The soy sauce packets from the five Japanese prefectures were found packaged with different fermented soybean products in Taiwan.

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/12
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Despite a ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures said to have been affected by radioactive contamination, soy sauce packets from these areas were found packaged with different fermented soybean products. Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a nationwide recall on Monday and will implement batch-by-batch customs inspections of Japanese foods in combo packs starting Monday.

An increasing number of soy sauce packets included with ready-to-eat fermented soybean products, also known as natto, have been recently found have been made in radioactive-affected Japanese prefectures whose food exports are banned in the country. The products in question are available on shelves of local Shinkong Mitsukoshi supermarkets under the brand name of Kajinoya and supermarket chains RT Mart under the brand name Yoshinoya.

Taiwan has initiated a ban on imports of food products from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures in Japan, areas that were contaminated with radiation since the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011 triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/12/12
By: Wang Cheng-chung and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) The Chinese military was demonstrating its multi-dimensional capability to invade Taiwan when its aircraft flew deliberately close to Taiwan air space recently, Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan (馮世寬) said on Monday.

The move was part of China’s military intimidation tactics and intended as a warning, Feng told lawmakers during a legislative hearing.

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) disclosed on Dec. 10 that four Chinese military aircraft passed close to Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in southern Taiwan that day as part of a long-distance training mission.

It was the second such mission by China since Nov. 25, when six military aircraft circled outside Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.    [FULL  STORY]

Tsai called on sons and daughters of S.E. Asian immigrants to learn their mothers’ languages and recognize their ‘double heritage’

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/11
By: Central News Agency

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) called the children of some 150,000 new immigrants from Southeast Asia “sons and daughters of New Taiwan” who will be “Taiwan’s future hope.”

Speaking to a gathering of participants in a singing contest staged by her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to celebrate the cultures of these new immigrants, Tsai called on their sons and daughters to learn their mothers’ languages and recognize their “double heritage” identity.

“You will become an important force with which Taiwan will go into the international community, into the world,” she said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/12/11
By: Chen Wei-ting and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Dec. 11 (CNA) The first cold air mass this winter is expected to affect Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday and bring temperatures in northern Taiwan down to as low as 13 degrees Celsius Thursday or Friday, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said Sunday.

Earlier Sunday, weather expert Wu Der-rong (吳德榮) said that chilly and wet weather is expected in the north Sunday, with northeast Taiwan, coastal areas of the north and the mountainous areas of greater Taipei likely to see significant rain.

There is also a chance of rain for some flatland areas of greater Taipei Sunday but it will gradually ease up later that day, Wu, a meteorologist and adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University, said on the website of the Meteorological Application & Development Foundation.

The weather will be cool in the north and warm in central and southern Taiwan that day, he forecast.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 12, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said he and former US deputy national

security adviser Stephen Yates discussed Taiwan-US ties and the emergence of the so-called “naturally independence-leaning” young people in Taiwan during dinner on Saturday night.

The dinner at a hot pot restaurant in Taipei was arranged after Lim on Thursday extended a Facebook invitation to Yates, who served as deputy security adviser to former US vice president Dick Cheney.

“I did not expect that Yates followed my Facebook page. Then I assume he will see this message: ‘Hi. How are you? Do you want to grab mutton hot pot with me?” Lim wrote on Facebook.

The singer-turned-politician on Saturday evening posted a photograph on Facebook showing him, Yates and a friend of Yates eating mutton hot pot and drinking beer.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: December 12, 2016
By: CNA

A South Korean woman, center, arrives in Taiwan late Sunday, Dec. 11. When Han Sung-un and her husband checked in at the second terminal of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 9:26 p.m., she was pronounced the 10 millionth foreign tourist arrival and showered with numerious gifts prepared by Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau. She had just completed her wedding ceremony earlier in the day in South Korea.    [SOURCE]

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‘Even if marriage equality were to be realized this time around, which appears increasingly unlikely, the LGBTQ community will not easily forget Tsai’s betrayal.’

The News Lens
Date: 2016/12/10
By: M. Bob Kao

Last month, the international media proclaimed that marriage equality was all but a done deal in

Taiwan. With long-time advocate and Democratic Progressive Party legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) leading the charge as the sponsor of the most widely supported of the three bills legalizing same-sex marriage, the result appeared inevitable. But as anticipated by local activists, detractors have come out of the woodwork to stall the process, muddle the debate and obstruct the bills.

One of the legal arguments opponents have put forth against marriage equality is that it is not supported by international law. They claim international law limits marriage to between a woman and a man and does not recognize same-sex marriage as a human right.

Few serious international law scholars believe that using international human rights conventions, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights, to oppose same-sex marriage would be legally persuasive. Even assuming international law does not mandate same-sex marriage, it does not follow that it bars it. Opponents have been unable to articulate why Taiwan should conform to jurisprudence that has not kept up with recent international development and why Taiwan cannot be a leader in human rights.   [FULL  STORY]