‘BRAINWASHING SCHEME’:TSU lawmaker Lai Chen-chang said the new books were propaganda designed to cover up the KMT’s former disregard for human rights

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 02, 2015
By: Chang Hsiao-ti  /  Staff reporter

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus yesterday urged teachers not to use the new

version of high-school social studies textbooks approved by the National Academy for Educational Research (NAER), which it said contain distorted and unsubstantiated historical information and aim to instill a China-centric mindset in young Taiwanese.

“The Ministry of Education has claimed that it was only responsible for reviewing high-school curricula and that it was up to textbook publishers to decide the content of the books they print,” TSU caucus whip Lai Chen-chang (賴振昌) told a news conference in Taipei.

However, Lai said that since the new curriculum has been “painted red,” most of the publishers have fallen in line, printing textbooks that do not conform to historical facts.

Singling out the Shi Ji Cultural Publishing Co (史記文化事業), Lai said that the company combined the histories of Taiwan and China into what it called “national history,” which also included historical events that occurred during the Japanese colonial era.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-06-30
By Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Formosa Fun Coast Water Park where colored powder ignited last weekend, killing one person and injuring almost 500, has been a habitual violator of land use rules, the New Taipei City Government said Tuesday.

The disaster focused attention on the management of the park and on the organization of the “Color Play” event, both of which have been questioned by prosecutors to find the reason for the calamity.

The water park would be fined NT$50,000 (US$1,600) for having violated the rules for two years, with the extraction of water within its territory, the renting out of its amusement park area and the changing of the functions of the area.

Officials also accused the management of the water park of trying to evade responsibility by repeatedly saying that it had only rented out the site to the organizers of the color event.    [FULL  STORY]

STATISTICS:Up to 312 million kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved monthly if all households switched to EPA-certified ‘green mark’ products, the agency said

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 01, 2015
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday released statistics on

reductions to last year’s electricity and water consumption as a result of Taiwanese purchasing products with EPA-certified “green marks,” which showed that the public can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 223,000 tonnes per month if all 8.4 million households use such products.

The estimate was roughly equal to 603 times the carbon dioxide absorbed by trees in Taipei’s Daan Forest Park every year, the EPA said.

In addition, if every household were to change to green mark products, they would save the nation as much as 312 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per month, enough to cover the demand of the about 1 million households in Taipei for a month.

They would also save a total of 44.1 million tonnes of water, the equivalent of the combined capacity of 17,669 standard swimming pools, the agency said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/30
By: Sunrise Huang and Ted Chen

Taipei, June 30 (CNA) Video images that surfaced Tuesday showed the moments before a fireball engulfed young revelers at a New Taipei City water park last Saturday, killing one person and injuring about 500.

The footage, obtained from an onstage camera, is expected to help determine the circumstances that led to the ignition of colored cornstarch powder during a show at the water park.

In the video, two workers are seen on the stage, using CO2 canisters to spray colored powder into the dancing crowd.

At one point, a streak of flames flared above the stage, on the right side, then shrank somewhat after about 6 seconds.

A stage worker then began to spray the flames with a CO2 canister, causing a second ignition as the blast of gas from the canister kicked up more colored powder.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 01, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Taipei’s first “mobile police stations” (行動派出所) are to go on duty today.

The mobile police stations are minivans equipped with computers and other equipment

enabling them to process crime reports, saving city residents a trip to a regular police station as was previously required.

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said the five newly commissioned vehicles were just a start, with expansion possible depending upon the results of the city’s trial.

“This is a test — so we did not purchase new vehicles for the experiment,” Ko said, adding that adjustments could be made if the vans’ ability to idle and provide air conditioning proved problematic.

As the vehicles are intended to provide additional service points, they are to carry folding tables and chairs to be set up outside the vehicle if there is insufficient interior space, he said, adding that setting up temporary tents was also a possibility.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/30
By: Chen Ching-fang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, June 30 (CNA) With huge demand for skin dressings for the nearly 500 people injured in a fire and explosion at a water park in New Taipei late Saturday, Taiwan’s organ center called Tuesday for urgent donations of cadaver skin.

There are just 115 rolls left in Taiwan’s cadaver skin stocks, with each roll measuring 10 x 20 centimeters, Taiwan Organ Registry and Sharing Center Chairman Lee Po-chang (李伯璋) told the media.

“The supply is not sufficient,” even if all the skin stocks are used on the explosion victims, Lee said.

Families in Taiwan tend to be less amenable to donating skin from their departed loved ones compared with other organ donations, as removing the skin leads to an unsightly corpse, according to Lee Jing-wei (李經維), head of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Tainan.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/30
By: Sunrise Huang and Ted Chen

Taipei, June 30 (CNA) Video images that surfaced Tuesday showed the moments before a fireball engulfed young revelers at a New Taipei City water park last Saturday, killing one person and injuring about 500.

The footage, obtained from an onstage camera, is expected to help determine the circumstances that led to the ignition of colored cornstarch powder during a show at the water park.

In the video, two workers are seen on the stage, using CO2 canisters to spray colored powder into the dancing crowd.

At one point, a streak of flames flared above the stage, on the right side, then shrank somewhat after about 6 seconds.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-30
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation urged the public Monday to hold off on donating

blood for the moment as an outpouring of goodwill toward hundreds of victims of a tragic fire at a water park resulted in a surplus of donated blood.

Foundation official Li Lei asked people to delay donating blood by one to two weeks because there was excess inventory as of noon Monday, worried that any more donated blood might be wasted because packed red blood cells have a shelf life of only one month.

In northern Taiwan, where most of the more than 500 people injured in the disaster at a party at the Formosa Fun Coast water park in New Taipei on June 27 have been treated, there was 45 days of inventory that was further expanded by a surge in volunteer donors, Li said.

Hundreds received burn wounds when colored cornstarch powder suddenly ignited during the Color Play Asia event at the water park in New Taipei on Saturday night, trapping people standing in front of a concert stage.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/29
By: Liao Ren-kai, Wu Che-hao and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, June 29 (CNA) The mother of 20-year-old Lee Pei-yun (李珮筠), who died Monday

from injuries sustained in a water park fire Saturday night, has appealed for help to save her 12-year-old son who was also injured in the accident in New Taipei.

“Please save my son…..I have lost one daughter and I cannot bear to lose a son,” said the teary-eyed mother while pleading for help to have her son transferred to a hospital with a burn center.

Her daughter, the first of the roughly 500 people injured in the fire to pass away, was declared dead at 2:21 p.m. Monday at Chung Shan Medical University Hospital in Taichung, after emergency treatment failed.

She suffered second-degree burns to over 90 percent of her body and inhalation burns to 100 percent of her lungs, hospital vice president Chung Kuo-ping (鍾國屏) said.     [FULL  STORY]

Shanghaiist.com
June 29, 2015

Taiwan’s 26th Golden Melody Awards kicked off on Saturday at the Taipei Arena, where awards were presented to stars for their contributions in the fields of Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, and Formosan music. Unfortunately, viewers in Singapore and mainland China didn’t get the chance to enjoy the whole show.

The annual music award show, founded in 1990, often sees award-winning artists use the stage as a platform to bring awareness to political, war or human rights issues. While such campaigning may be tolerated in Taiwan, it most certainly doesn’t get the pass from censors in Beijing and Singapore, whose are hardly subtle when it comes to editing.

When singer Huang Wei-chieh (黃瑋傑) stepped onto the red carpet with huge banners reading “Today Dapu, Tomorrow the Government (今天拆大埔，明天拆政府)”, Singapore’s broadcasters simply switched to a blank screen. Viewers were greeted with an alternate message, reading: “This segment of the program is not suitable for broadcast. We apologize for the inconvenience caused”, according to the blog Thinking Taiwan. The words on Huang’s banner have become a symbol of civil resistance to forced evictions in Dapu, Maoli County since 2013.     [FULL  STORY]