SPORTS FANS?The Trendgo survey said that 57 percent of respondents expressed a positive view of a request that China allows athletes to compete at the Universiade

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 09, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

An opinion poll released yesterday showed wide support for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)

Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) China visit and meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), with respondents saying the trip would be conducive to addressing the cross-strait impasse.

The survey, which gauged perceptions of the meeting, was conducted by New Taipei City-based polling company Trendgo at the KMT’s behest from Friday to Sunday after Hung returned from the five-day trip to China on Thursday last week.

Of those polled, 44.4 percent said they supported Hung’s decision to counter the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) independence clause with the KMT’s new “peace-centered policy platform,” compared with 24.7 percent who said they did not support it.

Fifty-seven percent expressed a positive view toward Hung’s request that Xi allow Chinese athletes to participate in next year’s Summer Universiade in Taipei, with 19.1 percent disapproving of the move, the poll showed.

Hung’s request that Beijing give Taiwan more opportunities to participate at international events — such as the APEC summit in Peru — received the support of 64 percent of respondents, while 11.5 percent disapproved.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: November 9, 2016
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

Protesters on Tuesday ended a hunger strike against a proposed plan to cut seven statutory holidays,

but said the fight would continue in other ways.

Lawmakers today will review the recordings of a meeting last month during which a bill to cut seven statutory holidays passed its first reading, officials said Tuesday.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Liu Shih-fang said the review would see major parties at the Legislative Yuan check whether minutes from the Oct. 5 meeting matched recordings from the same committee session. The Oct. 5 meeting was tasked with reviewing an amendment to the Labor Standards Act that would ax seven statutory holidays.

The meeting however ended in chaos, as chairperson and DPP Lawmaker Chen Ying adjourned the meeting abruptly.

Chen claimed that the bill was ready to move into second reading, despite vehement protests from Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers present at the meeting.    [FULL

  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/11/08
By: Christie Chen and Chen Chun-hua

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) Two draft amendments to Taiwan’s Civil Code that are aimed at legalizing same-

sex marriage passed their first reading at the Legislative Yuan Tuesday.

Clearing a first reading means only that the draft amendments have been announced and then sent to the Legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee for discussion. The amendments still have to pass second and third readings before becoming law.

Before Tuesday’s legislative meeting, several lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) occupied the podium in the Legislative Yuan to protest against the amendments, but after lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) approached them to communicate, the KMT lawmakers voluntarily left the podium before Vice Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) appeared to preside over the meeting.

One of the amendments that passed a first reading was proposed by DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), while the other was proposed by KMT Legislator Hsu Yu-jen (許毓仁).    [FULL  STORY]

As Taiwan edges closer to becoming the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, the fight for acceptance continues.

The News Lerns
Date: 2016/11/07
By: Edward White

At a star-studded gala dinner in the banquet hall of a swanky Taipei hotel on Oct. 28, five young Taiwanese were on stage, pulling faces and striking poses to the amusement of the hundreds in attendance at the inaugural Queermosa Awards.

The group included Zhong Ming-xuan (鍾明軒), Lin Jin (林進) and the transgender woman A-La (小A辣). Combined, their Facebook pages are followed by about 3 million people.

A-La, 27, rose to stardom in 2014 with a YouTube video, which has since been viewed more than 2.6 million times. Lin is best known for a 2015 video of him dancing with his elderly grandmother in the same room, which has garnered more than 4 million views. Zhong, 17, similarly became famous at the age of 12 after a video of him singing went viral.

While their videos and posts are often satirical – their sense of humor could perhaps not quite be described as universal – the group have been credited with championing LGBT issues among Taiwan’s young generation. Their impact has been so notable that the awards, which acknowledges the efforts of many long-time gay rights activists, had a special “Internet Phenomenon” category for someone who uses the Internet to support the LGBT community. There were five nominees – the award was taken out by Lin, also known as “Fashion Baby.”    [FULL  STORY]

Yilan prosecutors on Monday filed charges against 33 members of a telecom fraud ring that had allegedly targeted Chinese people

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/11/07
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Yilan prosecutors on Monday filed charges against 33 members of a telecom fraud ring that had allegedly targeted Chinese people across the Taiwan Strait.

In the indictment released on Monday, Yilan District Prosecutors’ Office said the ring leader surnamed Chan was deported back to Taiwan because he had been involved in several fraud cases overseas. However, he went back to the old practice of telecom scams, the indictment said. In April, he rented a high-priced farm house in Wujie Township, Yilan County to serve as an operation room, and recruited many workers to engage in telecom fraud operation targeting Chinese, the indictment said.

The ring members had all three meals inside the house, and they rarely went out to avoid being noticed, according to the indictment.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/11/07
By: Chiu Po-sheng and Frances Huang

Taipei, Nov. 8 (CNA) Taiwan has the second most acute shortage of talent in the world, trailing only Japan, according to the results of a survey released by global human resources firm ManpowerGroup on Monday.

ManpowerGroup said 73 percent of 1,005 employers polled in Taiwan felt that finding skilled talent in the country was difficult, well above the global average of 40 percent in the survey, which covered more than 42,000 employers in 43 countries and regions.

Taiwan’s figure was lower than only that of Japan, where about 86 percent of polled employers said it was hard to recruit skilled talent, ManpowerGroup said.

The 73 percent figure for Taiwan was also 16 percentage points higher than in a similar survey conducted in 2015 and the highest ever seen for Taiwan since it was first included in the annual ManpowerGroup survey since 2006.    [FULL  STORY]

JUDICIAL MANEUVERS:The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said that it would appeal a court ruling lifting its first freeze. The KMT said it would also file appeals

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 08, 2016
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee yesterday issued a new freeze order on a Chinese

Nationalist Party (KMT) bank account after the Taipei High Administrative Court on Friday lifted a previous freeze on the account.

The committee in September ordered Bank SinoPac (永豐銀行) to freeze a KMT account and prohibited any cash withdrawals from the account unless a withdrawal request was made to fulfill “legal obligations” or serve “justifiable purposes” such as paying employees’ salaries.

The first freeze was issued to prohibit the party from disposing of assets presumed to have been obtained illegally.

However, the court ruled against that order, saying that the committee wrongly ordered SinoPac, a private organization without public authority, to enforce a vague administrative order, as the bank had no means to identify or verify the purpose of a withdrawal request.

The committee yesterday said that it will appeal the ruling and it issued another order freezing the SinoPac account, which specified that the committee has the authority to verify the purpose of a withdrawal request.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: November 8, 2016
By: Joseph Yeh

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The Presidential Office Monday announced that renovations and tightened security

measures at the official presidential residence had been completed, with President Tsai Ing-wen expected to move in “soon.”

According to the office, Tsai currently only spends around two days per week at the official residence on Taipei’s Aiguo East Road, but was in was in process of organizing her belongings and moving in permanently following the renovations.

Tsai could complete the move next week if she “finds the time to finish packing over the weekend,” the office said.

The office said Tsai had previously spent the bulk of her time at a private residence on Taipei’s Dunhua North Road.

The official residence is to be code named “Yonghe” (永和官邸) for the duration of Tsai’s stay. It previously carried the moniker “Zhongxing” (中興官邸) during former President Ma Ying-jeou’s eight-year tenure.    [FULL  STORY]

Highlights from the Amis Music Festival.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/11/06
By: TNL Staff

The third annual Amis Music Festival, held in Dulan, Taitung County, southeast Taiwan yesterday, drew

about 2,500 people to celebrate the culture and music of Taiwan’s largest indigenous tribe.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kenzo/The News Lens.

A handful of different Amis groups from around Taiwan performed individually, and also collectively as part of several mass dance routines involving hundreds, bringing the island’s Amis people together. The event also showcased a large array of Amis food, drinks, arts, crafts and clothing.

This year’s festival featured Yomitanson Tokeshiseinenkai (pictured below) an indigenous group from Okinawa, Japan. One of its members, Oshiro Seiji, 25, said that Okinawa’s indigenous culture was almost completely lost by the end of World War II. Today, indigenous people in Japan remain “very worried” about the future of their culture, he says. His group is working to revive the cultural practices and traditions among local people in Okinawa and lift its presence internationally, including through creating modern takes on traditional dance and music.

The festival was held at Dulan Junior High School. Principal, Zhuo Shi-hong (卓世宏), says that more than 60 percent of the school’s 180 students are Amis. The school’s regular curriculum includes Amis language classes. During holidays, additional cultural and history courses and events are taught. He said the Amis culture and its traditions are increasingly popular among students, and cultural identity among the youth is strengthening. The students’ parents, including those not of Amis decent, are “thankful” to have the school play a role in educating students about Amis cultural, he says.    [FULL  STORY]