Straight
Date: September 5th, 2020
By: Staff

TAIWANfest normally takes place along Granville Street, on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery, and at a multitude of local venues.

But these are not normal times. So the event that celebrates Taiwanese identity has pivoted to a virtual presentation in Vancouver, beginning September 5 and running throughout the month.

It includes artists' talks, an online gallery, peeks inside Taiwanese bookstores, and a multitude of videos on everything from soya sauce to serious explorations of the gravest issues facing humanity.

Below, you can see TaiwanFest articles that have appeared this year in the Georgia Straight newspaper and on this website.    [FULL  STORY]

Straits Times
Date: September 05, 2020

PRAGUE (AFP) – The Chinese embassy in Prague on Saturday (Sept 5) condemned this week's visit to Taiwan by a Czech delegation as "a serious infringement on China's national sovereignty".

A delegation of about 90 Czech politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists and journalists led by senate speaker Milos Vystrcil visited Taiwan from Aug 30 to Sept 4.

Under its One China policy, Beijing considers Taiwan a part of its territory, with reunification by force an option, and does not send official delegations to the island.

The Czech centre-left government officially accepts the One China policy, but Vystrcil is a member of the right-wing opposition Civic Democrats and is not bound by the protocol.
[FULL  STORY]

Limits vary according to animal part, taking into account local dietary habits, risk evaluations, international law

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/05
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) on Saturday (Sept. 5) revealed the maximum residue limits (MRLs) for ractopamine in U.S. pork and offal, eight days after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced the nation would broaden market access to American pork and beef.

The executive order scraps import restrictions on U.S. beef from cattle over 30 months old and on U.S. pork containing ractopamine. It is set to take effect from Jan. 1, 2021.

The health ministry has established MRLs for the controversial feed additive used to promote leanness in U.S. pork products. The regulated limits vary according to the animal part and are based on local dietary habits, professional risk evaluations, as well as international health standards.

According to Saturday's announcement, the MRLs for U.S. pork, which includes skin and fat, is 0.01 ppm; 0.04 ppm for the kidney; 0.04 ppm for the liver; 0.01 ppm for other edible parts including stomach, intestine, heart, lung, tongue, brain, and blood.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/05/2020
By: Wang Cheng-chung and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 5 (CNA) Lawmakers of Taiwan's opposition parties on Saturday demanded that the government's standards on the amounts of ractopamine residue allowed in imported U.S. pork be subjected to review by the legislative body.

When it comes to health concerns, the issue needs to be dealt with conscientiously, while the public should also be given at least 60 days to view and comment on the matter, New Power Party (NPP) lawmaker Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said at a press conference.

Such an important policy made concerning U.S. meat imports must be reviewed by relevant committees at the Legislature, Chen said, instead of being fast-tracked as an administrative order, which is currently the case and basically allows the new measure to take effect in seven days.

The NPP caucus has already notified Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) that it wants a cross-party discussion to be convened on Sept. 7 to discuss the matter, she said.
[FULL  STORY]

ENDANGERED REEFS: A unique habitat of algae and corals is threatened by a construction site, advocates say, adding the president must finally settle the problem

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 06, 2020 
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The Alliance for the Rescue of Datan Algae Reefs yesterday reiterated its call on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to protect Taoyuan’s algae reefs, urging her to be humble and live up to her promises.

The alliance created a temporary sculpture depicting the outline of Taiwan proper with 1,000 paper cups on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard.

In Mandarin, “humble” is pronounced qian bei (謙卑), which is similar to the pronunciation of “thousand cups.”

Alliance convener Pan Chong-cheng (潘忠政) said that Tsai should remember her own words, when in 2016 she asked her administration members to be “humble, humble and humble.”
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 04 September, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

Premier Su Tseng-chang says that imported meat products sold in Taiwan will be clearly labeled with their place of origin. This came in response to KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang’s call for a food safety referendum over the issue of imported meat. 

Beginning January 1, Taiwan will ease restrictions on imports of US pork and beef. Specifically, the country will begin allowing imports of pork from pigs treated with the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, as well as beef from US cattle older than 30 months.     [FULL  STORY]

WIB
Date: September 4, 2020 
By: Andy Wolf

Taiwan is denying claims that it shot down a Chinese PLA Air Force plane this week, claiming that all reports to the contrary are erroneous.

“The Air Force Command has refuted reports of shooting down Su-35. The information is false and completely untrue. The service strongly condemns this malicious act by deliberately creating and disseminating false information on the Internet in an attempt to confuse the audience,” the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Speculation began after a video of a burning warplane had been disseminated on Twitter, leading many to believe a PLAAF Su-35 had been downed after venturing into Taiwanese airspace.

“The Air Force Command emphasized that in order to maintain airspace security, it will continue to closely monitor the conditions of the sea and airspace around the Taiwan Strait; and provide correct information in a timely manner to prevent the spread of fake and false news, and to avoid social unrest, and appeals to people to rest assured,” the MoD stated.    [FULL  STORY]

Photographer perfectly aligns illustration of Chungshan Hall from NT$100 note with real thing

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/04
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A photographer captured this image matching an illustration of Chungshan Hall (中山樓) on the NT$100 (US$3.40) note with the real thing, which he found to be in a surprising state of disrepair.

On Aug. 20, Reddit user IB-45 took a photo showing an illustration of Chungshan Hall in Yangmingshan National Park on the NT$100 bill, perfectly aligned with the real-life edifice. When asked about the inspiration behind the composition, the photographer told Taiwan News that he decided to match real-life locations on Taiwan's currency after he hiked up Yushan North Peak and decided to take a merged landscape shot, with the NT$1,000 note.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/04/2020
By: Su Ssu-yun and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) FormoSat-7, a constellation of satellites for space weather research, has made significant contributions to improving global numerical weather predictions, Taiwan's National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) said Friday.

In a statement, NARLabs cited Sean Healy, a senior scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, as saying that data provided by FormoSat-7, also known as COSMIC-2, has greatly helped improve the accuracy of numerical weather forecasts at the center.

"In early 2020, radio occultation data helped reduce errors in 24-hour forecasts by about 4 percent. With the addition of COSMIC-2 and Spire Global data, radio occultation accounted for 13 or 14 percent of error reduction," Healy said during an Aug. 12 webinar titled "Spire Weather — A Global Constellation Solution."

Also since March of this year, meteorologists have been seeing dramatic reductions in the amount of data provided by atmospheric sensors mounted on commercial aircraft, after the global airline industry came to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.   [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 05, 2020
By: Kuo An-chia and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Taipei Cultural Assets Review Committee has designated the National Palace Museum building a historic building, but not a historic site.

A coalition of museum employees and nearby residents had petitioned the city to recognize the building as a historic site, citing that the younger Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall had been classified as such.

The museum, built in 1962, is more representative of the nation and is more historically significant than the memorial hall, and should receive the special designation, the coalition had argued.

However, the committee on Monday reached a different conclusion.    [FULL  STORY]