The China Post
Date: April 24, 2017
By: Stephanie Chao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — One of the last things that anyone would probably expect to happen

to them is to lose their home and suddenly end up on the streets.

However, according to people well versed on the issue, today’s unpredictable social and economic environment means that being made homeless could happen to anyone, with experts calling for more to be done to resolve the situation.
While human rights activism has advanced in Taiwan over the years, Homeless of Taiwan member Kuo Ying-ching said a deep stigma is still attached to those who find themselves homeless.

On March 31, Homeless of Taiwan, Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR), Taiwan Alliance of Anti-Forced Eviction and other nonprofit organizations successfully stalled the Taipei City Government’s attempts to throw away the belongings of a number of homeless congregated at Taipei Main Station, originally scheduled to be carried out on April 1.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-04-228

President Tsai Ing-wen has praised the upcoming launch of Hakka Radio as an important step in promoting the Hakka language.

The station, set launch in June, will broadcast Hakka language programming around

Taiwan. The Hakka language is the ancestral mother tongue of about 18% of Taiwan’s population, but has seen a decline among younger people.

On Saturday, President Tsai Ing-wen attended the opening ceremony of the Hakka Tung Blossom Festival, an annual celebration of Hakka culture and heritage. During the event, Tsai, who has Hakka ancestry herself, called Hakka a national language and said that it needs to be spread. The president said that with the opening of the radio station, Hakka language content will be available both on television and on the airwaves.

According the Hakka Affairs Council, the station will work to continue Hakka’s use as a mother tongue, elevate Hakka culture, and support Hakka people’s rights to media access and cultural expression.    [SOURCE]

Little-known Taiwan Independence group shows pictures of two masked people

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/04/22
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A group calling itself the “Taiwan Nation Engineering Team” (台

灣國工程隊) claimed responsibility Saturday for the beheading of a statue of late President Chiang Kai-shek near a famous flower clock at Taipei City’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) National Park.

Passersby had found the statue in the morning daubed with red paint and its pedestal covered in Chinese-language graffiti naming the former president as the man responsible for the 228 Incident, the 1947 uprising which was put down at the cost of an estimated 28,000 lives.

Police said the head was missing, but a small saw had been found nearby, while footage from surveillance cameras in the area was being watched to find a suspect. The only cameras in the neighborhood had been posted at intersections, reports said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 017/04/22
By: Hsieh Chia-chen and Y.F. Low

Taipei, April 22 (CNA) The majority of people who became naturalized citizens of the

Republic of China (Taiwan) in 2016 were spouses of ROC citizens, with nearly 70 percent coming from Vietnam, according to government statistics released Saturday.

Last year, 3,252 people were naturalized as ROC citizens, a decrease of 360, or 10 percent, from 2015, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said.

The drop reflected the decline beginning in 2005 in the number of international marriages, the ministry said. It is believed that as the economies of Southeast Asia and mainland China continue to grow, fewer women from those countries choose to leave their home country to marry abroad, including to Taiwanese men.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: April 23, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Government data released yesterday showed that 623 Taiwanese

people gave up their R.O.C. citizenship in 2016, with most of them replacing it with South Korean, Japanese and Singaporean citizenship, in that order.

The remaining became citizens of Germany (49), the United States (43), the Philippines (17) and Vietnam (17), the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said.

More women than men gave up their R.O.C. citizenship. According to ministry data, 333, or 53.45 percent, were women, compared to 290 men,

In 2016, 189 people who previously had renounced their R.O.C. citizens applied to regain citizenships, a 43-person decrease compared to the number of 2015, the MOI said. Of those who regained their citizenships, 124, or 65.61 percent were females, and 65, or 34.39 percent were males.

The majority of those (55.56 percent) who regained their R.O.C. citizens had been Japanese citizens, with 13.76 percent Singaporeans, the MOI said.
[FULL  STORY]

The life of the Taiwan-born Argentine actor spans across continents and cultures.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/04/21
By: James Baron

With Venezuela in the midst of economic and social meltdown, “El Peor Hombre de Mundo (The Worst Man in the World)” might seem about as far removed from the average Caraquenian experience as imaginable. Released at the end of 2016, this corny comedy depicts the travails of a serial philanderer on a trail of redemption. Bars, swank penthouse parties and chummy workouts in tranquil parks serve as backdrops to the flashbacks that introspection.

It’s a depiction of Caracas that seems scarcely credible and one that might seem inappropriate given the facts on the ground: murder and, now, near mayhem. Certainly some local critics were far from impressed with what they saw. “A neutral Caracas,” sneers one.    [FULL  STORY]

I-Mei program guarantees higher prices for products such as red quinoa

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/04/21
By: Matthew Strong,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – After I-Mei Foods Co. (義美食品公司) received praise last year

for using locally produced soy beans and black beans to launch “100 percent non-genetically modified Taiwanese soy milk,” it again purchased contractually produced soy beans, black beans, red dates, camellia seed and red quinoa to turn into fresh quality products.

On Friday, I-Mei presented its most recent efforts to support local agriculture at a news conference under the motto “Support Taiwan agriculture and contractual local products.”

I-Mei Foods CEO Luis Ko said Taiwan produced many types of quality agricultural produce, but because they went mostly undiscovered, they could not face up to international competition, leading to a limited degree of competitiveness for local agriculture. Consumers were unable to obtain food they could feel safe about, while farmers could not receive a fair income, Ko said. In order to fulfill the company’s social responsibility, I-Mei had raised the prices it paid in the hope of helping Taiwan’s agricultural development and guaranteeing food safety for consumers, as well as inspiring other enterprises to follow its example.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/04/21
By: Wang Shwu-fen and Elizabeth Hsu

Kaohsiung, April 21 (CNA) Kaohsiung, the largest city in southern Taiwan, has drafted a plan to construct a third line for its mass rapid transit (MRT) system within an eight-year period, according to Wu Yi-lung (吳義隆), director of the city’s Mass Rapid Transit Bureau.

The planned line, which will be coded as the yellow line, will help create a “seamless” mass transport network incorporating the MRT, light-rail and railway lines in the city, Wu said on Friday.

He was delivering a briefing on the project to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who was on a visit to inspect the port city’s transportation infrastructure.    [FULL  STORY]