‘RISE IN REBELLION’:Lee Hsin urged younger members, and especially members from underprivileged families, to come together to demand a complete overhaul of the party

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 21, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Taipei Times

Tensions were high yesterday at a youth forum attended by the four Chinese

Nationalist Party (KMT) chairperson candidates, with party reform and cross-strait issues hotly debated.

Seizing an opportunity to campaign ahead of the KMT’s chairperson by-election, which is scheduled for Saturday, KMT Acting Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), former deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), KMT Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) all attended the forum held by the Association for Cross-Strait Public Affairs at the legislature.

Hostility began to build up even before the forum started. Lee wanted to sit next to Hung, who said to him: “I do not want to sit with you. I am going to teach you a lesson later.”

Hung then moved to a different seat after Lee ignored her opposition and sat next to her anyway.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-20
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Your package will be available for pickup at a Taipei Metro pickup locker in the near future.

To capitalize on online shopping and auction boom, Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) has installed a total of 108 pickup lockers at nine stations, including Daan, Zhongshan, Shilin, Fuxinggang, Taipei Arena, Nanjing Fuxing, Neihu and Sanchong.

As the TRTC is leasing the facilities, the request to tender begins on March 20 and the opening of tenders is scheduled at early April.

After the pickup lockers begin operation, the operator will offer online shoppers the option of having their purchased goods delivered to a pickup locker of a designated Taipei Metro station, the TRTC said. The operator will send a pickup code to the buyer, with which to enter into the touch screen display and pick up the package, the TRTC said, adding that it’s convenient and confidential.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/20
By: Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 20 (CNA) Unstable weather is expected to continue throughout Taiwan for the coming week, with all parts of the country likely to see intermittent showers or heavy rain as moisture increases due to the development of a series of convective systems that could affect the country, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said Sunday.

On Sunday, a new weather front and the strengthening northeast monsoon could bring occasional rain to northern and eastern parts of the country, and brief showers or even heavy rain to central and southern Taiwan, the CWB forecast.

Temperatures throughout the country will drop to around 17-21 degrees in the early morning and later in the evening that day, the CWB forecast.     [FULL  STORY]

MATTER OF URGENCY:DPP Legislator Chao Tian-lin said that reinstating the C1 mark would help prevent innocent people from buying controversial property

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 21, 2016
By: Tseng Wei-chen and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The “C1 mark” appended to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) assets and

its affiliate organizations, which President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government had removed nearly seven years ago, is likely to be reinstated after the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee on Wednesday last week passed a motion in favor of the move.

In December 2005, the Ministry of the Interior, according to an executive order of the then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, instructed land administration units to append the C1 mark to all national assets registered to the KMT and its affiliate organizations.

The intent was to remind corporate owners of the risks they faced when buying allegedly illegal assets the KMT was liquidating.

However, the C1 mark was removed after Ma was elected president in 2008; the Ma administration also closed down Web sites detailing the party’s disputed assets.
All related information was also removed from Web sites such as the National Property Administration.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-20
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The planned Hualien-Taitung expressway, which is estimated to cost more than NT$90 billion to construct and take six years to finish, offers little benefit, and therefore the possibility of the project being put forward is not high, the Directorate General of Highways (DGH) has said after completing the feasibility study of the planned expressway.

Local elected representatives have been worried about the possibility of the increased influx of vehicles overflowing the Hualien and Taitung areas as improved sections from the Suhua Highway Improvement Project will begin opening for traffic from the end of 2017. They fear the current Provincial Highway 9 cannot handle such traffic increase and demand construction of the expressway.

The DGH has recently completed the feasibility study of the planned expressway, which took three years to finish.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-19
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – If the Taipei City Government was unable to agree with developer Farglory Group about the fate of the Taipei Dome, i-voting by the public might have to determine what happened to the stadium project, Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je said Saturday.

Next week, the result of arbitration about the delays in completing the 40,000-seat stadium is likely to be announced. The city ordered to halt to construction of the nearly completed project last year amid safety concerns and financial disputes with Farglory.

Once next week’s ruling was out, the city would sit down with the company and have a thorough talk about the Taipei Dome, Ko said. If in the end, no agreement was reached, public opinion would have the last say, with Internet voting as the method, according to the mayor.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/19
By: Chen Cheng-wei, Han Ting-ting and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, March 19 (CNA) Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) headquarters and the Taipei 101 skyscraper joined communities around the globe in observing Earth Hour by turning off their lights from 8:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Saturday.

The annual global event is usually held toward the end of March, encouraging individuals, communities, households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to show their concern for climate change and commitment to the sustainable future of the planet.

The state-owned Taipower said the collective observance of Earth Hour in Taiwan in 2015 saved 70,000 kilowatt hours, amounting to the equivalent of 36 metric tons of CO2.     [FULL  STORY]

LONG WAY TO GO:The Criminal Investigation Bureau acknowledged the US’ support and added that it would make every effort to join Interpol at international meetings

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 20, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

US President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill that requires the US

secretary of state to develop a strategy to obtain observer status for Taiwan in the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and other international groups.

“Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the secretary shall transmit to [the US] Congress a report, in unclassified form, describing the United States strategy to endorse and obtain observer status for Taiwan in appropriate international organizations, including Interpol, and at other related meetings, activities and mechanisms thereafter,” according to the text of the new legislation.

The bill was sent to the White House for Obama to sign into law after it cleared the US House of Representatives and the US Senate earlier this month.     [FULL  STORY]

You thought the Yeezy hype was bad? Wait till you take a look at what went down in Taiwan for the NMD release.

The video, published by Taiwanese news outlet EBC, shows a massive riot of people swarming what looks to be a plaza / mall. People headed to adidas Originals store in flocks to grab a pair of the newly released NMD’s and man, it looked like a rumble.

Sneakers often bring people together, but sometimes they can also bring out the worst in people. Unfortunately, the adidas NMD R1 inspired the latter when it released in Taiwan.

Sneakerheads showed up in droves to cop a pair of the anticipated adidas NMD release from the adidas Originals store at the Siam Centre shopping mall in Bangkok. With no lottery system in place, a routine sneaker release quickly snowballed into straight-up pandemonium. Taiwanese news outlet EBC was on hand to capture shoppers rushing through the mall and the ensuing chaos that occurred when employees at the adidas store tried to hold off the aggressive crowd at the door. People got knocked over, and one shopper even fainted as the crowd was trying to force their way into the store.

Following the incident, adidas Thailand took to Facebook to apologize to shoppers and asked for feedback on how to better handle such high-profile releases in the future.