Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/10/04
By: Tang Pei-chun and Elaine Hou

Taipei, Oct. 4 (CNA) A Turkish diplomat involved in an alleged sexual harassment case in Taiwan will

likely not face prosecution here because he was removed from his post at Turkey’s representative office in Taipei, a Taiwanese official said Tuesday.

Chen Chun-shen (陳俊賢), director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of West Asian and African Affairs, said the Turkish government has notified Taiwan’s representative office in Ankara of its decision to remove the official from his post in Taiwan and transfer him back to Turkey, given the controversy.

Halil Ibrahim Dokuyucu, deputy head of the Turkish Trade Office in Taipei, allegedly fondled a woman at a bar in Taipei’s upscale Daan District on July 3 despite her protests, and got into a scuffle with the police who were called in after the incident.

During questioning at a police station in Taipei, Dokuyucu claimed he had diplomatic immunity.     [FULL  STORY]

An international tribunal’s recent ruling on the South China Sea leaves Taiwan in a sensitive position.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/10/04
By: Jane Rickards

In September last year, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), then the ruling Democratic Progressive Party

(DPP) presidential candidate, told a diplomatic reception: “A future DPP administration will be committed to following…the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and respecting freedom of navigation. We are ready to engage in dialogue with different parties with the purpose of finding a diplomatic solution.”

But when an UNCLOS tribunal constituted to resolve differences between China and the Philippines under the Law of the Sea this July unanimously delivered a landmark ruling declaring China’s vast and ambiguous “historic claims” to most of the South China Sea invalid, Tsai surprised many by rejecting the verdict entirely. Although her independence-minded administration had been expected to lean subtly closer to the United States on South China Sea issues, her reaction placed her closer to the position of Beijing and the outgoing Kuomintang (KMT) administration.

While not a direct party to the arbitration proceedings, Taiwan is affected in that it is one of the countries – along with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China – asserting sovereignty over all or part of the Spratly Islands group in the South China Sea.     [FULL  STORY]

Shortage of funds forces cancellation of National Day fireworks

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-10-04
By: Wendy Lee, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) will schedule extra trains during the Double Ten holiday to cater to the large number of travelers expected during the national holiday, the company announced Tuesday.

A total of 97 additional train services on top of the original schedules will be operating from October 7th to 10th, with 45 of them southbound and 52 northbound, the railway company said.

The company encouraged travelers to book tickets in advance and purchase them through the THSRC partnering convenience stores or online booking systems to avoid the queues.

Ticket booking for the upcoming holiday will start Wednesday, October 5th at 12:00am sharp (midnight).     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-10-03
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The 2016 Taiwan Cycling Festival, which will include four series of cycling events ranging from the “amateur class” to the “professional class,” will take place from Oct. 8 to Nov. 13, the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced at a press conference in Taipei on Monday.

Wayne Liu, deputy director general of Tourism Bureau, said the festival was made possible by 32 public and civic organizations, including 12 city and county governments and 10 national scenic areas, and the goal is to promote cycling in Taiwan and let the world see the beauty of Taiwan through cycling.

The four series of the cycling festival are the “2016 Taiwan KOM Challenge,” “Formosa 900,” “Sun Moon Lake Come! Bikeday,” and “OK Taiwan-Floral City Biking Festival.”

For more information of the festival, please visit taiwanbike or the festival’s Facebook page at https://zh-tw.facebook.com/TBROC.TaiwanCyclingFestival     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/10/03
By: Chen Cheng-wei and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) The estimated agricultural losses from Typhoon Megi, which swept through Taiwan on Sept. 27, has risen to nearly NT$3.36 billion (US$107.16 million), prompting the Council of Agriculture (COA) to introduce several assistance measures to help farmers recover from the typhoon damage, the COA said Monday.

As of 6 p.m. Monday, agricultural losses caused by the damage from the storm had reached NT$3.359 billion, according to the COA.

Yunlin County in western Taiwan suffered the heaviest losses at NT$667.5 million, followed by Chiayi County in the south at NT$564.01 million, Changhua County at NT$445.17 million, Yilan County at NT$328.42 million, Taichung City at NT$298.25 million and Kaohsiung City at NT$296.36 million, the COA said.

Crop damage accounted for most of the losses, with 59,291 hectares of farmland and NT$2.78 billion-worth of crops damaged, according to the COA.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 04, 2016
By: Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Council of Grand Justices nominees should be required to explain their positions on constitutional

issues, New Power Party (NPP) lawmakers said yesterday, promising to question the nominees about same-sex marriage, gender equality and other topics.

“In the past, the review of grand justice nominees has often been reduced to a formality, but we feel that the new legislature should do things differently,” NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said, laying out a detailed questionnaire covering topics such as same-sex marriage, Aboriginal rights, gender equality and religion.

The party’s questionnaires for the nominees for president and vice president of the Judicial Yuan — who are also grand justices — also include issues such as evaluating and replacing judges, the necessity of a special labor court and the legal separation of judges and public prosecutors.

“Future members of the Council of Grand Justices are extremely important because there are many important political and social reforms that could end up in their hands,” NPP caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said. “This is not just a test — we hope it will highlight their values.”     [FULL  STORY]

Are mainstream political television chat shows deterring talented Taiwanese from getting involved with politics? UDN believes that is the case.

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/10/03
By: Mo Tz-pin

The treatment that Taiwan’s politicians receive on television is turning would-be civil servants away from

public life, the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) says in an editorial.

Taiwan has more than 20 political talk shows, with hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning in every night. The shows are notorious for their harsh criticism of politicians and their well-known commentators frequently wading into the personal lives of public officials.

According to the UDN editorial published today, talented people are choosing to work in the private sector rather than as public officials who are treated “unequally and disrespectfully” on national television.

The editorial said there is a lack of diversity among the shows’ commentators, with the same group of commentators rotating between different shows, repeating the same message. Political pundits stereotype politicians, labeling, for example, senior politicians with “high” salaries as “fat cats.”     [FULL  STORY]

‘UNIFORM’:The DPP caucus and the Executive Yuan were ordered to complete the legislative process for mandatory two-day weekends by the end of this year

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 04, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday instructed the Executive Yuan and the Democratic

Progressive Party (DPP) caucus to push through the legislature a draft amendment to introduce a five-day workweek with two mandatory days off, while reiterating her administration’s determination to carry out pension reform.

Tsai issued the instruction after convening the first weekly “administrative decisionmaking coordination meeting,” bringing together officials from the Executive Yuan and the DPP to deliberate on major issues, such as the proposal for mandatory two-day weekends, pension reform and money-laundering allegations against Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行).

“With regard to the unnecessary confusion caused by inconsistent national holidays, we should unify all public holidays and establish a uniform system applicable to every person in the nation,” Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) quoted Tsai as saying at the meeting.     [FULL  STORY]