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

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Once a year there is a free lunch, but this year, it was particularly tough getting

there.

Guests to Taipei’s year-end charity banquet — an annual event since 1996 — passed through cops and three barricaded checkpoints this year to get to their table in front of the Presidential Office.

That’s because the banquet coincided with a highly watched and heavily secured conference on pension reform taking place inside the Presidential Office.

In anticipation of a mass protest against the conference, Taipei police set up a 2,000-strong force in the perimeter of the building, through which 150 cooks and 800 volunteers shuffled through early Sunday with 44,000 plates and 30,000 chairs. They were followed by a procession of homeless people, low-income families with small children, the elderly and the disabled, who passed through the police cordon in a slow trickle to eat.

“Maybe it should have been held somewhere else this year,” one guest said.

The organizers — The Genesis Social Welfare Foundation and its sister groups — said this year’s banquet had drawn about 30,000 people, some coming from as far as New Taipei City’s Jinshan District.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-21

The government has expressed hopes for closer ties with the United States during the presidency of

Donald Trump.

In a tweet sent out Saturday, Taiwan Time, President Tsai Ing-wen wrote “Democracy is what ties Taiwan and the US together. Look forward to advancing our friendship & partnership”.

The Presidential Office also released a statement saying that Tsai believes the US is Taiwan’s most important ally, with the two sides enjoying close cooperation in the areas of politics, trade, security, and culture. The statement said that the people of Taiwan and the United States enjoy close friendship, and that the two sides have actively contributed to the peace, stability, and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region.

The foreign ministry also sent out a press release Saturday congratulating Trump and expressing hopes for closer ties with the US. The ministry says that Taiwan and the US share the common values of freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights. The ministry says that Taiwan looks forward to continuing cooperation with the US, strengthening bilateral ties, and working with the US for regional peace, stability and prosperity.    [SOURCE]

Taiwan’s difficult defense situation

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/21
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Work on the Navy’s 71-year-old Guppy II-class submarine will begin after the

Lunar New Year in order to make it last at least until its 80th anniversary, reports said Saturday.

The Navy and the Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corporation reportedly signed an agreement last month to spend 18 months strengthening its hull and navigational elements. The submarine has already entered the repair yard at Zuoying in Kaohsiung and work is due to start shortly after the Lunar New Year, reports said.

As long as the country has not started building its own submarine, the SS-791 Sea Lion, as the ancient vessel is known, will be used for training of Navy crews.

The Navy command recently took the unprecedented step of telling the media that it was on an offshore mission, thus dispelling doubts about the World War II-era submarine still being useful and safe the next century.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/21
By: Rita Cheng, Jay Chen and Elaine Hou

Washington, Jan. 20 (CNA) Former Premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) said Friday that he has asked about the possibility of U.S. President Donald Trump “selling out” Taiwan and got a reassurance from Edwin Feulner, a former president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Among the many “pointed questions” Yu put to Feulner, he asked whether Trump will “sell out” Taiwan, as some have suggested.

According to Yu, Feulner asked in return how any U.S. president could betray Taiwan when there exists the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), U.S. legislation governing relations with Taiwan.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Yu quoted Feulner, an advisor to the Trump transition team, as saying that Taiwan need not worry too much.    [FULL  STORY]

UNFAIRLY IMPUGNED?The KMT chairwoman slammed pension reform, saying that the president had defamed society’s ‘most stable groups,’ and deliberately stirred conflicts

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 22, 2017
By: Shih Hsiao-kuang / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said she is not against reforming

regulations requiring 3 percent of party members’ signatures to validate a bid for the party’s chair, following KMT Vice Chairman and party chair hopeful Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) description of the stipulation as a “technical barrier.”

While on a visit to the US on Friday, Hung told reporters in Los Angeles that the KMT’s internal election signature collection process is plagued with problems.

The process has long been viewed as a formality, and party members’ signatures are often invalidated after being found on more than one candidate’s signature list, Hung said, adding that the issue should be addressed by discussion and any changes to the electoral process should be approved by a party national congress.

She said she is not against reforms that aim to facilitate “authentic signature collection,” lowering the threshold, or even abolishing the process altogether.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: January 22, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A newborn boy was found alive on Saturday after being left overnight in an alley near

Fort Zeelandia in Tainan.

“He was found naked and his body temperature was very low,” said Huang Po-hsun (黃柏巽) of Tainan City Government’s Fire Bureau (安平消防隊).

The infant was sent to a local hospital for emergency treatment and is in stable condition as of press time.

‘Thought it was a cat’

Police in Greater Tainan’s Anping District (安平區) said they received a call at 8 a.m. Saturday from a man surnamed Liu, who said he found an abandoned baby near his home.

Liu said he had heard a faint but persistent cry around 4 a.m. Saturday but had not left the house to investigate.

“I thought it was a cat and came out only around 7 a.m. and saw him then,” he said.

Liu said he had followed the sound into an alley and found a newborn with an umbilical cord still attached. He was unclothed and wrapped only in a green bath towel, Liu said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-01-20

Ho Chen said New Year train services won’t be affected by strike. (CNA photo)

Train services over the Lunar New Year will not be affected by a potential strike. That’s the word from Transportation Minister Ho Chen Tan on Friday.

Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) staff have been complaining of working many overtime shifts without proper pay. The Taipei Railway Union recently said they would organize a strike over the Lunar New Year to protest the TRA’s refusal to negotiate. The protest, according to the union, will involve more than 1,000 workers.

Transport Minister Ho Chen Tan said Friday that he is confident rail services will not be affected.

“We hope the protesters are not assuming an unreasonable response from us and resort to confrontation. There is absolutely no need for that. We will try our best to negotiate We would like the public to know that our department is working hard to ensure train services over Lunar New Year will not be affected. We are very confident about that,” said Ho Chen.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan and the Philippines are the only two countries in Asia treating sexual infidelity as a criminal offence

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/01/20
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan is one of the few countries in the world that still criminalizes adultery.

South Korea decriminalized adultery in 2015, leaving Taiwan and the Philippines the only two countries in Asia treating sexual infidelity as a criminal offence. On Friday, several human rights experts called for the government to decriminalize adultery as in most of the practices women were treated unfairly.

Today, countries governed by Islamic law, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and several states across the United States still prohibit fornication outside marriage.

A five-day review meeting of Taiwan’s Second Report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was concluded on Friday, during which internationally-acclaimed experts from ten countries touched on several human rights issues happening in Taiwan. The experts urged the government to stop executing its death row prisoners. Other appeals include safeguarding LGBT rights, legally recognizing non-binary genders, and overhauling and updating the sexual education curriculum.

Another appeal that came as no surprise is the call to decriminalize adultery, as the experts say its treatment as a crime “will negatively impact women.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/01/20
By: Chiang Chun-liang and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Jan. 20 (CNA) The 2017 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Yunlin County will feature a puppet show area as part of efforts to promote Taiwan’s traditional theatrical arts, the county government said on Thursday.

The area, located at the festival’s Huwei site, will showcase two giant lanterns in the shape of Taiwanese puppet show characters Su Huan-jen (素還珍) and Luo Hou (羅喉), which are 8 meters and 4 meters high, respectively, according to Yunlin County Magistrate Lee Chin-yung (李進勇).

The lanterns are designed with mechanically movable heads and hands and will interact with each other and visitors in a puppet show simulation, Lee said.

The lantern festival will be held at two sites: the main one an agricultural park in Huwei Township and the secondary location the neighborhood around Zhongshan Street, one of the oldest areas in Beigang Township.

The Huwei site will be open from Feb. 11-19, while the Beigang area opens on Feb. 7 until Feb 19.  [SOURCE]