The China Post
Date: June 28, 2017
By: The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A union for department store clerks and sales workers protested outside the Ministry

of Labor Wednesday, demanding that the government enact a “Natural Disaster Work Holiday.”

Around 20 members of the union and other labor group members held a press conference outside the Labor Ministry.

They stressed that an amendment of the law was needed to keep employees from being forced to work during natural disasters.

The union pointed out that in the last two years, 70 percent of union members were asked to go to work during typhoons.

It said the legal provision for a work holiday during natural disasters was not enforced, resulting in many injuries and even death to employees on their way to work.

In 2015, when Typhoon Soudelor hit Taiwan, an employee of a well-known Taipei department store was hit on the head by a falling tree on her way home from work, resulting in an intracranial hemorrhage.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-06-27

President Tsai Ing-wen gave her encouragement to newly commissioned generals at a ceremony on

Tuesday. The generals of various ranks will be formally commissioned on Saturday.

Tsai said her administration has spent its first year working to reform the military and build up public respect for the armed forces.

“We want to raise the quality of life in the military. Whether it’s the uniform, equipment, or the barracks, we have already made tangible improvements,” Tsai said. “We want to make the military strong, so from self-sufficiency in military hardware to raising the quality of our personnel, we are moving stably forward.”

Tsai called on the new crop of generals to work towards making a military career a more attractive choice for young people of ability.    [FULL  STORY]

eforms postpone bankruptcy threat by 19 years

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/06/27
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Thanks to the reforms passed by the Legislative Yuan Tuesday, the country’s

pension system will not be threatened by bankruptcy until 2050, a government official said.

The need to avert financial problems for the retirement system is one of the main reasons why the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been pushing hard for reform.

One of the key elements was the abolition of the 18-percent preferential interest rate for savings by retired civil servants, teachers and military staff, which will be completed by 2021.

The change will save NT$14.5 billion (US$477 million) in interest payments per year, said Lin Wan-yi (林萬億), the deputy convener of the pension reform commission.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/06/27
By: Hsu Chih-wei and Elaine Hou

Taipei, June 27 (CNA) A Taiwanese university has played a middleman role in helping its students from

Ethiopia find a way to export coffee beans to Taiwan from their country at a better price, in an effort to address the problem of low incomes among the families of the students.

About 80 students from Ethiopia are studying at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in Taipei — the largest number in any Taiwanese university from the African country, a major coffee producer.

Many farmers in Ethiopia grow coffee, but many are exploited by resellers and earn little money, said Liao Ching-jong (廖慶榮), president of the university.

The university hopes to help the low-income families of its Ethiopian students, Liao said, referring to the reason behind a cooperative project between the university and Taiwanese coffee importers.    [FULL  STORY]

EXPENSIVE MOTHBALL:Hsu Kuo-yung said the Cabinet is evaluating whether to sell off the plant’s generator systems or to refit it as a fossil fuel power station

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 28, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The Cabinet yesterday denied reports that taxpayers would have to foot a NT$283 billion (US$9.33

billion) bill to shutter the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, saying that the government is still evaluating how to deal with the mothballed plant.

Chinese-language media reports said that each household might have to pay NT$5,600 and every industrial user NT$7.58 million to compensate for the costs incurred in the construction and maintenance of the facility in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City.

According to the reports, Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光) approved a proposal to require households and businesses to foot the bill as the government could not afford the expense given its push for the NT$882.49 billion Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program.

Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) yesterday rejected the reports, saying that the Cabinet is still evaluating possibilities for the plant, such as selling the generator systems to foreign buyers or refitting the plant for other purposes.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: June 27, 2017
By: The China Post

Government rules for how and when English is taught are proving highly unpopular, according to a poll

released Sunday.

About 75 percent of those polled say it’s “unreasonable” for the government to restrict teachers from teaching English pronunciation using zhuyin, Taiwan’s phonetic system, the Huang Kun-huei Foundation said at a press conference.

About 70 percent of respondents said it was “unreasonable” for the government to require that English lessons begin at the third grade, which they claimed was too late.

Hsu Li-chuan (許麗娟), an official from Education Ministry’s K-12 Education Administration, said the decision to start formal English instruction at the third grade was based on the research of experts and scholars and had been the policy for more than a decade.

Addressing the suggestion that English lessons begin in kindergarten, Hsu said the kindergarten should not be the same as what takes place in elementary schools.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-06-26

President Tsai Ing-wen has thanked a handful of US lawmakers for supporting US arms sales to Taiwan.

Eight US senators sent a letter dated June 23rd to US President Donald Trump, urging him to support the arms sales, as well as the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), and Taiwan’s self-defense. The TRA, passed by Congress in 1979, requires the United States to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons.

The eight senators also demanded that the Trump administration send notifications to Congress immediately about what they referred to as “a number of small Taiwan arms sales programs awaiting congressional notification.”

The letter was jointly signed by the eight senators, including John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese netizens have mixed reactions to PTT after Great Firewall of China is lowered

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/06/26
By Renée Salmonsen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s popular Bulletin Board System PTT (台灣批踢踢實業坊) has been

removed this month from China’s virtual blacklist.

There is much speculation about the catalyst of this decision. No official statement has been made. The absence of the firewall was first noticed and spread by Chinese bloggers on Weibo beginning June 13.

PTT is a forum for public discussion and advice on a wealth of topics, often given anonymously, in Taiwan. Begun by a group of students at National Taiwan University in 1995, PTT is the largest bulletin board system (BBS) in Taiwan.

PTT’s interface is renown for it’s old-school design, a feature many find bespoke and quirky, emphasizing the content and not web design.

Several Chinese bloggers did not share the nostalgic sentiment however, calling the website “a living IT fossil” or “the screen that pops up when a computer crashes.” Speculation is circulating that the Chinese government anticipated such negative reactions and subsequently lowered the block.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/06/26
By: Chen Wei-ting and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, June 26 (CNA) A magnitude 4.1 earthquake occurred in waters off eastern Taiwan at 8:42 p.m. on

Monday, according to the Central Weather Bureau.

The temblor struck in the Pacific Ocean about 38.3 kilometers northeast of the Hualien County Hall at a depth of 14.6 km, the bureau’s data showed.

It was felt most strongly in Hualien County’s Heping Township and Yilan County’s Nan’ao Township, where it registered 3 on Taiwan’s 1-7 earthquake intensity scale.

An intensity of 2 was felt in Taroko in Hualien and Niudou in Yilan, according to the bureau.

No casualties or injuries were reported.    [SOURCE]