Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/26
By: Bear Lee

Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Russia’s representative in Taipei Dmitrii Polianskii said Sunday that his office is interested in promoting exchanges between media outlets in Taiwan and his country.

Polianskii told Central News Agency (CNA) President Fan Hsiang-lin that since assuming his post in Taiwan in January, he has been very concerned about local media reports on events related to his country.

He said he found that most of the reports touching on Russia in Taiwanese media have originated from western mainstream media, and have more or less not been able to reflect “what has really or has not happened in Russia.”

“So it’s quite important for Taiwan’s media to have direct exchanges or cooperation with Russia’s media in order to obtain first-hand and balanced news content,” Polianskii said while visiting CNA.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 27, 2016
By: Joseph Yeh

Taiwan and Japan will soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to allow both countries to

dispatch physicians and assistance systems to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, should large-scale emergency situations occur, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has announced.

According to Shen Wen-chiang (沈文強), deputy director-general of MOFA’s Department of NGO International Affairs, both parties will sign the MOU at MOFA’s headquarters in Taipei on Tuesday afternoon. It is titled, “Asia-Pacific Region Joint Emergency Response Measures.”

The MOU is scheduled to be signed by local charity group Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps (路竹會) and the Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management (APAD), a Japanese NGO.

MOFA, as well as representatives from Japan’s Interchange Association, which represents Tokyo’s interests in Taipei in the absence of official diplomatic ties, will participate in the ceremony, Shen added.     [FULL  STORY]

A moratorium on Indonesian women traveling to work in the Middle East is creating new avenues for exploitation.

The News Lens
By: Edward White

Indonesia’s moratorium on women traveling to work as domestic maids in the Middle East has failed to

stem the flow of women who oftentimes end up in shocking conditions.

Exploitative employers, recruitment agencies and brokers are using new methods to circumvent the law, which has been in place since 2015, a frontline non-government organization (NGO) worker told The News Lens International.

The moratorium was established amid outcry at the execution of two Indonesian women in Saudi Arabia and followed an earlier pledge from Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Theresia Iswarini is a Jakarta-based project manager with Hivos, a Dutch NGO, which, among a range of development programs, works to help maids in the Middle East. Iswarini says that while the moratorium does not prohibit women returning to jobs, of the more than 2,000 women the NGO surveyed leaving Jakarta to work in the Middle East since the new law came into force, about 40 percent were going for the first time.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-25
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Office of the President said on Sunday that teachers of public schools work on Teacher’s Day while workers in the private sectors rest has been a matter of normality in the past 15 years, and this year the government just follows the practice according to regulations, so the issue of so called “conflicting steps” is not existent.

Former President Ma Ying-jeou was asked by media after participating in a road race on Sunday morning whether he felt the controversy surrounding Teacher’s Day reflects that “Tsai Ing-wen’s administration is chaotic.” Ma, at first, did not respond to the question, but after media’s subsequent pursuit of the question, he said, “There are basically no steps at all,” referring to Tsai’s administration.

Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang said that since the taking effect of the Regulations of Implementation Program for the Civil Servants’ Two-day-off Week in 2005, it has been a matter of normality in the past 15 years that the national holidays, including the Teacher’s Day, are workings days for military personnel, civil servants and public teachers, but are rest days for workers in private sectors.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/25
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, Sept. 25 (CNA) James Liao (廖俊智), president of Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institution, lauded the contributions of this year’s Tang Prize laureates on Sunday, saying they have expanded new frontiers.

Speaking at the opening of the 2016 Tang Prize award ceremony in Taipei, Liao said the wish of every researcher is to use the results of their research not just to resolve problems, but to improve lives.

“The six awardees here today have without a doubt made a long-lasting impact on the world through their contributions, and have inspired us to think and talk about the issues we need to address,” said Liao, whose institution convened the panels of judges that selected the Tang Prize winners.

“They (awardees) have explored and expanded new frontiers, challenged the existing doctrines and charted the ways for new discoveries,” he said. “They are bringing us closer to a sustainable world.”     [FULL  STORY]

ACTION WANTED:The TSU said the government should call an international news conference to reject the so-called ‘1992 consensus,’ as it is an under-the-table deal

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 26, 2016
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday urged the government to take measures in response to

China’s obstruction of Taiwan’s participation in this year’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) assembly in Canada, with the party calling on the government to openly denounce Beijing and reject the so-called “1992 consensus.”

The TSU said the government should take action in response to Beijing’s hostility after China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Friday last week attributed Taiwan’s exclusion from the assembly to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s refusal to acknowledge the “1992 consensus.”

The “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a supposed understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.

TSU Publicity Department deputy director Chen Chia-lin (陳嘉霖) said the nation’s exclusion from the ICAO assembly once again highlights China’s agenda to coerce Taiwan to the point of removing it from a nonpolitical flight safety body.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 26, 2016
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — “So, are the students fitting in alright?”

The question didn’t sit well with the director of the Yunlin County school from which the students had recently been transferred — and not for the first time.

“What do you mean ‘are they fitting in alright?’ Do you think they have a choice, even if they aren’t? What’s the point in asking then?” he said with a stiff frown as he stared into the distance.

One Transfer after Another

At the center of this years-long dispute are the students from Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo branch, who were relocated to the elementary school’s main campus on Sept. 5 for the fall term.

The Syucuo branch is located less than 1 kilometer from the Sixth Naphtha Refinery, Formosa Plastics Group’s largest petrochemical complex, while the main campus is 5.5 kilometers away.     [FULL  STORY]