‘PROFIT OVER SAFETY’:Lin Chuan raised questions about tour bus management, overworked bus drivers and competition leading to a decline in service quality

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 22, 2016
By: Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter, with CNA

Premier Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday paid his respects to the 26 victims of Tuesday’s tour bus fire,

vowing to reform the tourism industry to avoid similar incidents from occurring.

Accompanied by Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), the premier yesterday attended a ceremony at a mourning hall for the 26 victims — which included 24 Chinese tourists, a Taiwanese bus driver and a Taiwanese tour guide — at a public funeral home in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢).

Lin bowed deeply and offered incense in front of the victims’ portraits.

“I came here to offer incense to the victims to express my sorrow about the fatal accident that took 26 precious lives,” Lin told reporters outside the mourning hall.     [FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: Jul 21, 2016
By: Faith Hung; Editing by Christopher Cushing

EVA Airways Corp, Taiwan’s second-biggest airline, said on Thursday it will suspend flights to Turkey after the Turkish president declared a state of emergency in a widening crackdown on suspected participants of a failed military coup.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the emergency, lasting three months, would allow his government to take swift measures against coup supporters and that it was allowed under Turkey’s constitution.

“We need to see how political developments unfold … We also see our customers’ safety as a priority,” said Golden Kou, an EVA Airways vice president.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-21
By: Bien Chin-feng and Christie Chen, Central News Agency

Taipei, July 21 (CNA) A funeral service will be held July 25 for the victims of a July 19 tour bus fire that killed all 26 people on the vehicle, including 24 from China.

The remains of the victims will be cremated July 24, after which the families of the Chinese victims are set to bring their ashes back to China. The families of the Chinese victims were scheduled to arrive in Taiwan later Thursday on a charter flight. Police and prosecutors will collect DNA samples from them before taking them to a funeral parlor in Taoyuan, so that the charred remains can be identified. Premier Lin Chuan (林全) will also pay his respects at the funeral parlor later Thursday.

Yang Jing, vice general manager of the Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China’s Dalian branch, told China’s state-owned Xinhua news agency that 12 of the victims were covered by the company, which had so far paid out over 1.2 million Chinese yuan (US$179,701) in insurance claims to the families of four of the victims as of Wednesday.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/21
By Tai Ya-chen and Christie Chen

Taipei, July 21 (CNA) Cabinet officials observed a minute of silence Thursday for the victims of a

deadly tour bus fire earlier this week that killed all 24 Chinese and two Taiwanese aboard the vehicle.

The officials stood in silence for a minute to mourn the deadliest tragedy of its kind in Taiwan, prior to a weekly Cabinet meeting presided over by Premier Lin Chuan (林全).

The fire took 26 precious lives and “besides expressing our grief, we should also reflect deeply” on the incident, Lin said.

“Those of us in government should be responsible for the lives and safety of the people and travelers,” Lin told the officials.

He urged the authorities to identify the cause of the incident as soon as possible and conduct a comprehensive review of Taiwan’s public spaces and transportation system to guarantee passenger safety in the future.     [FULL  STORY]

‘Tsai is not stopping political power from interfering in the judicial system, but is making it worse.’

The News Lens
Date: 2016/07/20
By: Chang Shin-wei
First Editor: Olivia Yang
Second Editor: Edward White

President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) nominations for the president and vice president of the Judicial

Yuan on July 12 are the wrong first step in her goal to reform the judiciary, the chairperson of the Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation (TATR) wrote in an op-ed in the Apple Daily on July 20.

In line with the backlash in the legal field over the nominations, Huang Cheng-yi (黃丞儀) wrote that President Tsai had probably nominated Shieh Wen-ting (謝文定) and Lin Chin-fang (林錦芳), who both have more than 10 years of experience in the judicial system, because they have reputations for “complying with supervisors without question.”

Huang said this might imply an unwritten rule: “Obey your supervisors and you will get a promotion.”     [FULL  STORY]

About NT$10 million still unaccounted for: reports

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-20
By: By Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A bag believed to contain the missing NT$23 million (US$718,000)

from the automatic teller machine theft by an East European group was found along a path in Taipei City’s Neihu District Wednesday afternoon, but by evening it became clear that not all the money was inside, reports said.

A group of up to 19 people were believed to have been involved in the theft of a total of NT$83 million (US$2.59 million) from more than 40 First Commercial Bank ATMs during the July 10 weekend.

Most of the suspects fled the country, but the arrest of Latvian citizen Andrejs Peregudovs in Yilan County on July 17 supplied investigators with a major breakthrough. The same day, Romanian national Mihail Colibaba and Moldovan citizen Nikolay Penkov were picked up by police at a Taipei hotel, and NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) was found soon after. The group had used lockers at Taipei Railway Station as a hiding spot.

Peregudovs, who was transferred to the Taipei Detention Center with his two suspected accomplices, claimed he had put the missing money in a bag and deposited it somewhere near a parking lot in the Neihu District, apparently to be picked up by other members of the group, reports said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/20
By: Lien Chin-feng, Liao Jen-kai, Wang Shu-fen and Lilian Wu

Taipei, July 20 (CNA) The possibility of an electrical short circuit cannot be ruled out in a deadly fire that engulfed a tour bus, killing all 26 people aboard, including 24 Chinese tourists, experts probing the cause of the fire said Wednesday.

The experts noted that a fuse box at the front of the bus had melted, pointing to the possibility of a power overload leading to an electrical short circuit.

The experts targeted the front area of the bus as a possible starting point for the fire, and were continuing their assessment, checking the driver’s door and various electrical appliances such as a drinking fountain at the front, a refrigerator underneath the aisle, and the main fuse box behind the driver’s seat.

They also compared the bus with another of the same type, particularly two transformers situated underneath the driver’s seat.     [FULL  STORY]