Taipei Times
Date: Sep 10, 2016
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has “cried wolf” and consequently destroyed his credibility by

retaining the build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract for the Taipei Dome complex, residents opposed to the project said yesterday.

A dozen residents staged a protest in front of the Taipei City Hall to decry Ko’s decision.

Songshan Tobacco Factory Tree Protection Union convener Arthur Yo (游藝) said Ko had made an “absurd” decision, which Yo said was based solely on a “hollow” letter of consent drafted by Farglory that stopped short of any substantial commitments to fix problems it has caused the project.

Farglory on Thursday afternoon — just hours after Ko announced the decision — “slapped the Taipei City Government in the face” by saying that it would only comply with existing city construction bylaws and raising doubts over the legitimacy of safety standards, Yo said.

“Had the lawyers hired by the city government not able to see through Farglory’s wordplay?” he asked.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 10, 2016
By: Yuan-Ming Chiao

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Workers from the state-owned Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA, 台鐵) took to

the streets in front of the Executive Yuan in protest again Friday, casting doubt over an earlier deal to avert a staff shortage during Mid-Autumn Festival.

Dozens of members of the Taiwan Railway Union (TRU, 台鐵產業公會) braved heavy rain to deliver 1,800 separate petitions to the Cabinet, declaring their intention to take Sept. 15 and 16 off en masse in protest at alleged “compulsory overtime.”

The union represents train service personnel and ticket collectors working for the national railway.

TRU Director-General Wang Chieh (王傑) said that TRA had made the unprecedented move of handing out overtime pay in advance, and the advance compensation had given workers the impression they would be forced to accept shifts over the upcoming holiday period.     [FULL  STORY]

Residents in Kaohsiung and Tainan are accusing their municipal governments of not respecting them as land disputes heat up.

 

The News Lens
Date: 2016/09/08
By: ZiQing Low

Recent development projects that, according to critics, have been hastily pushed forward by the

Kaohsiung and Tainan city governments have many wondering if these two cities are still the “democratic strongholds” of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), The News Lens reports.

On Sept. 1, the Kaohsiung City Council forcibly demolished three houses around a wholesale fruit and vegetable market. The move called into question Kaohsiung’s status as a “Human Rights City,” a title the city received when it joined the People’s Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE) Human Rights City program in 2003.

The area around the market is prone to flooding, and TNL reports that the city council plans to convert the area into a new market that can prevent floods. However, one resident, surnamed Huang, whose family has lived there since the 1960s, told TNL that “the residents were never given the chance to voice their concerns over the demolitions.”     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-08
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Serious rockslides brought by heavy rain have caused damage at 44 km on the Alishan forest railway, leading to the damage of the tunnel and railway.

The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) announced that the damaged sections of the mountain railway will undergo repair on Thursday and Friday, thus the line from Chiayi to the Fenchihu station will be suspended on Sep 8th and 9th.

Ticket refund policies are as follows:

1. Ticket holder whose schedule was affected due to the suspending could get a full price refund without handling fee in one year at the TRA or the forest railway ticket counter with the unused ticket.

2. Holders of paid online booking ticket which meets the refund requirements should fetch the ticket and get a full price refunded within one year.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/08
By: Tai Ya-chen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Sept. 8 (CNA) Taiwan aims to install 1.52 gigawatts (GW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity

by 2018, Cabinet spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said Thursday citing a two-year renewable energy development plan devised by the Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The plan was approved by the Executive Yuan Thursday at a regular Cabinet meeting, according to Tung.

The targeted 1.52GW of installed capacity will include 910 megawattz (MW) of rooftop-mounted and 610 MW of ground-mounted solar PV installations, Tung said citing Lin Chuan-neng (林全能), director-general of the bureau.

Lin said at the meeting that the rooftop-mounted systems will be installed on buildings used by state-owned enterprises, public organizations and schools, as well as factories, agricultural facilities and residential units.     [FULL  STORY]

HUGE SAVINGS:The bonus cut, which will not affect retired military personnel, will save the government about NT$870 million per year, a DPP caucus whip said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 09, 2016
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

Holiday benefit payments to retired civil servants, public-school teachers and political appointees who

receive more than NT$25,000 in monthly pension payments are to be axed from next year, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.

Retired government and public-school employees used to receive NT$2,000 for the Lunar New Year, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays.

Starting next year, they will no longer receive NT$6,000 in annual holiday bonuses, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said after a lunch meeting yesterday with Premier Lin Chuan (林全).

However, they will still receive a NT$2,000 bonus for next week’s Mid-Autumn Festival, Wu said.

The number of retired public employees eligible to holiday bonuses will decrease from 88,088 to 13,489, and the number of eligible retired public-school teachers will fall from 82,395 to 924, the Executive Yuan said.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 9, 2016
By: Christine Chou

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said Thursday he would “give Farglory (遠雄集團) one

more chance” to complete construction of the Taipei Dome, one day after the company agreed to follow city regulations it had previously violated.

Although the government would not terminate the Dome contract, it would step up its monitoring of the project, Ko said.

The city government said in June that it would end the build-operate-transfer contract for the arena if Farglory failed to submit a revised construction plan within three months.

Farglory issued a statement Wednesday shortly before the 5:30 p.m. deadline, saying it had agreed to cooperate with the Taipei government and to follow the city’s safety evaluation standards.

Work on the Dome, being built for next year’s Universiade sporting competition, has been characterized by repeated safety violations, including a lack of evacuation space and escape routes.     [FULL  STORY]

FALSE PRETENSE:The head of a residents’ group said drainage improvements were an unjustified reason for demolitions, asking if a mall would be torn down as well

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 08, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Arthur Chen (陳宜民) yesterday accused Kaohsiung Mayor

Chen Chu’s (陳菊) administration of using litigation to deter its critics — such as himself — while the head of a self-help association for residents of the Dagouding (大溝頂) neighborhood, where a city government plan to demolish houses has been thwarted, accused the mayor of unfairly pitting protesters against public interests.

Arthur Chen was taken to court by the city government over his accusations in July that the municipality’s plan to demolish a row of houses in Qishan District (旗山) — called the Taiping Marketplace (太平商場) — as part of efforts to improve a drainage canal was designed to benefit a corporation with ties to relatives of the mayor.

The lawmaker said Chen Chu’s demand that he pay compensation and make a public apology in a newspaper was “an attempt to threaten by lawsuit a democratically elected representative.”

He accused the Kaohsiung City Government of absurdity, as the newspaper apology he was asked to publish was signed “Chiu Yi” (邱毅) instead of “Arthur Chen.”     [FULL  STORY]