Taipei Times
Date: Mar 14, 2019 
By Rachel Lin and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

National Taiwan University (NTU) finance professor Lee Tsun-siou (李存修) engaged in

illegal part-time work by sitting on the board of directors of China International Fund Management (上投摩根基金管理), an investment fund company wholly controlled by the Shanghai Municipal Government, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) claimed yesterday.

Lee has been serving as a board member at the company since 2011, Huang said at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee in Taipei.

The firm is backed by the Shanghai Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, over which the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government has “100 percent control,” he said.

Government regulations stipulate that public university professors cannot serve on the board of a Chinese company, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Female Tamkang University student found lying facedown in ditch in Taipei, drunk 16-year-old boy seen nearby

Taiwan News   
 Date: 2019/03/13
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The body of a female Tamkang University student was found lying facedown in a ditch in a riverside park in Taipei’s Shilin District this morning, and a drunk 16-year-old boy was seen sprawled in a nearby field in a highly intoxicated state, reports Liberty Times.

A 16-year-old boy surnamed Yuan (袁) had been missing from his home for several days. When his mother went to search for him, she found him passed out in a riverside park under Bailing Bridge in Taipei’s Shilin District.

When his mother approached Yuan, she found several beer cans discarded by his side. As she prepared to help him on his feet to head back home, she was suddenly shocked to see a corpse floating in a ditch several meters away.

She immediately called the police and when they arrived on the scene, they were able to identify her as a 25-year-old woman surnamed Wei (魏). Police then notified Wei’s relatives in Taoyuan, but because Yuan was heavily drunk and suspected of having taken drugs, they decided to wait until he sobered up to investigate the nature of their relationship and why she had drowned in the ditch.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 13 March, 2019
By: Paula Chao

Ed. ministry to spend US$43 million to keep top students in Taiwan
The education ministry is planning to spend NT$1.3 billion (US$43.3 million) in an effort to keep high-achieving students in Taiwan. The move comes amid an exodus of Taiwanese students overseas, with the number of students leaving recently hitting a ten-year high.

The United States remains the most popular destination, followed by destinations such as Japan, Australia, the UK, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Top schools from around Asia offered Taiwanese students generous scholarships and other incentives at a recent recruitment fair. As it turns out, Taiwan’s students don’t need much encouragement to head overseas.

Figures from the education ministry show a growing trend towards study abroad. And it is not just university students heading for greener pastures. Alarmingly, the number of high schools students who choose to study abroad has risen by 50% over the past five years.
[FULL  STORY]

Anti-LGBT groups in Taiwan are playing a futile word game.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/03/13

On Feb. 21, Taiwan’s Executive Yuan unveiled the “Enforcement Act of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 748” draft bill which, if passed, will recognize same-sex marriages. Anti-LGBT group criticized the draft bill for violating the results of Questions 10 and 12 on November’s referendums, instead proposing the establishment of a “same-sex common life law” to recognize same-sex “unions,” not “marriages,” in Taiwan’s constitution.

However, if we look at the 10th referendum question in detail, the real target of the referendum was to determine the concept of marriage within the Civil Code.

The Central Election Commission’s referendum summary said that, regardless of the outcome of the referendum, “this does not exclude same-sex couples from the protection of their right to intimate and exclusive long-term partnerships ensured by other laws, which is in accordance with the equal protection of the freedom of marriage as stated in Interpretation No. 748.” In other words, the result of the referendum’s 10th item will only influence the government from guaranteeing same-sex-marriage within the Civil Code. It cannot dictate any union outside the Civil Code or prevent any other laws from protecting same-sex-marriages, which are protected by a historic high court ruling in 2017 saying same-sex couples in Taiwan have the constitutional right to marry.

Similarly, in the summary for the 12th referendum question, the proponents stated: “Whether a same-sex relationship should be deemed a ‘marriage’ has no influence on whether this item should be on the referendum.” Therefore, the 12th referendum question can only request the government to safeguard same-sex relationships with other laws outside of the Civil Code. However, it cannot prevent the government from recognizing same-sex “marriages” – the verbiage of same-sex unions was left external to the question decided upon by voters.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/03/13
By: Li Jiabao (李家寶)

Taipei, March 13 (CNA) A Chinese student in Taiwan said recently that he hoped China

would one day become a democratic nation like Taiwan and he expressed the view that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition was to be like the emperors of the past.

“The current situation in China is even worse than before the 1911 Xianhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty (the last imperial dynasty in China),” Li Jiabao (李家寶) said in a live stream Monday on Twitter from National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan.

In the video titled “I oppose,” Li criticized Xi’s decision last year to remove the two-term limit on the presidency.

With that move, modern politics in China has become an extension of the past autocratic empires, Li said, adding that Xi is now “Emperor Ching Feng (慶豐帝).”
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 12 March, 2019
By: Paula Chao

Pandas are back in the news here in Taiwan. That’s after a Chinese official suggested giving a pair of the animals to the southern city of Kaohsiung. The city has long been a bastion of independence-minded politics, but the recent election of Kuomintang (KMT) Mayor Han Kuo-yu has led to warmer ties with China.

Should the southern city of Kaohsiung welcome a gift of pandas? Although nothing is official, people are already weighing in on the issue. Some welcome the idea, but others worry about the cost and the political motivation of such a gift.

Taiwan is home to three pandas, all of whom live at the Taipei Zoo. Two were gifts given from China back in 2008. The third is the pair’s daughter, who turns six this year.

Now a member of China’s National People’s Congress is suggesting a gift of two pandas to the city of Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]

Residents of Daguan Community, slated to be evicted on March 18, have not received answers from the government.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/03/12
By Brian Hioe, 破土 New Bloom

Members of the Daguan Community – a military dependents’ village in New Taipei currently facing eviction – and supportive youth activists demonstrated in the Veterans Affairs Council yesterday. The protest began at approximately 1 p.m. on Monday.

In particular, demonstrators demanded an answer from the Veterans Affairs Council as to whether it intended to negotiate on behalf of residents or provide for their resettlement. However, in the absence of any answer, demonstrators sprayed the inside of the Veterans Affairs Council offices with protest slogans reading “Oppose Eviction,” “Stop the Cranes,” and “Protect Daguan.”    [FULL  STORY]

Credit: Brian HioeStudent protesters confront police outside of Taiwan’s Veterans Affairs Council.
The ensuing confrontation with police went on for approximately one and a half hours, leading to 20 protesters being arrested and dragged off in police buses. The majority of those arrested were student activists but included two or three Daguan Community residents. In this process, one student activist became ill and was sent to the emergency room.

In the hospital, police prevented media from taking photos of the ill protester, although she was willing to be photographed. Subsequently, once the protester recovered enough to be moved, police took her away for questioning, provoking much outrage from Daguan residents regarding the treatment of a young college student.

Multiple sightings of Taiwan leopard cats reported in Miaoli County

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/03/12 
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A project launched to study the behavior of Taiwan leopard cats on a stretch of highway where many have been killed by vehicles has resulted in many new sightings of the elusive feline, reported UDN.

County Highway 140 in Miaoli has seen an epidemic of deaths of leopard cats after being struck by cars. Therefore, the county government in October of last year initiated a project to identify high-risk areas in Miaoli County.

As part of the study, a professional team was commissioned to set up 13 infrared automatic cameras to monitor leopard cat behavior along County Highway 140.

Thus far, four cameras have captured the activities of leopard cats. Among the cameras include two located on the southeast side of Da’an Wetland Park.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/03/12
By Joseph Yeh

Taipei, March 12 (CNA) A visiting U.S. official responsible for religious freedom urged the

Chinese government Tuesday to release jailed Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who is serving a five-year-prison term in China on charges of subversion of state power.

U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback who is visiting Taiwan for a regional religious freedom forum, the first of its kind, made the call during a press briefing in Taipei after a meeting with Lee’s wife Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜).

Lee Ming-che has been detained in China since March 2017 and has been serving a five-year prison term since November 2017 after being convicted of subversion of state power.

Since then, his wife has been visiting worldwide human rights watchdogs to rally support to jointly call on Beijing for his swift release.    [FULL  STORY]

SHARED VALUES: Taiwan and its Pacific allies are all democratic island nations, and have a lot in common, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hsu Szu-chien said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 13, 2019
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to embark on an eight-day state visit to three of

Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific next week to exchange experiences about democratization and sustainable development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Tsai is to leave for Palau on Thursday next week, before heading to Nauru on March 24 and the Marshall Islands on March 26.

She is scheduled to return home on March 28, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) told a news conference at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.    [FULL  STORY]