SCRUTINIZED:Former president Ma Ying-jeou has substantial amount of classified information that needs to remain confidential, according to the Presidential Office

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 13, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

The Presidential Office yesterday turned down former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) application to

travel to Hong Kong on Wednesday, citing national security concerns and the highly-sensitive nature of the planned destination.

Speaking at a news conference yesterday afternoon, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said that the office rejected Ma’s application after factoring in the counsel of an ad hoc group established to review the former president’s travel request.

“In light of the significance, particularity and sensitivity of the role of a retired president in the area of national security, as well as the lack of precedents, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) instructed Presidential Office Secretary-General Lin Bih-jaw (林碧炤) and National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) to form an ad hoc group to evaluate the case and offer their suggestions,” Huang said.

Huang said the group solicited opinions from six government agencies — the National Security Council, the National Security Bureau (NSB), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Justice and the Mainland Affairs Council.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-06-11
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Premier Lin Chuan paid an unexpected visit to the Central Weather Bureau

Saturday as floods and landslides hit the southern part of the country.

On the third day of the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, southern regions such as Pingtung and Tainan suffered from torrential rain, while poor weather was also reported to play a part in holidaymakers returning home early, thus clogging up major roads in Yilan County and other areas.

Lin told weather forecasters that they should not only continue to monitor and publicize the current situation, but also keep an eye on a system lying between Taiwan and the Chinese island of Hainan which was expected to bring thunderstorms.

The bureau said that strong rain in the Tainan area had caused local flooding, though parts of Pingtung County also reported heavy rainfall. By 2 p.m. Saturday, amounts of rain from 268 to 318 millimeters had been registered in ten localities, all of them in Pingtung County, reports said. A bridge near the village of Dawu had been swept away, and about a hundred residents were cut off from the outside world, though they were safe for the time being, reports said.   [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/06/10
By: Wu Jhe-hao and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, June 10 (CNA) Three hikers who asked to be airlifted from a mountain in central Taiwan on Wednesday have been criticized for calling for help simply because of fatigue and blisters and refusing medical care after returning to safety.

The hikers were part of an 11-member group that set off for a hiking activity in Taiwan’s Central Mountain range in Hualien County on June 4.

On June 8, the Nantou County Fire Department received a call for help on its 119 hotline from the hiking group, which was in Xinyi Township of Nantou County.

The caller said the three hikers, all in their 50s, were unable to continue because of exhaustion or blisters on the soles of their feet.     [FULL  STORY]

‘SHAMELESS’:KMT official Alex Tsai on Facebook described President Tsai Ing-wen, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je and their families as Japanese ‘imperial subjects’

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 12, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday visited veterans in

Kaohsiung who had been verbally attacked by self-claimed citizen reporter Hung Su-chu (洪素珠), saying that her party would propose draft legislation to ban “discrimination based on ethnicity.”

Hung Hsiu-chu visited Chou Fu-wen (周富文) and Peng Tzu-ko (彭子珂), who came to Taiwan with the KMT regime in 1949 and were recently aggressively questioned by Hung Su-chu at Kaohsiung’s 228 Peace Park.

During the visit, Hung Hsiu-chu “held their hands to console them and told them that [she] was upset for them,” she said in a post on Facebook, adding that she apologized to the veterans on behalf of the KMT “for failing to explain to society the contributions of veterans to Taiwan.”

Chou said he belongs to a generation that witnessed tumultuous social upheavals and would not take Hung Su-chu’s comments to heart, despite the injustice he suffered, Hung Hsiu-chu said, adding that Chou nevertheless shed tears when expressing his feelings.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-06-11
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Public Television Service said Saturday it would invite experts to advise on a revamp of its PeoPo online platform after a woman who insulted an elderly veteran was found to have been a frequent user.

Officials from President Tsai Ing-wen on down condemned a woman from Kaohsiung named Hung Su-chu for posting videos of her insults against retired military who arrived in Taiwan in the late 1940s and who she described as “Chinese refugees” who should go back to China.

Hung, who described herself as a “citizen reporter,” was found out to have been a frequent contributor to PeoPo, even though the controversial videos were not posted there but on her own Facebook page.

PTS Chairman Shaw Yu-ming said Saturday that he would invite experts and academics next week to discuss how to improve the management of PeoPo. However, he said he would not introduce preventive censorship to the site, but some formula on how to handle inflammatory content was needed.     [FULL  STORY]

Fopcus Taiwan
Date: 2016/06/11
By: Elaine Hou and Tang Pei-chun

Taipei, June 11 (CNA) Videos of a woman firing insults at elderly people who came to Taiwan from

China during the retreat of the Nationalist government about seven decades ago have drawn condemnation from across party lines, with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) calling for respect and inclusiveness among Taiwanese people.

The videos made by self-proclaimed “citizen journalist” Hung Su-chu (洪素珠) show elderly men and women in Kaohsiung on the receiving end of Hung’s verbal assaults.

In the clips, she told them to “scram” back to the Chinese mainland, demanded to know whether they had made any contribution to Taiwan and questioned why they and other veterans who came from China can be considered Taiwan’s “honored citizens” — a term used by the government to indicate retired servicemen — and receive government benefits.

After Hung posted one of the videos on her Facebook page on Thursday, it generated a lot of criticism, with reports of the incident making it on the front page of two of the four major Chinese-language dailies in Taiwan: Apply Daily and China Times.     [FULL  STORY]

The Straits Times
June m10, 2016

(THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – A 43-year-old fruit seller raped a beautician at her salon after

she was treated to a durian laced with sleeping pills in Taichung, Taiwan.

Guang Ming Daily reported that the man had earlier crushed two pills into powder before smearing it on the durian.

He then asked the woman to try it on the pretext that a customer had complained that the fruit was bitter.

He left the shop but returned several hours later and found the beautician feeling dizzy and lying on a sofa at the salon.

He then forced himself on her as she was too weak to put up a struggle.

Before leaving the salon, he took her to the bathroom to wash up.

The beautician’s sister then came to the salon after she failed to reach her on the handphone.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s current financial situation would make it difficult to reach the target, recently set by Senator McCain, of allocating 3 percent of its gross national product (GDP) to its national defense.

Sputnik News
Date: June 10, 2016

“Taiwan’s current financial situation would make it difficult to reach the government’s target of allocating 3 percent of the gross national product (GDP) to national defense,” the local media quotes Premier Lin Chuan as saying.

According to a government website on national statistics, its GDP in 2016 will reach 16.9 billion New Taiwan Dollars (TWD) ($522 mln).

If it allocates 3% of its GDP to the defense needs, it will be 509 million TWD ($15.7 mln) against 400 million TWD ($12.4 mln) currently planned by the government.

McCain’s surprise call for the country to spend 3% of its GDP on its national defense came during his visit to the island last week while he met with the country’s President Tsai Ing-wen.     [FULL  STORY]

Why you need to know:  The almost universal reaction to a recent harassment case targeting elderly ‘Mainlanders’ in Kaohsiung shows that Taiwan has transcended archaic definitions of citizenship. But China may still use this to its advantage.

The News Lens
Date: June 10, 2016
By: J. Michael Cole

A controversy over a video targeting an elderly Mainlander in Kaohsiung put a damper on the Dragon

Boat Festival on Friday and reopened the always touchy debate on race and citizenship in Taiwan.

The clip, posted on Facebook on Thursday by Hung Su-chu (洪素珠), a contributor to the People Post (PeoPo) citizen journalist platform operated by Public Television Service (PTS), shows Hung chasing an elderly Mainlander man at the 228 Memorial Park in the southern port city.

Off screen, Hung asks the man why he came to Taiwan. The man responds that he came in 1950 with his parents. Hung then starts yelling at the Chinese man and accuses Mainlanders of living off the Taiwanese. After she tells him he should go back to China, the man responds, “I live here, I have an identification card of the Republic of China.”

“I work here, and have contributed to this land,” he continues. “Why would I go back?”

“I do not want you Chinese people in Taiwan,” she screams.     [FULL  STORY]