Monthly Archives: April 2016

Taiwanese in quake brought to safety

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TOKYO — Thirty-nine Taiwanese students and tourists in Japan’s quake-struck

A girl stranded in Japan's devastating earthquake is shown in the photo taken on Saturday, April 17. Travelers resting in buses or on the floor were provided with quilts by a local hotel to keep warm. (Photo provided by Taiwan traveler/CNA)

A girl stranded in Japan’s devastating earthquake is shown in the photo taken on Saturday, April 17. Travelers resting in buses or on the floor were provided with quilts by a local hotel to keep warm. (Photo provided by Taiwan traveler/CNA)

Kumamoto Prefecture were brought to safety on Sunday, with seven stranded Taiwanese nationals still awaiting rescue, Taiwanese officials said that day.

A total of 28 university students have been picked up from Kumamoto University and Kumamoto Gakuen University and will be driven to Fukuoka City, where some of them will board a flight back to Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Eleven Taiwanese tourists stranded in the southern part of the Aso area in Kumamoto Prefecture were also rescued Sunday afternoon, Rong Yee-jung (戎義俊), director of Taiwan’s representative office in Fukuoka, told CNA by telephone.

“I am glad that we were able to escape,” said Lai Chun-yi (賴君怡), who lead the tour group.

When the earthquake struck in the middle of the night on Saturday, the tremors were so strong that she felt her body bounce up and down twice on the bed, Lai said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese young adults prefer to make friends via Facebook: survey

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-17
By: Central News Agency

Facebook has become the most popular way for Taiwanese young adults to make friends with and contact each other, according to a survey on the impact of the use of smart phones on university students.

The survey conducted by Shih Hsin University in Taipei found that adding people to their Facebook friends list has become the most popular way for Taiwan’s young people to get to know one another.

After they become more familiar with their friends on Facebook, they add each other to their contact lists on the instant messaging app LINE and interact with each other through that app, according to the survey.

Only then do young people give their telephone number to those they have become close with, the survey found.     [FULL  STORY]

Increased chance of showers on Monday

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/17
By: Kay Liu

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) An approaching weather front will increase the chance of

Taipei, Sunday.

Taipei, Sunday.

showers across Taiwan Monday, before milder weather returns later in the week, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Taiwan saw mainly cloudy weather with scattered showers on Sunday, with daytime temperatures in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung reaching highs of 24.9, 30.8 and 30.4 degrees Celsius, respectively, according to the bureau.

The weather is expected to become more unstable Monday because of an approaching weather front, which will result in localized showers and thunderstorms in western and northeastern Taiwan, and scattered showers in eastern Taiwan, the bureau said.

Temperatures are likely to fall to around 20 degrees Celsius in northern Taiwan and the mid-20s in central Taiwan, but still reach 31 degrees Celsius in the southernmost county of Pingtung, the bureau noted.     [FULL  STORY]

Premier vows closer look at cases

CROSS-STRAIT CONCERNS:Simon Chang has asked government agencies to review laws covering fraud conducted abroad with the aim of requiring tougher punishments

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 18, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Premier Simon Chang (張善政) has vowed to look into overseas telecommunication fraud cases involving Taiwanese suspects and Chinese victims and said that he hopes a systematic model can be established to deal with similar cases through negotiations with China, Executive Yuan spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said yesterday.

Chang made the remarks during an inter-ministerial meeting on how to manage similar cases after Malaysia on Friday deported 20 Taiwanese implicated in fraud to Taiwan following Kenya’s deportation of 45 Taiwanese to China over suspected telecom fraud.

There are also cases of Taiwanese suspected of transnational telecom fraud targeting Chinese victims being held by police in Indonesia, Egypt and South Korea.

Chang hopes a systematic model can be created through negotiations between Taiwan and China, Sun said.     [FULL  STORY]

A newly-released video shows beauty of Yilan City

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-17
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Yilan City Office has recently released a video that had employed aerial 6748659photography to introduce the beauty of Yilan City and promote tourism.

Yilan Mayor Chiang Tsung-yuan said the video revolves around the Yilan River, which is like a mother of the city that has given birth and nutrition to the development of this city.

To promote Yilan City as a beautiful and good place to live, the city office in September last year began to make a plan for the video, Chiang said. The videography breaks away from traditional city videos that contain too much preaching and bragging, Chiang said.

The video introduces cultural heritage of the city, including old temples, a legacy brick kiln, and the Museum of Yilan Government History. In addition, the video also touches on the good water quality in the city that has bred high quality rice, such as the rice that won the Ten Best Classic Rice Awards, and brewed high quality wine, such as the Old Red Wine produced by the Yi-lan Distillery.     [FULL  STORY]

Premier calls for close cooperation with China to fight telecom fraud

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/17
By: Tai Ya-chen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, April 17 (CNA) Premier Simon Chang (張善政) has vowed to proactively

Cash, phones ans equipment seized in a raid of the fraud ring in 2015. (CNA file photo)

Cash, phones ans equipment seized in a raid of the fraud ring in 2015. (CNA file photo)

look into overseas telecommunications fraud cases involving Taiwanese suspects and Chinese victims and said he hopes a long-standing systematic model can be established to deal with similar cases through negotiations with China, Executive Yuan Spokesman Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) said Sunday.

Chang made the remarks during an inter-ministerial meeting on how to best manage similar cases after Malaysia deported 20 Taiwanese implicated in fraud back to Taiwan on Friday, following Kenya’s extradition of 45 Taiwanese to China last week over suspected telecom fraud.

In addition to the cases in Kenya and Malaysia, there are Taiwanese suspected of transnational telecom fraud targeting Chinese victims being held by police in Indonesia, Egypt and South Korea. Therefore, Chang hopes a systematic model can be created through negotiations between Taiwan and China, according to Sun.     [FULL  STORY]

 

INTERVIEW: Ko reflects on lessons learned from first year

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s approval ratings have dropped in the polls, but in an interview with Chinese-language ‘Liberty Times’ (the ‘Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) staff reporter Chen Hsiao-yi, Ko said that while his policies are headed in the right direction, their priority should be rethought, which would help boost his ratings

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 18, 2016

Liberty Times (LT): What are your thoughts about the recent drop in your

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je gestures during an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on April 8. Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je gestures during an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on April 8. Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times

approval ratings?

Ko Wen-je (柯文哲): It is only to be expected. We are a group of su ren (素人, “plain people,” ie, not politicians by profession) and that the administrative “team” was hastily slapped together. The upside is the diverseness of the group, but the downside is that such diversity takes time to develop into a cohesive whole.

Among the local governments’ administrative teams, we have one that spans both sides of the political spectrum, including deep-blue and deep-green supporters. As such, while Taipei could be said to be the least affected by political strife across party lines, the city’s administrative team has also spent a lot of time in our first year “meshing” and “engaging.”

Politics requires professionalism. As an individual with no prior political experience, I appointed too many individuals like me as bureau and department heads. The result was that while we are on the right track, but we did not implement our policies in the right order.     [FULL  STORY]

Eighteen pedestrian bridges in Taipei to be demolished

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-17
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je has approved a project to tear down 18 pedestrian 6748613bridges before the end of 2017 due to their low usage rates.

Ko said in August last year that he had ordered the city’s Public Works Department to make an evaluation of 59 pedestrian bridges and 34 underpasses within the city limits in six months to determine their fate, adding that the initial cost for demolishing all of them was estimated at around NT$200 million.

The evaluation was completed last week and its result was approved by Ko on April 11.     [FULL  STORY]

39 Taiwanese in Japan’s quake-hit zone brought to safety

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/17
By: Yang Ming-chu and Christie Chen

Tokyo, April 17 (CNA) Thirty-nine Taiwanese students and tourists in Japan’s

(Kyodo News photo)

(Kyodo News photo)

quake-struck Kumamoto Prefecture have been brought to safety on Sunday, with seven stranded Taiwanese nationals still awaiting rescue, Taiwanese officials said that day.

A total of 28 university students have been picked up from Kumamoto University and Kumamoto Gakuen University and will be driven to Fukuoka City, where some of them will board a flight back to Taiwan, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Eleven Taiwanese tourists stranded in the southern part of the Aso area in Kumamoto Prefecture have also been rescued Sunday afternoon, Rong Yee-jung (戎義俊), director of Taiwan’s representative office in Fukuoka, told CNA on the telephone.

“I am glad that we were able to escape,” said Lai Chun-yi (賴君怡), who lead the tour group.    [FULL  STORY]

Dajia Matsu returns home Sunday night

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-17
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

On Sunday night (April 17), the palanquin holding the three statues of Matsu, 6748558the Chinese Goddess of the Sea, will return to their home temple, the Jenn Lann Temple, in Dajia District, Taichung City after completing a nine-day walking tour.
The 340-kilometer journey covers 21 townships and stops over at more than 100 temples in central Taiwan.

The tradition of the pilgrimage tour is hailed as one of the world’s three largest religious activities and included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

As the palanquin, carried on bearers’ shoulders, left the Chaoxing Temple in Qingshui District, Taichung City early Sunday morning, firecrackers began to pop, and the sound seemed deafening in the morning.     [FULL  STORY]