Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/09/04
By: Sophia Yeh and S.C. Chang

Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) held a meeting with top executive and

legislative leaders and ruling party mayors of four municipalities Sunday to push ahead with the government’s major policy initiatives including reform of the country’s pension system.

Presidential Office Spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said attending the meeting were Premier Lin Chuan, Vice Premier Lin Hsi-yao, Cabinet Secretary General Chen Mei-ling, Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan, Deputy Speaker Tsai Chi-chang, Democratic Progressive Party caucus head Ker Chien-ming and mayors of Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.

The meeting came on the heel of a mass rally a day earlier of retired and serving public functionaries, public school teachers and military personnel who vented their anger at being stigmatized over their seemingly fat pension incomes.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-04
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The annual Sun Moon Lake International Swimming Carnival took place on Sept 3 and Sept 4 with more than 20,000 swimmers.

Beginning to be part of the swimming event from last year, the 3,000m and 5,000m Open Water competitions for elite swimmers with national or international competition experience were held one day earlier, on Saturday, Sept 3.

Former President Ma Ing-jeou, who presided over the opening ceremony of the Sunday mass swimming event across the lake with Nantou County Commissioner Lin Ming-chen, also took part in the competition. Ma finished the 3,000m swim in one hour and 38 minutes.

After the swim Ma said that Sun Moon Lake is the best place in Taiwan for long distance swimming and that holding the event only once every year is a pity, recommending Lin to hold the event three times in a year, in spring, summer and fall, to allow more people to participate and find more swimming talents for the country.

Nantou is Taiwan’s only inland county but is home to the famous Sun Moon Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Taiwan. The east side of the lake resembles a sun while the west side resembles a moon, thus the name.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 05, 2016
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

Young people from the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and Taiwan Independence Flag Organization

yesterday took part in a “flash mob” in Taipei to back demands for the use of “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei” for national teams participating in international competitions.

Armed with posters and placards that spelled “we want Team Taiwan to participate at all international competitions,” the group walked through the Huashan 1914 Creative Park, where they were mostly met with smiles and thumbs up by the throngs of people attending a beer festival, as well as arts and musical events. The signs also invited people to take photographs to post on Line, Facebook and other social networking sites.

Flash mob participants also handed out dark green stickers with the message “Taiwan is Taiwan” in Chinese and “Taiwan is not Chinese Taipei” in English.

TSU Youth Department deputy director Hsu Ya-chi (許亞齊) said the “flash mob” action was aimed at raising awareness among young people of the name issue, encouraging people to cheer for “Team Taiwan” and Taiwanese athletes at all sports events and urging the government and sports bodies to drop the name “Chinese Taipei.”     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: September 5, 2016
By: The China Post news staff with CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan — President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to continue with pension reform on Sunday, following

massive protests by public sector workers criticizing her administration’s proposed pension reforms on Armed Forces Day.

Tsai said that while people had the right to protest and point out problems in public policies, it was more important for them to bring their concerns to the government.

“If people bring concerns to the government and I didn’t get wind of them, they could raise their voices on the second or third attempt or pound their fists on a table,” she said, saying she would certainly get word of their demands that way.

There was no need for people to take their demands to the streets so frequently, Tsai said.

The president said the government aimed to establish a sustainable pension system to ensure that retirees could be financially comfortable and have a good standard of living.

“This road to reform will continue steadily forward,” said the president. “Each individual should put some thought into other people, and our society will be more cohesive. The sacrifice of this generation is to ensure that future Taiwanese will be able to live with guarantees.”

To protect citizens’ rights to retirement pensions and make retirees less reliant on their children for care, Tsai said the government will continue with the reform process.

The government’s reforms are to take place under four principles: ensuring that seniors have a basic livelihood, a scientific approach to an adjustment of monthly pension rates with respect to wages, the sustainability of pension funds, including acceptable returns on investment, and a reform process that is centered on democratic and transparent principles.     [FULL  TORY]

The China Post
Date: September 4, 2016
By: CNA

TAIPEI — Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) has departed on a trip to the Vatican to attend the

canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.

On the visit that will last until Sept. 8, Chen will serve as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) special envoy to the ceremony on Sept. 4, at which Pope Francis will declare Blessed Teresa of Kolkata a saint.

In a statement released Friday, the MOFA described as “significant” the visit by Chen, a devout Christian and a member of two Roman Catholic orders — the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The statement said the Republic of China shares the values of religious freedom, democracy and human rights and support for humanitarian relief with the Vatican. During his stay, Chen will act to boost the interactions and friendship between the two countries, it said.

The Vatican is the only country in Europe that maintains formal ties with the ROC.

The relationship was established in July 1942. One year later, the ROC set up a legation in Rome, which was upgraded to an embassy in June 1959, according to MOFA data.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-03
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

A liquor manufacturer in Changhua County was found to have mislabeled artificially flavored alcohol

as a genuine red wine. Taichung investigators reportedly seized more than 10,000 kilograms of the mislabeled alcohol and detained the business owner surnamed Chen.
The Taichung District Prosecutors Office received a report claiming that Daisan Liquor Corporation might produce faked red wine, rice wine, and whiskey.

According to the Chinese-language Apple Daily, Daisan’s liquor products have been sold at retail outlets like small-size supermarkets and grocery stores in the Taichung and Changhua areas.

After weeks of collecting evidence, the investigators found that Daisan has added flavoring and a small amount of sugar into alcohol but claimed it as a genuine red wine. No substance of grape or fruit was detected in samples as claimed.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 04, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Shilin District Court Chief Judge Hung Ying-hua (洪英花) yesterday questioned President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) nomination of former grand justice Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) as Judicial Yuan president, saying a re-assumption of the position would contravene the Constitution.

At a news conference “to warn against nepotism in the nation’s judiciary,” Hung said that while Hsu upholds that the Constitution only stipulates that candidates cannot hold the position for two consecutive terms and does not explicitly prohibit re-assumption, “according to official documents regarding the Constitution-amending process [in 1997], what the Constitution means by ‘no consecutive terms’ is precisely ‘once in a lifetime.’”

The draft amendment used the examples of Germany and Italy to support the change that called for the injunction against consecutive terms, “and both German and Italian grand justices, with terms of 12 years and nine years respectively, are not allowed to be appointed for consecutive terms, which means no reappointments,” she said.

Hung also cited then-National Assembly member Thomas Peng (彭錦鵬) as saying during the amendment process that the reasoning behind the ban of serving consecutive terms was to “rule out the possibility of grand justices harboring the desire of reappointment, which would adversely affects their work of Constitution interpretation.”     [FULL  STORY]