.

At one point 4.2 centimeters of snow had accumulated on the mountain before strong winds swept some of it away.

However, Paiyun Lodge, situated on Yushan at an elevation of 3,402 meters, received 5 cm of snow, while the Tataka area at an altitude of 2,600 meters experienced brief snow mixed with hail at around noon.    [FULL  STORY]

FLEXIBILITY: Special circumstances that allow employees to work for up to 12 consecutive days will not be allowed to become the norm, Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu said

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 11, 2018
By: Ann Maxon  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of Labor (MOL) yesterday said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has

kept her campaign promise about reducing work hours, adding that the labor law amendment allows more flexibility for workers and businesses.

“President Tsai Ing-wen definitely did not break her campaign promise. The amendments to the Labor Standard Act (勞動基準法) did not change the underlying principles of the previous amendments, but only added more flexibility,” Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu (林美珠) told a news conference at the ministry in Taipei.

The amendments allow for special circumstances in which employees can work up to 12 days consecutively, with a minimum rest time of eight hours between shifts and a monthly maximum overtime of 54 hours, on the condition that workers and employees agree to the conditions.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s migrant worker population is demanding greater say in policy that affects their lives in Taiwan and an end to the broker system.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/09
By: Brian Hioe

One in 10 Taiwanese children in elementary school and middle school has a foreign-born mother.

Despite heavy rain, wind and cold, several hundred migrant workers and supportive

Taiwanese activists marched on Jan. 7 from the Ministry of Labor to the Presidential Office in Taipei. There, migrant workers held a rally in front of the barriers that Taiwanese media have labelled “the largest restricted area in Taiwanese history.”

Migrant workers demanded that domestic workers and caregivers are also included under the Labor Standards Act, that the current broker system is abolished and that the government promotes direct hiring; that migrant workers in Taiwan be able to freely transfer to new employers; that there are no limitations set for working periods in Taiwan; and that non-citizens should have some policy making rights.

Taiwan’s migrant worker population has long called for an end to the current system in which employment brokers act as middlemen who arrange transport and employment for migrant workers, seeing as this allows them to impose high fees at every stage of the employment process.    [FULL  STORY]

If found profiting over NT$10 mil. from food products that are hazardous to public health, a business will lose its license

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/09
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration has just introduced

much stricter penalties for businesses found to be in violation of health codes.

The new regulations announced in late 2017 deal with expired goods, products containing insecticides, traces of radiation or industrial additives, as well as unsanitary packaging.

The potential penalties for violating the new regulations are among the strongest the FDA has ever enforced.

According to a report, FDA Division Chief Hsiao Hui-Wen stated that a business found to be in violation of the regulations, and who have profited over NT$10 million (US$ 333,000) from products that are deemed hazardous to the public’s health may be immediately shut down, and their company removed from the country’s business registry.    [FULL  STORY]