Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/07/17
By: Lung Pei-ning and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, July 17 (CNA) A total of 242 people, who were badly burned after engulfed in flames

caused by a dust explosion at a water park in New Taipei, were being treated at intensive wards Friday with 183 still in critical condition, according to the latest official statistics related to the accident.

As of Friday, there were 375 injured in the dust explosion and the ensuing fire who remain undergoing treatment at 42 hospitals in 13 cities and counties, respectively, National Health Insurance Administration Director-General Huang San-kuei (黃三桂) said, citing the tallies compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.     [FULL  STORY]

Breitbart
Date: 17 Jul 20153
By: Ildefonso Ortiz

Since the brazen prison escape by famed drug lord El Chapo, the Mexican government has

been dealing with an overwhelming amount of criticism that has turned the country’s image into a big joke.

The latest addition to the ridicule comes from Next Media Animation, a Taiwan-based studio that has turned the escape of Joaquin Guzman Loera into a short animated parody that highlights Mexico’s corruption by portraying the drug lord as a tiny, cocaine-snorting, taco-eating, VIP guest pampered by the guards and enjoying inside help in escaping the prison.

You can watch the video here

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped from one of Mexico’s maximum security prisons called Altiplano last Saturday night.

After the escape, Mexico’s National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said that Guzman was in his cell and walked to the shower area, where one of his henchmen had broken a hole through the ground.      [FULL  STORY]

Yahoo News
Date: July 17, 2015
By: AFP

Managua (AFP) – Taiwan said Wednesday it will provide technical assistance to Nicaragua as

the Central American nation works to develop a drought-fighting irrigation system and build a Caribbean port.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou, who arrived in the country earlier in the day, said his Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega had requested help with a feasibility study for an agricultural irrigation plan.

At least 53 municipalities in the country’s Pacific and north-central regions are frequently affected by drought that damages crops, dries up water sources and decimates livestock.

Ortega said that the irrigation project would next be presented to international organizations for finance discussion.

Agricultural production accounts for 18 percent of Nicaragua’s GDP, with some 60 percent of that falling in the hands of small and medium-scale farmers.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Editorial
Date: 2015-07-17

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Tsai Ing-wen, who is the opposition party’s

2016 presidential candidate, was recently criticized by another presidential hopeful as “intending to push for Taiwan’s independence, but not daring to say so before being elected.”

In response to deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu’s criticism, Tsai merely said, “the formation of any policy needs to be stable, predictable and in line with public opinion.” This was a hollow statement that failed to explain her stance on the issue.

Since the local elections last November, foreign investment in Taiwan has stalled because of the increasing political risks created by DPP and DPP-backed mayors and magistrates, who have been rejecting public project contracts signed by their predecessors of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT).     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-07-17
By :Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The organizer of the color powder event which left seven people

dead and almost 500 injured denied accusations Friday that he had hidden all his assets in order to evade responsibility.

After New Taipei City, where the June 27 disaster happened, won court approval for provisional attachments to the assets of Play Color Co. owner Lu Chung-chi, the authorities found he had no bank accounts and only credit card debts. He was immediately suspected of having moved all his assets away so the government would be unable to win compensation for the victims.

After attorneys for the New Taipei City Government asked prosecutors Friday morning to apply for Lu’s detention, the beleaguered event organizer delivered a statement to reporters again denying any attempt at evading responsibility.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/07/17
By: Cheng Chi-fong and Elizabeth Hsu

Kaohsiung, July 17 (CNA) The three parties responsible for the July 31 gas explosions in Kaohsiung a year ago signed an agreement Friday that the families of each of the 32 people killed in the accident will receive compensation of NT$12 million (US$386,100).

Under the deal struck by the Kaohsiung city government, LCY Chemical Corp. and China General Terminal and Distribution Corp. (CGTD), LCY agreed to pay the compensation on behalf of the other two parties before a final court ruling as to the proportional liability of the trio in the devastating incident that also injured 321 people.

The payments will be made within four years at the latest, according to the agreement, which stipulates that once the court ruling is handed down, the trio will share the cost of the compensation based on their respective proportions of liability.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-07-17
By: CNA

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je said that he was impressed by the design and development of the

U-myeon public housing community in Seoul, which has also taken into consideration residents’ needs in terms of education and employment, among other living functions.

A city government spokesperson quoted the mayor who stayed overnight Wednesday in the U-myeon public housing community to observe its planning and development, saying that he found the integrated planning in developing the public housing community most admirable and would like to borrow the experience.

The mayor said, having learned how South Korea has made building public housing units a national policy, he wondered why Taiwan’s central government has consistently failed to recognize the critical issue since the skyrocketing housing prices have long been a major concern for citizens of Taipei.     [FULL  STORY]

PARTY PURGE:Eric Chu expelled five members from the KMT in the name of party unity, but four of them are likely to run against their former colleagues in January

Taipei Times
Date:  Jul 18, 2015
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan  /  Staff reporter, with CNA

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday rejected the “hall of

one voice” label attached to the party after it earlier this week revoked the memberships of five party members who often publicly criticized the party.

“The decision was necessary to uphold the party’s discipline. Party members can criticize the party, chairman, or any party leader, but they cannot undermine party unity,” Chu said.

Chu said that the most important purpose of the expulsion was to call on everyone to “unite as one,” to refrain from “waving a blue flag to oppose the blue flag,” or to “collude with the pan-green camp behind the pan-blue camp’s back.”

“These kinds of behaviors are impermissible,” Chu said of the expulsions.     [FULL  STORY]