Yang headed NSB from 2015 to 2016

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/24
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Former National Security Bureau chief Yang Kuo-chiang (楊國

強) will serve as Taiwan’s representative in Thailand, the first-ever retired intelligence chief to take over such a diplomatic posting, the Presidential Office announced Friday.

The administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who was sworn in last May, launched a “New Southbound Policy” which emphasizes the intensifying of relations with countries in South and Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

The number of tourists from Thailand visiting Taiwan increased drastically after the island allowed visa concessions, according to Tourism Bureau statistics.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/24
By: Chen Chao-fu and Y.F. Low

Taipei, March 24 (CNA) Prosecutors and Coast Guard officers seized 1.1 tons of a

chemical used to make the class-3 narcotic ketamine aboard a fishing boat near the Penghu archipelago on Thursday.

The batch of hydroxylimine could produce 900 kilograms of ketamine with a market value of NT$540 million (US$17.71 million), according to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office.

Acting on a tip-off, prosecutors led Coast Guard officers to intercept the Penghu-registered fishing boat four nautical miles off Penghu’s northernmost Mudou Islet early Thursday and found the chemical packed in yellow bags labeled as animal feed, the office said.
[FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 25, 2017
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan, The China Post with AFP

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Justice Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) drew the ire of LGBTQ activists

Friday, after he described same-sex relationships as a “newly invented phenomenon” during a landmark Constitutional Court hearing on barriers to marriage equality.

Judges from the court on Friday heard arguments over whether the Civil Code’s description of marriage as between a man and a woman contravened the Constitution’s guarantee that “all citizens, irrespective of sex … shall be equal before the law.”

The case challenging the Civil Code was filed by veteran gay-rights activist Chi Chia-wei (祁家威), following an attempt by Chi to marry his partner in 2013 in Taipei.
[FULL  STORY]

CODIFIED:The interpretation on the constitutionality of same-sex unions mostly focuses on the Civil Code, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 25, 2017
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

The Council of Grand Justices yesterday began a session to hear a constitutional

challenge concerning same-sex marriage, during which the spotlight fell mostly on Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三), who defended the legality of the Civil Code’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman.

In an unprecedented move, the debate was live-streamed. A ruling is expected within two months.

Taiwan is the first Asian nation to assent to a constitutional interpretation on the legalization of same-sex marriage.

The debate addressed two requests for an interpretation, filed by the Taipei City Government and gay rights advocate Chi Chia-wei (祁家威), who has over the past three decades sought legal recognition of his union with his partner.

‘Amazingly,’ wrote Kaori Shoji, ‘Taiwan is the one country where the Japanese imperialists managed to do more good than harm.’

The News Lens
Date: 2017/03/23
By: James Baron

.As European colonial and imperial exploits reached their apogee in the late 19th century, moral philosophers such a John Stuart Mill were faced with a quandary: how to justify the colonial project? In fact, it doesn’t seem to have been too much of problem for Mill, for whom utility was solely an occidental preoccupation. That subject peoples were variables in a “greatest happiness” metric was apparently inconceivable or at least an inconvenience to be side-lined like an embarrassing relative.

“For Mill, colonization is like a case of public charity,” writes Eddy Souffrant, associate professor of philosophy at UNC Charlotte. “And in it, the activities of the individual colonizer have repercussions beyond his own particular interests.” If colonization could solve overcrowding in British cities while turning a profit, it was justified according to Mill.    [FULL  STORY]

Rear door suddenly opened: reports

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/23
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A 15-year-old high school student died after she fell out of a

bus while it was driving in New Taipei City, reports said Thursday.

The accident comes slightly more than a month after 33 people died when a tour bus overturned on a highway in Taipei City. A preliminary report blamed the high death toll on speeding by the driver, though media reports also alleged driver fatigue.

Around 5 p.m. Thursday, a regular No.1062 bus owned by the Keelung Bus Co. was driving along Daliao Road in the district of Ruifang when the rear door suddenly opened and the girl fell out, reports said. She landed in front of the vehicle’s rear wheels and was crushed to death.

The precise reason for the opening of the door was not clear, though a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily alleged that several high school girls had been playing around on the bus close to the door. At one point, one of the girls pushed a fellow student who landed against the door, which then opened with tragic consequences.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/23
By: Amy Huang and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 23 (CNA) Coast Guard officers on the offshore island county of Kinmen

met with a runaway Vietnamese worker in Miaoli County on Thursday and arranged for him to surrender to agents from the Miaoli branch of the National Immigration Agency (NIA) after the migrant worker said he left his place of employment due to homesickness.

The Coast Guard squad stationed in Kinmen said it recently received information about a Vietnamese worker in Miaoli who wanted to surrender to law enforcement officers and be repatriated to his home country after becoming homesick.

Officers from Kinmen Coast Guard traveled to Miaoli on Thursday and met with the worker, who provided them with proof of identification and agreed to be handed over to immigration officials in Miaoli, according to the Kinmen squad.   [FULL  STORY]

FORWARD-LOOKING:According to an estimate, the project would contribute at least NT$975.9 billion to GDP, thereby stimulating economic growth, Lin Chuan said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 24, 2017
By: Lee Hsin-fang and Shelley Shan / Staff reporters

The Cabinet has finalized plans to submit a special eight-year budget request of

NT$880 billion (US$28.86 billion) to the legislature for the “Forward-looking Infrastructure Construction Project,” Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said yesterday.

The government hopes to attract NT$1.7 trillion in public and private-sector investment for the project, Lin said.

“Some say the project is too costly. I do not look at it that way. The government should have vision and foresight. It will be worthwhile as long as the goals are achieved,” Lin said.

Government agencies are to submit budget proposals in relation to the project by the end of next month, which are to be collated by the Executive Yuan before a finalized budget request is delivered to the legislature in the middle of May, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 24, 2017
By: Kuan-lin Liu

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chang Chuan-chin (張權嶔) filed a new lawsuit against Commissioner

Lin Jou Min (林洲民) of the Taipei City Department of Urban Development on Thursday after SWJ Construction finished demolishing his house per the department’s orders.

This lawsuit is the newest development in what started as an accidental, partial demolition of Chang’s house earlier on March 3, when the construction company was attempting to comply with an urban renewal plan for Chang’an West Road.

When officials realized their mistake, the demolition was put on hold, leaving the house partially torn down.

The Department of Urban Development subsequently assessed the partially demolished house as being a danger to the public, signing the papers for its demolition on Wednesday. SWJ finished the demolition on Thursday.    [FULL  STORY]