Taiwan Today
Date: January 04, 2018

The people of Taiwan will find it easier to exercise their direct civil rights following the Jan.

3 promulgation of amendments to the Referendum Act, according to the Central Election Commission.

Under the revisions, the CEC assumes statutory responsibility for national referendums from the Executive Yuan, while the legal voting age is lowered from 20 to 18 years of age.

The changes also lower the thresholds for initiating and supporting a referendum from 0.5 percent to 0.01 percent and 5 percent to 1.5 percent, respectively, in the latest presidential election. This equates to 1,879 and 281,745 voters based on the outcome of the January 2016 contest.

In addition, the results of a referendum are accepted when the tally of affirmative ballots exceeds negative and reaches 25 percent of registered voters. Both numbers were set at 50 percent.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/01/04
By: Sophia Yang,Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s government-level Gender Equality Committee said Thursday that to ensure the civil rights of transgender, intersex and other groups with different gender identities, the agency is conducting comprehensive research and study of the existing laws to propose plans to add a third gender option to national ID cards and passports.

Adding a third gender option outside of the traditional male/female or man/woman to ID, passport, ID and other legal presence document has been described as one of the government’s policies and the agency will conduct cross-departmental meetings to move in that direction.

People familiar with the matter told a local media that Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i (林萬億) convened a meeting last September demanding relevant ministries look into the possibility of adding a third gender option to passports and other identification documents.
[FULL STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-04

The culture minister, Cheng Li-chun, says the broadcast of a promotional ad for a Chinese

TV show is illegal without government approval.

Cheng’s comments came Thursday after an ad for the variety show 2018 Trust in China was broadcast on a large LED screen in downtown Taipei two days earlier.

Cheng said ads for programs made in China are subject to rules introduced by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). The MAC is Taiwan’s top China policy-making body.

Cheng said, “Productions made in China must be reviewed and approved by the culture ministry. An ad for [programs] is permitted only after approval. The ministry [also] has rules governing the broadcast and release of programs made in China. The program 2018 Trust in China did not receive permission. Therefore, in line with the rules of the Mainland Affairs Council, the ad for the program is not allowed in Taiwan.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/04
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, Jan. 4 (CNA) The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday rejected a marriage

appeal filed by two women, after a Taipei household office refused to register their union, making them the third lesbian couple to be rejected by the court since last October.

The couple, Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) and Chen Ling (陳凌), had appealed to the court to overturn the decision by the Zhongzheng District office in 2014 not to allow them to register as a married couple.

In a statement Thursday, however, the court said household registration offices do not have any legal grounds on which to register same-sex marriages until the relevant laws are passed within the next 16 months, in compliance with a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court last May.

The Constitutional Court’s historic Interpretation No. 748 gave the Legislature two years to amend existing laws or pass new ones to give marriage rights to all couples.
[FULL  STORY]

FLIGHT FUROR: A 2015 deal stated that only southbound flights would be permitted on route M503 and the extension routes would not be activated ahead of negotiations

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 05, 2018
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Beijing should immediately stop all flights on four civil aviation routes that were launched yesterday morning, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, adding that aviation officials across the Taiwan Strait should begin negotiations on the issue as soon as possible.

“China must be held accountable for any serious consequences that would affect the cross-strait relations should it continue to allow the flights to operate,” MAC Minister Katharine Chang (張小月) said at a news conference in Taipei.

The aviation routes are northbound flights on the north-south M503 route, which is very close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, as well as three east-west extension routes — W121, W122 and W123 — along the southeast coast of China.

China unilaterally created the routes in 2015 on the grounds that they would be used to alleviate flight congestion on its A470 route.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-01-03

President Tsai Ing-wen said Wednesday that the government must respond early to

potential risks in the global economy. The president was speaking at a meeting of the central committee of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), of which she also serves as chair.

Tsai said Taiwan has seen steady economic growth in the past year. She said exports, manufacturing and retailing performed well, while unemployment and inflation remained stable and investor confidence is up.

The president said the global economy was showing recovery but the government still needs to keep a close watch on potential risks ahead.     [FULL  STORY]

The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/03
By: Sheryn Lee

Despite icy cross-Strait relations and a failure to address crucial reforms at home, Taiwan’s

president closed 2017 in a remarkably stable position.

After being elected on a high in 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration faced the harsh realities of governing Taiwan in 2017. Instead of making progress on challenging yet needed reforms (such as those to the constitution or the slow-growing economy), Tsai’s low approval ratings resulted in undue focus on addressing voter satisfaction leading up to the 2018 local elections.

Compounding this, Tsai was faced with the monumental task of maintaining the DPP party platform to uphold the cross-Strait status quo despite a recalcitrant China. Due to Beijing’s concern that Taiwan is moving towards “peaceful separation”, no significant effort has been made to reopen formal cross-Strait channels of dialogue since they were cut in June 2016. While President Tsai maintained her “consistent, predictable and sustainable” policy towards cross-Strait status relations, she also called for both sides to develop a new model to maintain the cross-Strait status quo, arguing that it was untenable in its current format.
[FULL  STORY]

Photographer under investigation after photos of sex party including 6 college women and 7 men emerge

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/01/03
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taipei District Prosecutor’s Office is investigating a famous

photographer for sexual harassment, sexual assault and prostitution after numerous photos have surfaced of his subjects engaged in sexual acts, according to local reports.

On Dec. 24, a female student from Asia University posted a photo of three fully nude women kneeling with their backs to the camera on the college student forum Dcard saying that her friend was among those photographed and that she was duped into a sex orgy that included six women and seven men by famed photographer Mu Chuan- Shen (穆川申), prompting the Taipei Prosecutors Office to begin the investigation.

After the student posted the photo of the three nude women, which originated from Mu’s Facebook page, 500 more sexually explicit photos also surfaced. More students came forward saying that they recognized their classmates in the photos, with a man claiming that one of the women had tricked one of the men saying that they were going to sing KTV, when in fact it was a sex party.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/01/03
By: Chen Ja-fo and Elizabeth Hsu

Kaohsiung, Jan. 3 (CNA) The owner of a fishery company in Kaohsiung is being

investigated on suspicion of illegally selling oil to North Korea, the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office said Wednesday after questioning the suspect.

During questioning of the suspect on Tuesday, prosecutors learned that his Kaohsiung-based company had made a false export declaration for cargo on a leased freighter, which was believed to have been transshipping oil to vessels bound for North Korea, the office said.

Prosecutors also think the suspect was aware that the freighter was selling oil on the open seas, instead of to Hong Kong, the destination entered on the ship’s export declaration, the office said.    [FULL  STORY]

CHINESE FUNDING? Prosecutors say they have evidence that Lin received a monthly payment that matches the amount Zhou indicated in his Fire News report from 2015

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 4, 2018
By: Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday confirmed that four active duty

personnel and two retired officers are under investigation in connection with a case involving allegations that New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) tried to develop media and espionage networks with financial backing from the Chinese government.

“There are four people on active duty and two retired officers who have been summoned for the investigation and were questioned as witnesses. As of now, there is no indication of their involvement in the case,” spokesman Major General Chen Chung-chi (陳中吉) said in response to questions during a regular news conference at the ministry.

From his understanding, the four men on active duty had “liked” posts by Wang on Facebook and other social media platforms, he said.

Since the case is under judicial investigation, Chen said he could not divulge the ranks of those who were questioned, and he also declined to reveal their assigned units.
[FULL  STORY]