‘FREEDOM WINE’: Taiwanese are empathetic of Australians, the president said, while lawmakers called on their constituents to drink Australian wine to show their support
Taiwan would take action to back Australians at a time when they are “under tremendous pressure,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, as tensions between Australia and China heated up. Taipei and Canberra have been mutually supportive in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in exchanging critical medical materials in the early stages, Tsai said, before chairing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting in Taipei. Taiwan and Australia are like-minded nations, sharing the common values of democracy, freedom and human rights, while their economic and trade relations have also become close, she said. Canberra has been voicing support for Taiwan’s international
VIGILANCE: From tomorrow all arrivals must provide the result of a PCR test issued within three days of boarding, and the CECC asked people to report anyone who has faked their result
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) expects an increase in the number of returning travelers in the coming days, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday, adding that the varying qualities of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test reports from other countries is a big concern. Chen, who heads the center, was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders scholarship award ceremony in Taipei. “As the global COVID-19 situation is worsening, and with some holidays coming up, there might be an increase in the number of overseas Taiwanese returning to Taiwan,” he
SKIN, ENTRAILS: Placards also dotted the legislative chamber, with slogans such as ‘Oppose ractopamine pork — not US pork’ and ‘Much ado about nothing’
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday pelted Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) with pig skin and entrails as he addressed the Legislative Yuan on pork imports for the first time since the KMT’s boycott began on Sept. 18. Opposition lawmakers have been demanding an apology from the government for its decision to lift its ban on the importation of US pork containing residues of the livestock drug ractopamine. After Su arrived at 10am for his 13th attempt to deliver a regular policy report, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus moved to change the agenda to accommodate the premier. The motion resulted in cries of
CECC RULES: The autumn-winter COVID-19 prevention program, including mandatory mask wearing in eight types of public venues and indoor facilities, begins today
A temporary, two-week ban on Indonesian migrant workers entering the nation is to begin on Friday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced yesterday as it reported 24 new imported cases of COVID-19. Twenty of the new cases are Indonesian migrant workers who arrived between Nov. 11 and Friday last week, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. The cases were discovered during a special project on Friday to conduct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests on all 939 recently arrived Indonesian migrant workers in centralized quarantine facilities, as the majority of imported cases in the past
Passports with a redesigned cover highlighting Taiwan would be issued starting on Jan. 11, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The new cover design, which was announced on Sept. 2, highlights Taiwan by printing the word in a larger font. While the new passport cover retains “the Republic of China” in Chinese, the English name is printed along the outer circle of the national emblem, which would enable other nations to clearly identify that it is a Taiwanese passport, not a Chinese passport, the ministry said. The costs and application procedures for the new version are the same as
KAOHSIUNG CEREMONY: CPC Corp, Taiwan has what it takes to independently explore and develop fossil fuel resources abroad, the chairman of the state-run company said
The first shipment of oil from CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (CPC, 台灣中油) oil fields in Chad arrived in Kaohsiung Port yesterday, heralded by water cannon boats. The fanfare was to celebrate a successful end of a long and uncertain journey by the state-run company to develop its own oil fields. CPC in 2006 secured the rights to explore the Oryx Oilfield from the government of Chad, and struck oil three years later. In 2017, it signed a 25-year license to develop the field. “This is the culmination of 40 years of overseas prospecting for CPC,” chairman Jerry Ou (歐嘉瑞) said at
Nearly 700kg of ketamine powder was last week seized in a raid carried out by law enforcement at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said yesterday. The ketamine powder, which has an estimated market value of NT$1 billion (US$34.71 million), was the biggest shipment of illegal drugs ever smuggled into Taiwan by air, the bureau said. Acting on a tip-off, authorities on Thursday last week intercepted the Hong Kong shipment at the airport, CIB Deputy Commissioner Teng Hsueh-hsin (鄧學鑫) told a news conference in Taipei. The officers also arrested a pickup driver and three customs officers believed to have been involved,
China has powered up its first domestically developed nuclear reactor — the Hualong One — a significant step in Beijing’s attempts to become less dependent on Western allies for energy security and critical technology. The reactor, which was on Friday connected to the national grid, can generate 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year and cut carbon emissions by 8.16 million tonnes, the China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC, 中國核工企業集團) said. “This marks China breaking the monopoly of foreign nuclear power technology and officially entering the technology’s first batch of advanced countries,” CNNC said in a statement. Nuclear plants supplied less than 5 percent
A government-run information hotline for foreign residents has in the first 10 months of the year received nearly eight times the number of calls it had in the same period last year, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. From January to October, the hotline (0800-024-111) received 287,056 calls, the majority of which were concerning questions about policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said. The high volume of calls this year was in sharp contrast to the trend in the previous few years, where the Internet and other means of accessing information had led to a reduction in the number of
LABELING FINES: The FDA said products without clear labeling would draw fines of NT$30,000 to NT$3m, while misleading labels would be fined NT$40,000 to NT$4m
The government is to institute five measures to manage imports of US pork containing ractopamine, which are to be allowed from Jan. 1, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday. Although the animal feed additive is banned for use in pigs in Taiwan due to safety concerns, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that the nation would ease restrictions on imports of US pork containing traces of the drug within certain limits. The first measure is that import requests for US pork would not be approved if a first-time applicant has not dispatched employees to visit the farms on which the
China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) has reduced the font of its name on the exterior of its new cargo aircraft to allow more space to highlight images that represent Taiwan, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Lin was asked about the new exterior design of the airline’s six Boeing 777F aircraft after Jordan Arens uploaded to Jetphotos, an aviation photography Web site, a photo of a CAL airplane taken on Tuesday at Snohomish County Airport in Everett, Washington. Instead of “China Airlines” in the middle of the exterior, the name was painted close to the tail in a smaller
CLOSURE: The office said that an urgent response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to lower transmission risk meant its consular lobby would be closed until further notice
Nine personnel at Taiwan’s representative office in the US have tested positive for COVID-19, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US had reported two COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. Taiwan Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) wrote on Facebook that she had tested negative yesterday. As she has come into contact with people confirmed to have the disease, she is self-isolating at home, the ministry said. TECRO had previously been disinfected and would be again after the weekend, Hsiao said. Taiwan’s representative offices in Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey have previously confirmed
PENTAGON BLACKLIST: The reported move by the US administration is seen as seeking to cement Donald Trump’s tough-on-China legacy and to box Joe Biden in
US President Donald Trump’s administration is poised to add China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), and national offshore oil and gas producer China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC, 中國海洋石油) to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies, according to a document and sources, curbing their access to US investors and escalating tensions with Beijing weeks before president-elect Joe Biden takes office. Reuters last month reported that the US Department of Defense (DOD) was planning to designate four more Chinese companies as owned or controlled by the Chinese military to the list, bringing the number of Chinese companies affected
‘VIRUS DIPLOMACY’: The nation’s expertise in handling COVID-19 was among the reasons that it should not be excluded from the WHO, the European Parliament said
The European Parliament this week passed resolutions that support Taiwan’s bid to participate in the WHO and its intention to negotiate a trade pact with Taiwan. During its plenary session from Monday to Thursday, the parliament approved resolutions on the foreign policy consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak and the EU’s trade policy, parts of which were viewed as friendly toward Taiwan by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In a statement yesterday, the ministry welcomed the passage of the resolutions and thanked the parliament for its support for Taiwan. In the first resolution, the parliament cited Beijing’s increasing threats to Taiwan, the crackdown on
The gig began with a nun chanting on stage, but suddenly erupted into a wall of noise unleashed by distorted guitars and screamed sutras — the unique sound of Taiwan’s first Buddhist death metal band. The nation has a vibrant metal scene, but few outfits are quite as eye-catching as Dharma (達摩樂隊), a band that aims to deliver enlightenment via the medium of throaty eight-string guitars and guttural roars. Dressed in robes — black, of course — they use traditional Sanskrit sutras as lyrics, but everything else screams death metal, from bloody face paint on stage to growled vocals, relentless riffs and
BALANCING ACT: Indonesia is on the nation’s ‘high-risk’ list, and 50 Indonesian migrant workers who came since last month have tested positive, the CECC said
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday temporarily banned two more Indonesian recruitment agencies from sending migrant workers to Taiwan due to COVID-19. With immediate effect, migrant workers from the recruitment firms PT Bumenjaya Eka Putra and PT Mitra Sinergi Sukses are prohibited from entering Taiwan, bringing to eight the total number of agencies facing such restrictions. The center on Friday announced it had added PT Laatansa Lintas and PT Prima Duta Sejati to the list of firms temporarily banned from sending workers to Taiwan. The center first banned four Indonesian recruitment firms on Friday last week: PT Sentosa Karya Aditama, PT
People who travel abroad and return within three days would not have to provide a COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result prior to their departure for Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it reported four new imported cases. Under the center’s autumn-winter COVID-19 prevention measures that took effect yesterday, travelers arriving in Taiwan must provide a PCR test result issued within three days of their boarding a flight to Taiwan. The center had previously said that travelers who met three conditions could return to Taiwan without a valid PCR test result, but they would have to sign
A Singaporean woman, who was infected with COVID-19 in March when she was pregnant, has given birth to a baby with the virus antibodies, offering a new clue as to whether the infection can be transferred from mother to child. The baby was born this month without COVID-19 but with the antibodies, the Straits Times newspaper reported yesterday, citing the mother. “My doctor suspects I have transferred my COVID-19 antibodies to him during my pregnancy,” Celine Ng-Chan told the paper. Ng-Chan had been mildly ill from the disease and was discharged from hospital after two-and-a-half weeks, the Straits Times said. Ng-Chan and the National
Beijing’s latest attempt at psychological warfare through heavily biased online media is aimed at sowing discord and polarizing Taiwanese society, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s comment came in response to Chinese network Southeast Television, which late last month began broadcasting an online program featuring commentary by Taiwanese unification supporters that authorities suspect was filmed illegally in Taiwan. To circumvent cross-strait regulations, the broadcaster collaborated with online service provider Baidu to air the series titles Diverse Voices From the Taiwan Strait (台海百家說). Only Taiwanese are shown on camera, without revealing the host, interviewer or production team. In one video, political commentator and
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