The government is seeking to strengthen trade, investment, tourism, education, and cultural relations with South and Southeast Asia.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/16
By: Jane Rickards

Southeast Asia may be close to Taiwan geographically, but Taiwanese traditionally

tended to see its people as little more than a source of cheap labor. Even in academia, says Edwin Yang, an instructor in the College of International Studies at National Taiwan Normal University, Southeast Asia until recently was not considered a serious field of study. “The majority of scholars still have the mentality of the Middle Kingdom – that Southeast Asia is home to Nanyang, the southern barbarians.”

The New Southbound Policy(南向政策) developed by the government of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) aims to radically change this mindset. With a motto of “yirenweiben” or “people orientation” and a 2017 budget of NT$4.1 billion (about US$134 million), the government is encouraging multiple social and business linkages with Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent that embody new principles of equality and reciprocity.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/16
By: Chen Wei-ting and Y.F. Low

Taipei, May 16 (CNA) Nearly 46 percent of retailers and small vendors in Taiwan do not comply with the ban on selling cigarettes to minors, with betel nut vendors the biggest violators, according to the results of a survey released by the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) on Tuesday.

Although the overall violation rate is lower than the 59.3 percent found in a similar survey conducted in 2012, there is still much room for improvement, the administration said.

The latest survey was conducted by the Consumers’ Foundation for the HPA between April and September 2016, in which workers dressed in school uniforms were sent to 660 retail shops and vendors in Taiwan’s 22 cities and counties to buy cigarettes.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: May 17, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday inaugurated a legislative

organization to address issues facing immigrants, tap into international talent and create a friendlier living environment for new arrivals.

Forty-one DPP legislators joined the Immigrant Affairs Development Alliance, including Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), whose constituency has the largest immigrant population in New Taipei City, which is the city with the most immigrants in Taiwan.

DPP caucus secretary-general Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said the establishment of the organization could unify and deepen the party’s interaction with immigrant communities to better understand their needs and turn their demands into law.
[FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 16, 2017
By: The China Post with Mirror Media

Graduate school student Salal Hasan Khudaida is now the only Yazidi living in Taiwan.

Khudaida arrived here after applying for a government scholarship a year and a half

ago to study chemical engineering at Taiwan Tech.

“My older brother came to study civil engineering at Taiwan University about 10 years ago and stayed for eight years. He’s returned to Iraq to teach at the University of Kurdistan. He is the one that told me I could apply for scholarship in Taiwan,” Khudaida said in fluent Mandarin.

“He said Taiwan is a great place and the people are very welcoming here.”

Only 25 years old, Khudaida has witnessed numerous atrocities and cruelty against his people, including during the first Persian Gulf War, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and, mostly recently, a siege with Islamic State militants during which the terror group committed genocide against the beleaguered religious minority, exterminating thousands of Yazidi men and sexually enslaving countless women and children.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan has the freest press in Asia, but is this freedom put to good use?

The News Lens
Date: 2017/05/15
By: Keith Menconi

Taiwan’s press is riding high on a wave of international praise. International media

advocacy group Reporters Without Borders recently decided to locate its first Asian bureau in Taipei, citing Taiwan’s relatively strong media freedoms. Freedom House, the Washington-based group championing human rights around the world, improved its appraisal of Taiwan’s civil liberties based largely on what it considered strong demonstrations of media independence and academic freedom.

But one local media watchdog group says that a reporting frenzy in recent weeks that has developed around an incident of suicide has revealed some of the remaining weaknesses of Taiwan’s media system.    [FULLSTORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/05/15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–If you are 75 years old or older in Taiwan and still drive a car, you will be required to renew your driver’s license with a physical exam and a cognitive test every three years, beginning on July 1, according to a new requirement set forth by the country’s motor vehicles administration authority.

However, the Directorate General of Highways (DGOH) said on Monday that there is a three-year reprieve period for those who just turn 75 after the measure takes effect, which means they will be allowed to renew before they turn 78.

The DGOH said that drivers 75 years old or older will have to pass a physical exam and a cognitive test to renew their driver’s licenses. Those who have a doctor’s certification that they do not have middle stage or more severe Alzheimer’s will be exempt from taking the cognitive test, the DGOH added.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/05/15
By: Hau Hsueh-chin, Wang Shu-fen and Lilian Wu

Taipei, May 15 (CNA) Former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will have to apply to

prison authorities to attend a fundraising dinner in Taipei this week, Justice Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said Monday.

Chiu said Chen, who was released from Taichung Prison on medical parole in January 2015, will have to apply first to the Taichung Prison and meet related requirements if he wants to attend the Ketagalan Foundation’s 12th anniversary fundraising dinner.

Media reports have said the fundraiser will be held on May 19 and the former president will address the occasion.    [FULL STORY]

NEW BLOOD:Amid public dissatisfaction, Tsai should reshuffle the Cabinet as her ministers are apparently incapable of executing her policies, Chen Nan-tien said

Taipei Times
Date: May 16, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

Saying her administration has sidestepped the issue, pro-independence groups

yesterday urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to proclaim the nation’s independence and sovereignty.

Tsai should use the first anniversary of her inauguration to announce that Taiwan is an independent country to express the nation’s sovereignty, former representative to Japan Lo Fu-chen (羅福全) said.

“Tsai’s refusal to accept the ‘1992 consensus’ last year has solidified the fact that Taiwan is not part of China, but a formal affirmation of Taiwan’s independence in Tsai’s capacity as president is needed,” Lo said.

The government should also enact an “anti-annexation” act to counter Beijing’s increasingly aggressive infiltration of Taiwan, he added.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: May 15, 2017
By: Joseph Yeh

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Over the past few weeks, the issue of Taiwan’s proposed

procurement of more advanced fighter jets from the U.S. has resurfaced after the military renewed its request to purchase U.S.-made F-35B fighters from the Donald Trump administration.

Since late 2011, during the previous Ma Ying-jeou administration, the R.O.C. Armed Forces have been expressing hope of procuring the advanced F-35 fifth-generation multirole fighter from the U.S.

And now, the Defense Ministry is renewing the request with the Republican administration in the U.S. after Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported last month that Washington was planning to sell Taiwan F-35s and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system.    [FULL  STORY]