DELAYED REPORT?Police said an Indonesian woman filmed her employer raping her and reported it to her broker. The woman apparently tried to commit suicide yesterday

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 11, 2016
By: Chang Jui-chen, Su Chin-feng and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer

Indonesia’s Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers yesterday called

A picture taken from a video uploaded to the Internet shows the silhouette of a man who allegedly raped an Indonesian maid in Taichung. Photo copied by Chang Jui-hsiung, Taipei Times

on authorities to ensure that a Taiwanese employer who allegedly raped an Indonesian caregiver is brought to justice.
The agency made the statement after a video was published on the Web site of Suarabmi, an Indonesian media outlet.
The Web site, www.suarabmi.com, published an Indonesian-language report on the story yesterday, with images of a messaging app conversation and a YouTube video that was unavailable because of YouTube’s policy on “nudity or sexual content.”
The Taichung Police Department said that it received a call on the 1955 hotline — a toll-free, round-the-clock service run by the Ministry of Labor for foreign workers — at about 6pm on Friday.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 11, 2016
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Prosecutors on Saturday concluded a probe into the July tour bus blaze that killed

These photos of surveillance footage show bus driver Su Ming-cheng buying gasoline at a Chiayi gas station. Su doused himself in gas and set himself and the bus on fire, according to investigation findings released yesterday. (CNA)

26 people, finding that the driver doused himself in gas and set himself and the bus on fire.

Driver Su Ming-cheng, who died in the fire, was found culpable for homicide but — as he died in the fire — could not be prosecuted.

The Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, making public the findings of its probe, said Su set himself alight using gasoline while driving the bus.

Twenty-four Chinese tourists and one tour guide were also on board at the time.

Su had consumed large amounts of alcohol before the act, which resulted in the bus crashing through a roadside barrier, with the all the passengers trapped inside the fire-engulfed vehicle, the prosecutors said.

The tour group, from Liaoning province, was minutes away from the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, from where it was to catch a plane back to China.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-10
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Taipei City Government on Saturday put a map online which shows its

Taipei Vice Mayor Charles Lin.

own building and nearby Taipei 101 are located in areas prone to a high degree of liquefaction during earthquakes.
The perils of soil liquefaction came to the fore after 117 people died when a building in Tainan collapsed during an earthquake last February.

Soil liquefaction occurs when soil is saturated and loses strength and stiffness, often during earthquakes, and behaves like a liquid.

Taipei City decided to launch a study to determine which parts of the capital were most prone to liquefaction, and the results were put online Saturday in the form of a colored map with advice at soil2.taipei. The site also includes a search function where residents can write their address into the map and see what kind of risk level their home faces.     [FULL  STORY]

Taichung in central Taiwan hopes to become a regional hub for international organizations.

The News Lens
Date: 2016/09/10
By: Don Shapiro

With backing from the central government, the central Taiwan city of Taichung is working on plans to

Photo Credit: Fcuk1203 CC BY SA 2.0

establish a facility to serve as the regional headquarters for international non-government organizations (NGOs) active in Southeast Asia. Announcing the project in July, Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) proposed that the center be located on currently unused property in the city’s Wufeng District once occupied by the now defunct Taiwan Provincial Assembly.

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has praised the initiative, and Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) has been appointed to head a task force to coordinate the central government’s support. Part of the proposed site is under the control of the Legislative Yuan, which would need to approve transfer of the land.

In a press release, the Taichung city government cited three categories of international NGOs that would be particularly welcome in the new center: organizations devoted to promoting human rights and democracy such as Freedom House from the United States, those related to humanitarian and ecology-related causes such as Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders, groups concerned with women’s rights and interests such as Women’s Campaign International.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/10
By: Liu Chien-pang and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) Slightly more than 26 percent of areas in Taipei have a medium to high

Soil liquefaction potential map. From government website.

vulnerability to soil liquefaction during a strong earthquake, according to a government database that went online Saturday.

The database located at soil2.taipei showed much of the highly vulnerable areas are in central parts of Taipei, including commercial and financial districts, whereas the mountainous areas of the city were shown as being safer.

The database was created by the Taipei City Government by integrating data collected from construction drilling projects and data compiled by the Central Geological Survey, with vulnerability assessment having been conducted at 3,060 locations, the city’s Public Works Department said.

Because the existing data for 14.5 percent of areas in Taipei are not precise enough, the department said drilling will be conducted in these areas to improve their precision.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-09
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Several Taiwanese airlines announced Friday that passengers would not be allowed to put the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone inside check-in luggage and should not open the phone or recharge while in the air due to a fire danger.

The new phone has been the target of a worldwide recall by its South Korean manufacturer after reports that at least 35 of them caught fire while charging.

On Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States “strongly advises passengers not to turn on or charge these devices on board aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage.”

Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said Friday it had passed on the FAA message to the country’s airlines, though it added the measure was not obligatory.     [FULL  STORY]