Virus Outbreak: Pandemic could cut GDP growth by 1.4%: minister
Virus Outbreak: Pandemic could cut GDP growth by 1.4%: ministerBy Crystal Hsu / Staff reporterThe COVID-19 pandemic might weigh on the nation’s economy through the second quarter and erase up to 1.4 percentage points from GDP growth this year in the worst-case scenario, National Development Council Minister Chen Mei-ling (陳美伶) said yesterday. The government would seek to retain GDP growth of more than 2 percent by introducing relief funds and stimulus measures that could be stepped up if necessary, she said. National Development Council Minister Chen Mei-ling speaks at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei TimesDisruptions caused by the coronavirus on global economic activity would dent Taiwan’s GDP growth by 0.66 percentage points this year, if the world can contain the disease by June, she said. A protracted outbreak could reduce GDP growth by 1.4 percentage points in the worst-case scenario, in which tourist arrivals would continue to dwindle and export orders dry up, she added.
Source:Taipei Times
March 26, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: Mayors Ko, Hou promise medical aid
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi, left, and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je gesture at each other at a news conference following a joint city mayoral level meeting in Taipei yesterday. At yesterday’s meeting, the two mayors constantly applauded each other, vowing to work together to stop the virus’ spread. Taipei City Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said that each city notifies the other about any coronavirus-related information so that officials stay informed. Hou said that New Taipei City would follow the central government’s guidance on disease prevention, adding that the two city leaders are shoulder-to-shoulder on that issue. Separately, Huang said that the Taipei City Government is considering a special scheme that would hire volunteers to help with home quarantines.
Source:Taipei Times
March 26, 2020 15:56 UTC
Commission plans to prepare OTT rules by July
Commission plans to prepare OTT rules by JulyBy Shelley Shan / Staff reporterThe National Communications Commission (NCC) aims to present draft regulations governing over-the-top (OTT) media providers before the end of July, NCC Chairman Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥) said yesterday. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) asked Chen about the commission’s progress on proposed regulations for OTT media, including Netflix, iQiyi and Line TV. Hong asked why OTT content from China is a national security issue, when TV stations are allowed to broadcast Chinese TV series. However, such an obligation is not imposed on streaming media, he said. While big online streaming media, such as iQiyi, would definitely be regulated, the commission has yet to determine how they would be managed, Chen said.
Source:Taipei Times
March 23, 2020 15:56 UTC
Blind boy leads book borrowers in Kaohsiung
Blind boy leads book borrowers in KaohsiungBy Hsu Li-chuan and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writerAn 11-year-old blind boy has received a “Love Reading Expert” award from the Kaohsiung Main Public Library for reading 161 books last year. Wu Ching-yu (吳晉宇) did not let visual loss stop him learning, the library said. Wu lost his vision due to retinal detachment at birth and had to spend his first two years in hospital. Wu Ching-yu, right, accompanied by his father, reads a book at the Kaohsiung Main Public Library on Friday. The Love Reading Expert award, which was established by the Ministry of Education, encourages reading and honors 24 winners every year.
Source:Taipei Times
March 23, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: Social distancing key to limiting COVID-19 spread
Virus Outbreak: Social distancing key to limiting COVID-19 spreadBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterA public health expert yesterday warned that too many people are meeting in small groups in coffee shops and restaurants without keeping a proper distance from one another, as he urged the government to loosen the criteria for testing young Taiwanese returning from abroad for COVID-19. People need to keep a social distance of at least 2m, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health dean Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) said as the college presented its seventh weekly report on COVID-19 at a morning news conference. More than 300,000 confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in more than three-quarters of all countries, and many nations have implemented different levels of border controls and restrictions to curb the spread, he said. National Taiwan University College of Public Health associate professor Chang Shu-sen speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. However, Chan said that the public needs to remember that the common enemy is the virus, not infected people, those under quarantine or people who have direct contact with them, such as healthcare workers.
Source:Taipei Times
March 23, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: New rules for domestic flights announced
Virus Outbreak: New rules for domestic flights announcedBy Shelley Shan / Staff reporter, with CNAPassengers on domestic flights would not be allowed to board if their temperature is more than 37.5°C or if they refuse to have their temperatures taken, Uni Air (立榮航空) and Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) said yesterday. Several airlines have decided to suspend flights to Taiwan amid plummeting demand and increasingly tight border controls around the world. Thai AirAsia on Saturday said it was canceling all international flights from Wednesday to April 25, including its Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport-Chiang Mai route. AirAsia said its Taoyuan-Sabah flights and Kaohsiung International Airport-Kuala Lumpur flights, as well as all long-haul flights starting with the code D7, would be canceled until Tuesday next week, while flights from Taoyuan to Nagoya, Japan, would be canceled until April 24. Jetstar Asia Airways said it was suspending all flights from today to April 15, and Malinda Air said its Taoyuan-Kuala Lumpur flights would be canceled through April 30.
Source:Taipei Times
March 22, 2020 15:56 UTC
Speed control system to help save leopard cats
Speed control system to help save leopard catsBy Shelley Shan / Staff reporterThe Directorate-General of Highways is installing an average speed control system along a section of Highway No. 13 in Miaoli County to prevent leopard cats being killed by traffic. 3 in Miaoli’s Jhuolan Township (卓蘭), where leopard cats appear frequently. Because the natural habitats of leopard cats are sundered by highways, they are often killed by traffic, it added. The agency said that it produced a film documenting the leopard cat’s recovery and its return to its natural habitat, which can be viewed at http://a1.pise.pw/QTKKA.
Source:Taipei Times
March 22, 2020 15:56 UTC
John J. Tkacik, Jr. On Taiwan: Taiwan’s place on the coronavirus map
John J. Tkacik, Jr. On Taiwan: Taiwan’s place on the coronavirus mapSwirling within the cybersphere’s vast ocean of reports, statistics and graphs about the international coronavirus pandemic, there is a short sentence out there in the worldwide web, which the Chinese government doesn’t want people to notice. A Johns Hopkins engineering professor assembled the map’s dashboard, and a Chinese doctoral student, Ensheng Dong (董恩盛), took over as the map’s webmaster. The JHU map lumped Taiwan’s numbers together with China’s, and consequently buried some extremely important epidemiological data. State called JHU and, after a friendly conversation, “Taiwan*” was restored in all its ambiguous glory to the JHU map — with an asterisk. So, Messrs. Dong’s and Du’s vision of their JHU map database accessing Taiwan’s health data, together with Japan’s, Korea’s, Singapore’s, and Hong Kong’s, is not far-fetched.
Source:Taipei Times
March 22, 2020 15:56 UTC
Proposal seeks tighter controls on ‘conclave’ attendees
The proposal came after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) sparked controversy by asking for confidential military information from the Ministry of National Defense. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai wipes his forehead during a meeting at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on March 13. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei TimesThe legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee is to review the proposal. Lai called on the KMT caucus to support his proposal, which he said would “save them a lot of trouble” if passed. However, the proposal is too personal and its scope needs to be more clearly defined to avoid it having overly deep implications, he said.
Source:Taipei Times
March 22, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: Flight transfers via Taiwan banned
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the center, said all flight transits would be banned through April 7. Visitors to a New Taipei City columbarium yesterday present offerings and pray, with tables spaced further apart than normal for social distancing as part of COVID-19 disease prevention measures. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei TimesThe health minister said the 16 latest cases were 13 imported ones and three domestic, including a nurse at a long-term care center, the health minister said. All 81 people at the care center — 53 residents and 28 staff — were tested by the CECC on Saturday night, and the results so far have all been negative, he said. “We still define the current situation as sporadic local transmission,” he said when reporters asked if Taiwan has entered the “community spread” stage.
Source:Taipei Times
March 22, 2020 15:56 UTC
Chinese exercises not provocative: KMT lawmaker
Chinese exercises not provocative: KMT lawmakerBy Chung Li-hua and Wu Su-wei / Staff reportersThere is a “huge” difference between Chinese warplanes flying around Taiwan and intruding into its airspace, and the former should not be deemed provocative, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) said, calling on the Ministry of National Defense not to mislead the public. Just as US aircraft flying by the nation should not be deemed provocative, neither should Chinese aircraft, Wu wrote in a question-and-answer session with the Executive Yuan on Wednesday last week. Wu last month called Chinese warplanes’ fly-bys “very unwise and inappropriate,” only to change his tone in a question addressed to the Executive Yuan later that month. Conversely, misinformation would sow panic.”Apart from the one incident in which Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the other Chinese fly-bys last month involved aircraft participating in long-distance drills, he said. The line has served as a military demarcation adhered to by both sides of the Taiwan Strait based on a tacit agreement, he said.
Source:Taipei Times
March 21, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: Former nurse pays Chen Shih-chung homage in latte
Virus Outbreak: Former nurse pays Chen Shih-chung homage in latteBy Dennis Xie / Staff writer, with CNAA coffee shop owner, who was previously a nurse, created a “4D” latte art sculpture of Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) to thank him for recognizing the efforts of frontline nurses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Few people understand the painstaking nature of a nurse’s job, but Chen gave several pep talks to nurses, recognizing and validating their hard work, Tseng Hsiao-chiao (曾筱喬), who runs a coffee shop in Pingtung County’s Chaojhou Township (潮州), said on Monday. Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei TimesSome people have visited the shop to take phtographs with the creation, she said. If kept in a freezer, in can last even longer, she added. She once carried a lunch box to work when she was still a nurse, but found that she did not have a minute to eat it during the whole day, she said.
Source:Taipei Times
March 21, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: CECC confirms 18 new COVID-19 cases
Virus Outbreak: CECC confirms 18 new COVID-19 casesEXPANDED CRITERIA: People who returned between March 8 and Wednesday from East Asian nations or the US and had respiratory symptoms are to be quarantinedBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterThe Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday announced 18 imported cases of COVID-19, bringing Taiwan’s total number of confirmed cases to 235. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the 18 new cases were comprised of 12 women and six men. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung announces 18 new imported cases of COVID-19 at a daily Central Epidemic Command Center news conference in Taipei yesterday. “While we have chosen to test people we consider to be at higher risk, we must also ensure that people get tested immediately after the onset of symptoms,” Chen Shih-chung said. However, as these two weeks are a critical phase in fighting the spread of COVID-19, people who are in home quarantine should strictly conform to the regulations, Chen Shih-chung said.
Source:Taipei Times
March 21, 2020 15:56 UTC
Taiwan in Time: The romantic poet comes of age
When he reemerged two years later at the age of 32 with the essay Annual Ring (年輪), he had become Yang Mu (楊牧). But Yang had little interest in social issues when he arrived, writes Chang Hui-ching (張惠菁) in his biography Yang Mu (楊牧). In 1967, the anti-Vietnam War protests reached its height at Berkeley, and Yang often saw students clashing with the police. “Berkeley made me open my eyes and observe and recognize this society with urgency,” Yang writes. Later that year, he became Yang Mu.
Source:Taipei Times
March 21, 2020 15:56 UTC
Virus Outbreak: Foreign visitors to receive visa extensions: ministry
Virus Outbreak: Foreign visitors to receive visa extensions: ministryCARROT AND STICK: A new program aims to encourage those who have overstayed their visas to turn themselves in before the NIA increases penalties and enforcementBy Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporterForeign visitors who entered Taiwan before today would be granted automatic 30-day visa extensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. A few people wait at the passport office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Central Taiwan Office in Taichung yesterday. The bureau also referred to the Expanded Overstayers Voluntary Departure Program launched by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Friday. The masks for the South American ally were purchased by Taiwan’s representative office, not exported from Taiwan, it said. Foreign aid would only be provided after Taiwan meets its own needs for medical supplies amid the virus crisis, the ministry said, adding that it has asked judicial authorities to investigate the source of the misinformation.
Source:Taipei Times
March 21, 2020 15:56 UTC