Yahoo News
May 10, 2015
By: AFP, Mynardo Macaraig

Typhoon Noul slammed into the northern tip of the Philippines Sunday,

triggering warnings of possible flash floods, landslides and storm surges and prompting almost 3,000 people to flee their homes.

The storm hit Cagayan province late Sunday afternoon and was expected to move north towards Japan, the government weather station said.

The civil defence office said there were no immediate reports of storm-related deaths but the typhoon knocked out power in much of the province, making it difficult to get data.

Meteorologists said Noul’s movement slowed slightly before reaching the Philippines, but it also strengthened to pack gusts of 220 kilometres (137 miles) per hour.     [FULL  STORY]

HUMAN RIGHTS CHAMPION:National Alliance of Parents’ Organizations president Wu Fu-pin said the freedom of speech Taiwanese enjoy is the legacy of Deng Nan-jung

Taipei Times
Date: May 11, 2015
By: Rachel Lin and Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

The National Academy of Educational Research (NAER) on Saturday displayed

six major publishers’ latest textbooks revised according to the recently adjusted high-school curriculum guidelines. Among them one publisher was found to have deleted portions from an entry about democracy movement pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕).

Deng died 26 years ago when he set himself on fire in defense of “100 percent freedom of expression.” On April 7, 1989, Deng, then-editor-in-chief of Freedom Era Weekly, set himself alight as heavily armed police officers attempted to break into his office following 71 days of self-imposed isolation after he was charged with sedition for the anti-government stance of his magazine after it published a draft “Republic of Taiwan Constitution” in 1988.

Textbook publisher Kansi Cultural Co in its previous edition of a civic studies textbook, under the “Human Rights” chapter, had a photograph of a copy of Freedom Era Weekly with a caption reading: “Deng Nan-jung resorted to radical self-immolation to fight for freedom of speech. The photograph is the [weekly’s] special edition to mark the 20th anniversary of Deng’s death.”     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-10
By: CNA

Taiwan’s military said Saturday that it will continue its efforts to maintain a

sufficient self-defense capability in the face of a growing threat from China, in response to the US Department of Defense’s annual report on China’s military developments.

In the 2015 report to Congress on military and security developments involving China, the US Pentagon noted that Taiwan’s military spending has dropped to approximately 2% of its GDP, while China’s official defense budget has grown to roughly 10 times that of Taiwan’s.

China’s official defense budget for 2014 was US$136.3 billion, while Taiwan’s defense budget for the same period stood only at US$10.3 billion, the report said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:  2015/05/10
By: Shen Ju-feng and Christie Chen

Taipei, May 10 (CNA) A new ferry route between Taiwan’s outlying island of Matsu and China’s Fujian Province is scheduled to be launched in July this year, shortening travel time between the two sides by around 70 minutes, an official said Sunday.

Currently, the only ferries between the two sides operate between Fuao Harbor in Matsu’s Nangan Township and Mawei in Fuzhou City, Fujian and a single trip takes around 90 minutes, according to Liu Cheng-ying (劉增應), magistrate of the outlying Lienchiang County, commonly known as Matsu.

The new route between Matsu’s Beigan Township and Fujian’s Huangqi Peninsula is expected to shorten the one-way travel time to only 20 minutes, Liu said.     [FULL  STORY]

REWRITING HISTORY:The NAER’s statement that the use of textbooks it had not “sanctioned” was against the law was described as a throwback to the Martial Law era

Taipei Times
Date: May 11, 2015
By: Rachel Lin, Tseng Wei-chen and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

The National Academy for Educational Research (NAER) on Saturday warned

publishers against using textbooks that it has not explicitly approved, prompting criticism from opposition lawmakers, who said the academy’s approach was reminiscent of crackdowns on freedom of expression during the White Terror era.

The academy said that using textbooks it has not sanctioned would be in defiance of 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).

The issue stems from controversy sparked by the Ministry of Education in January last year which made “minor adjustments” to the high-school curriculum guidelines for history, civic and social studies, Chinese and geography.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/09
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, May 9 (CNA) The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said on Saturday it

could issue a sea warning for Typhoon Noul Sunday morning, the first such alert Taiwan will see this year, but that a land warning may not be necessary.

As of noon Saturday, the storm was centered 1,060 kilometers southeast of Taiwan’s southernmost point of Eluanbi, moving in a northwest direction at 18 km per hour.

The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 162 kph, with gusts of up to 198 kph, the weather bureau said.

The bureau forecasts that the typhoon will continue to move in a direct path over northern Philippines overnight, but instead of moving westward toward Taiwan, it will then make a sharp northern swing past Taiwan’s east coast.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times0
Date: 2015-05-09
By: CNA

Taiwan is an important security and economic partner of the United States and

plays a key role in the country’s Asia-Pacific policies, US secretary of state John Kerry said.

“Taiwan is a key component of US Asia-Pacific policies, including the rebalance to Asia. The United States continues to expand and enhance its strong and multifaceted unofficial relationship with Taiwan,” Kerry said in a written statement.

The statement was made in response to a question submitted Feb. 25 by Representative Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a strong supporter of Taiwan on Capitol Hill.     [FULL  STORY]

Mainland courting of KMT has hurt the party in the eyes of ordinary people who want their say on cross-strait relations

South China Morning Post
Date: 10 May, 2015
By: Cary Huang

The simmering tensions across the Taiwan Strait over the past year meant the

meeting between Xi Jinping, chief of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Eric Chu Li-luan, chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT), on Monday was keenly watched.

But the highest level contact between two ruling parties in seven years produced nothing more than a reiteration of their long cherished “1992 consensus”, in which both sides recognise the “one China” principle.

The meeting came as Taipei and Beijing marked the 22nd anniversary of ice-breaking talks between Taiwanese tycoon Koo Chen-fu and his mainland counterpart Wang Daohan in Singapore in 1993. It also came as they celebrated the tenth anniversary of the historic meeting between former KMT chairman Lien Chan and CPC general secretary Hu Jintao in 2005.

They expected that by building closer economic ties they would strengthen support for the Taiwanese ruling party. Mainland state media used the meeting to chant the praises of the pro-unification KMT and admonish the pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the island gears up for the presidential election in January.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/08
By: Emerson Lim and Lilian Wu

Basco, the Philippines, May 8 (CNA) Six people aboard a Taiwanese fishing

boat detained by the Philippines in Basco for alleged poaching were released on bail Friday after negotiations with Filipino officials.

The six included Captain Hung Tian-ting (洪添丁), chief engineer Huang An-sheng (黃安勝) and four Indonesian fishermen. The court ordered each of them to be freed on bail of 15,000 pesos (US$336).

They can move freely for the time being in the Philippines but still have to appear in court if summoned.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-08
By: Yang Yi and Staff Reporter

Eric Chu, the chair of Taiwan’s ruling KMT has been questioned by his own

party for throwing his support behind KMT legislator Yang Chih-liang for presidential candidate instead of running in the primaries himself, reports our Chinese-language sister newspaper China Times.

Many within the KMT see Chu as the only candidate capable of defeating opposition Democratic Progressive Party chair Tsai Ing-wen in the election. Chu has announced that he will not run several times in the run up to the party primaries.

If Chu isn’t going to run, then he needs to convince his own party why they should back Yang.     [FULL  STORY]