Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-25
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

China will uphold peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and stick to the path of

peaceful development in its relations with Taiwan, Beijing’s top official on Taiwan affairs said Sunday in the Taiwan-held outlying county of Kinmen.

Zhang Zhijun, the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), said before concluding his two-day visit to Kinmen that cross-strait peace is very precious and warned that people “should not wait to lose it before realizing how precious it is.”

He also expressed opposition to any attempt by Taiwan to break away from China and any move to undermine the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: May 25, 2015
By: Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) yesterday had a loud confrontation with Kinmen County councilors who tried to interrupt her news conference, at which she accused the police of taking sides when she and other protesters were reportedly attacked by black-clad men on Saturday.

“You better go away now, do not mess with us here, I have called some people, and they are on their way,” said independent Kinmen County Councilor Shih Yung-cheng (石永城), who showed up at a police station where Chou was holding a news conference.

Chou had called the news conference to draw attention to what she said was an assault on TSU members who were protesting outside a meeting between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Kinmen on Friday.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-24
By: Staff Reporter

Taiwan has been tagged as a potential buyer of refurbished Fairchild-Republic A-10

Thunderbolt II jets should the ground attack aircraft be retired from the US Air Force.

Paul Cejas, Boeing’s chief engineer of off-Boeing programs, said at a media event on May 20 that the A-10 — nicknamed the “Warthog” — that the company has begun early discussions” with the US Air Force (USAF) to sell off refurbished A-10s to international customers.

“It’s something we would be interested in, but again, it depends where the air force goes with retirements,” Cejas said. “If we go that path we would be looking at a modification. It all depends on what the air force does. We have no jurisdiction, and we’ll support whatever they need and we’re positioned for that.”

The A-10 was developed by the now defunct Fairchild-Republic in the early 1970s. Boeing was awarded the contract for the aircraft’s service life extension program in 2007.     [FULL  STORY]

CURRICULUM STRIFE:An education official said only one version of a textbook can be valid and that asking for sales of older versions to cease was customary

Taipei Times
Date: May 25, 2015
By: Staff reporter, with staff writer

Civic groups and opposition legislators yesterday railed against new high-school

textbooks that are to be introduced in August, saying that a notice by the National Academy for Educational Research (NAER) to textbook publishers asking them to withdraw older versions infringes on teachers’ rights to select textbooks for their classes.

Opposition to the new high-school curriculum stems from changes to history textbooks that critics say reflect a “China-centric” view and the editing or deleting of up to 60 percent of Taiwanese history, while civics syllabi omit references to the White Terror era, the 228 Incident and democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕).

Civic groups said that teachers should be able to choose their own textbooks, because older textbooks are still valid.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said that all textbooks on the market have been inspected in accordance with the Regulations on the Review and Approval of Senior-High School Textbooks (高級中等學校教科用書審定辦法).     [FULL  STORY]

Los Angelese Times
Date: May 24, 2015
By Ralph Jennings

Negotiators from Taiwan and China met Saturday in an effort to maintain momentum

for better relations that have resulted in economic gains.

The ministers, appearing keen to sustain seven years of closer ties, discussed privately topics such as tourism and the dredging of sand in their shared ocean strait, officials said.

But there were no signs that they touched directly on sensitive issues concerning Taiwan’s 2016 presidential election. Taiwan’s chief opposition Democratic Progressive Party, whose nominee leads in early public opinion polls, advocates a more cautious approach to China, including no new dialogue without greater respect for the island’s self-rule.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-23
By: CNA

A district court on Friday ordered Chang Chi Foodstuff and its owner to pay

compensation of NT$91 million (US$3 million) to a group of consumers who had bought sub-standard cooking oils produced by the company.

The amount includes NT$5.85 million (US$192,400) for property damage and NT$85 million (US$2.8 million) for non-property damage, the Changhua District Court said in its verdict in a class action suit that was filed by the Consumers Protection Association on behalf of 3,700 consumers.

The court, however, determined that only 2,840 of the consumers had bought the sub-standard oils and were therefore eligible for compensation.

Chang Chi has the right to appeal the verdict.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/23
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, May 23 (CNA) A cluster of five dengue fever cases were reported in southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung City last week, raising concerns that the disease has returned, despite subsiding earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Saturday.

The patients, who live in city’s Nanzi District, all had visited a local market, suspected by CDC officials to be a dengue fever-affected area.

Also, during the week of May 12-18, another indigenous dengue fever case was seen in the city’s Cianjhen District, while two cases were imported from Indonesia, the agency said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/23
By: Wang Shu-feng and Maubo Chang

Kaohsiung, May 23 (CNA) A Chinese Buddha statue which lost its head 20 years ago, had its head reattached in Taiwan on Saturday, thanks to an anonymous Taiwanese art collector.

In a ceremony held at Fo Guang Shan monastery in Kaohsiung, thousands of Buddhists celebrated the reunion of the body of the 1,600-year-old statue from Hebei Province in northern China, and its head in Taiwan, over a thousand miles away from its Hebei home Youju Temple.

Presiding over the ceremony, Master Hsing Yun, the founder of Fo Guang Shan, lauded the reunion of the body and head of the statue in Taiwan and protecting the Chinese historical treasure as a milestone in the cooperation between Taiwan and China.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-23
By: CNA

As a plum rain front has brought heavy downpours to Taiwan and is expected to

bring more over the weekend, a drought task force under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday.

The task force that day lifted phase-two water rationing plans imposed in parts of northern and central Taiwan and suspended the implementation of phase-three water rationing in Kaohsiung for two more weeks.

Most areas of Changhua, Miaoli and Taichung in central Taiwan have seen the most significant rainfall of this year, with accumulated rainfall of between 100 mm and 200 mm between Wednesday and Friday afternoon.     [FULL  STORY]