Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/12/2020
By: Chang Hsiung-feng and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, Aug. 12 (CNA) The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) on Wednesday encouraged the public to use a new app that shows the location of the nearest public drinking fountains, with the aim of reducing the use of bottled water.

The "Water refill map," or Offer Tea (奉茶) in Chinese, is available on both the iOS and Android systems and provides information on drinking fountains installed by government agencies and local businesses, the EPA said.

Currently, the app, which was launched a few months ago, shows more than 6,000 drinking fountains throughout Taiwan, the EPA said, adding that the number will double by the end of the year.

When that happens, there will be more public drinking fountains than convenience stores throughout the country, the EPA said.    [FULL  STORY]

POLICY PROPOSAL: Shorter quarantines with stricter test requirements would help keep the number of undetected asymptomatic cases low, preventing flare-ups of COVID-19

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 13, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙)

yesterday said a classification for foreign countries based on COVID-19 infection risk should be introduced, and the mandatory 14-day quarantine shortened to five days with two mandatory tests for travelers from high-risk countries.

New imported cases and foreign nationals testing positive after returning home from Taiwan has sparked public debate on whether the government should expand COVID-19 testing to all inbound travelers to better detect asymptomatic cases locally, he said.

Taiwan has so far done a good job detecting most COVID-19 cases at its border, due to strict border control policies, including testing of all inbound travelers with symptoms and a 14-day home quarantine for all arriving travelers, but it might miss asymptomatic cases, which might lead to local outbreaks, Chen added.

Based on data on imported cases, he said that the majority of them developed symptoms within five days after entering Taiwan and that a five-day quarantine with two tests might be more effective than the current policy.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 11 August, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Control Yuan President Chen Chu is condemning China for throttling press freedom in Hong Kong. Chen took office as the head of Taiwan’s top government watchdog body last week. She made the statement in her Facebook post on Tuesday.  

Her comments came a day after Hong Kong police arrested media mogul Jimmy Lai and others for “colluding with foreign forces to jeopardize national security”. On June 30, China imposed a national security law for Hong Kong.    [FULL  STORY]

Bloomberg Surveillance
Date: August 11th, 2020
 

Johns Hopkins SAIS Foreign Policy Institute Executive Director Carla Freeman discusses the U.S relations with Taiwan and the role technology plays in U.S.-China policy. She speaks on “Bloomberg Surveillance.” The Bloomberg School of Public Health is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.    [FULL  STORY]

Homemade license plate gives away undocumented Vietnamese worker

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/11
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An unaccounted for Vietnamese worker was apprehended after an immigration officer spotted him riding a motorcycle in southern Taiwan with a homemade license plate.

While a National Immigration Agency (NIA) officer was passing through Jiuru 1st Road in Kaohsiung's Sanming District, he noticed a man riding a heavy-duty motorcycle (above 250cc). When he looked at the motorcycle's rear license plate, he noticed that there was something odd about it.

He observed that the plate differed in size from the standard dimensions and the number appeared to have been scrawled on with a magic marker. Although the rider was wearing a helmet, the officer could discern that the man appeared to be a foreign national.

When the biker came to a halt at a stoplight, the officer asked him for his ID card. After running his number through the database, the officer soon realized that that the motorcyclist was an unaccounted for Vietnamese worker, and he arrested him on the spot.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/11/2020
By: William Yen

Taipei, Aug. 11 (CNA) Entries for the upcoming annual award ceremony that recognizes excellence in traditional arts and music have declined this year, prompting a plan for review of its submission rules, the organizers said Tuesday.

Only 643 entries were received this year for the 31st Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music, compared to 1,000 per year on average over the past four years, said Chen Chi-ming (陳濟民), director of the National Center for Traditional Arts, where the ceremony will be held on Oct. 24.

The decline was most noticeable in the music production category, which received only 481 entries this year, compared to an average of 870 annually over the past four years, Chen said.

"If you do the math, it has dropped around 45 percent (in that category)," he said.
[FULL  STORY]

‘A RICH STORY’: People need to visit Taichung to experience real gourmet food, the transportation minister said, as 21 restaurants there made it to the Bib Gourmand list

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 12, 2020
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

Seventy-five restaurants and street vendors in Taipei and Taichung made the Michelin Guide’s Bib Gourmand list this year, including 47 that were listed last year, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.

Insepctors from the Michelin Guide started rating restaurants and street vendor food in the nation’s capital in 2018.

For the third edition this year, inspectors would evaluate the gourmet scenes in Taipei and, for the first time, Taichung.

Before revealing the list of Michelin-starred restaurants, the guide first discloses its Bib Gourmand list, which contains restaurateurs and food vendors that serve high-quality three-course meals at a total cost of NT$1,000 or less.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 10 August, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

A female Formosan black bear gets released back into the wild![/caption] A female Formosan black bear was recently rehabilitated and released back into the wild!

You might think you’re looking at a still picture, but take a closer look, this bear’s ears are moving. She’s a shy one, she is, but she just needs a little time to get familiar with her surroundings. A sniff here, a sniff there, a brave first step… And then she’s off! 
[FULL  STORY]

T&he Washington Post
Date: August 10, 2020
Opinion by: Aaron Huang

Aaron Huang is a recent master’s graduate of Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. The views expressed are his own.

The U.S. military brought covid-19 to Wuhan, China. At the same time, the world does not truly know where the coronavirus originated. These conflicting stories are just two examples of disinformation packages that the Chinese government has been spreading since the pandemic began. In June, Twitter removed 170,000 accounts tied to Chinese state propaganda campaigns, including disinformation efforts surrounding covid-19 and the Hong Kong protests. These efforts extend well beyond China’s borders.

As we approach the U.S. elections in November, Beijing, like Moscow, has shown that it will not shy from disrupting America’s democracy using its cyber capabilities. Just two months ago, Google found that Chinese hackers were seeking to access the personal email accounts of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign staffers.

So how should America respond to Chinese offenses and ensure its electoral integrity? Taiwan, one of the countries ranked most inundated with foreign disinformation, offers a few lessons.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese man seized by Taiwan Coast Guard after attempting to sneak onto offshore island

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/08/10
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Chinese man claimed Sunday (Aug. 9) that he swam for seven hours from China to Taiwan's offshore Kinmen County in pursuit of the country's freedom and democracy.

As Taiwan braces for the impacts of the newly formed Tropical Storm Mekkhala, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said Monday (Aug. 10) that it had arrested a Chinese national for attempting to sneak into the country the day before. It said it received reports about a suspicious object floating in waters near Kinmen County Sunday morning and later identified it as a man from China's Sichuan province.

According to the CGA, the 45-year-old man, surnamed Li (李), claimed that he had left the Chinese city of Xiamen around 3 a.m. Sunday and swam for seven hours before reaching Kinmen. He explained that he could not stand the political environment in China and decided to take a risk to travel to the much freer Taiwan.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the CGA said Li has been placed in a designated facility to undergo quarantine for two weeks before being sent to prosecutors. Meanwhile, it said it needed more time to get clarification on Li's account.    [FULL  STORY]