The News Lens
Date: 2016/03/07

All of Taiwan’s six special municipalities will now recognize household

registrations of same-sex relationships starting from March 14.

Taipei, capital of Taiwan, and Kaohsiung first began recognizing household registrations of same-sex relationships last year. Taichung, New Taipei City and Tainan followed the suit this year and Taoyuan is the last major municipality to make the decision.

Tang Hui-chen, director of the Department of Civil Affairs at the Taoyuan City Government, says that based on gender equality, basic human rights and respect for same-sex relationships, the government has decided to allow gay couples to register as same-sex partners to protect their rights.

Tang adds that though Taiwan’s current civil law does not permit same-sex marriage, but out of respect for same-sex relationships, starting from March 14, the city government will order household registration offices to consider applications for registrations of same-sex relationships.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/07
By: Chen Wei-ting and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, March 7 (CNA) China’s proposal to construct a high-speed rail line between Beijing and Taipei as a national project is a unilateral idea that has not been mentioned to Taiwan, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Jian-yu (陳建宇) said Monday.

Chen said such a project has never been discussed between the two sides nor has he ever received any communication from China on the project, was referred to in a draft of China’s 2016-2020 development plan that was released Saturday in Beijing.

“It’s nothing but a unilateral and subjective idea of mainland China,” Chen said. “No discussions have taken place between two sides, let alone consensus.”

Such a project would involve major policy in Taiwan, not just his ministry, Chen said.     [FULL  STORY]

‘CONSIDERABLE CONTROVERSY’:Chang questioned the appropriateness of the probe into White Terror era documents, as well as the probe’s use of military police

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 08, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Premier Simon Chang (張善政) yesterday urged the Ministry of National

Defense to temporarily remove from their posts officials who were involved in the warrantless search by military police of a private residence for documents said to be related to the White Terror era, pending an investigation.

Amid growing public outcry over the search, Chang held a news conference at the Executive Yuan in an apparent effort to assuage the controversy.

The Taipei Military Police Station on Feb. 19 searched the home of a man, surnamed Wei (魏), who was later charged with possession of stolen property and violating personal privacy by selling government documents dated from the 1960s and 1970s. The documents in question were confiscated by the military police.

The case came to light after Wei’s daughter on Saturday posted on the Professional Technology Temple (PTT), the nation’s largest online academic bulletin board, about her father’s situation.    [FULL  STORY]

Reuters
Date: Mar 6, 2016

China will never allow the tragedy of Taiwan being “split” off from the rest of the country to

happen again, state media on Sunday quoted President Xi Jinping as saying, offering a strong warning to the island against any moves towards independence.

China considers self-ruled and democratic Taiwan a wayward province, to be brought under its control by force if necessary. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

Beijing has repeatedly warned against any moves towards independence since January’s landslide win by Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

Meeting with Shanghai delegates to the annual meeting of parliament, Xi made apparent reference to the Qing dynasty’s loss of Taiwan to Japan in 1895, who then ruled the island as a colony until the end of World War Two.

“We will resolutely contain ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist activities in any form, safeguard the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and never allow the historical tragedy of the nation being split to happen again,” Xi said.

“This is the common wish and firm will of all Chinese people. It is also our solemn commitment and our responsibility to history and the people,” he added.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-06
By: Central News Agency

A Vietnamese worker was shot by police in Taipei early Sunday after the man pushed a police officer and attempted to flee from a roadside inspection, according to the Taipei police.

The man, in his 40s, was riding in a taxi when four policemen who were carrying out roadside tests pulled the vehicle over for an inspection in a Xinhai Road underpass at around 1 a.m., the Taipei City Police Department’s Da’an Precinct said.

When the taxi approached the inspection point, the police “sensed that something was wrong because the passenger looked nervous, so they asked the driver to pull over for a check,” Lin Chieh-wei, chief of the Heping East Road police station, told CNA by telephone.

When one of the police was checking the license plate and ID of the taxi driver, the Vietnamese man was also asked to identify himself, but he did not respond to the police request, Lin said.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/06
By: Chang Ming-hsuan and Christie Chen

Chern Jenn-chuan, a former president of the Chinese Institute of Engineers.
Taipei, March 6 (CNA) The Taiwanese government has failed to learn a lesson from a devastating earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999, and has allowed poorly constructed buildings to continue to exist in Taiwan, an expert said Sunday, calling on the authorities to make drastic changes to prevent further quake disasters.

The Weiguan Jinlong residential complex should not have collapsed in southern Taiwan’s Tainan in the magnitude 6.4 earthquake earlier this year, Chern Jenn-chuan (陳振川), the former president of the Chinese Institute of Engineers, said at the opening of a forum to discuss the quake resistance capacity of Taiwanese buildings.

He accused the government of shirking its responsibility.

After the Sept. 21 earthquake of 1999, scholars discovered that buildings used for both commercial and residential purposes and that are located on street corners are the most vulnerable to collapse in such disasters, Chern said.     [FULL  STORY]

A STEP TOO FAR:A People First Party caucus statement said that the conduct by the military police crossed the red line of human rights laid down in the Constitution

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 07, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Lawmakers across party lines yesterday criticized a recent search by military police of the home of a man who allegedly had documents pertaining to the White Terror era, saying such conduct was reminiscent of the darkest period in the nation’s history.

“Such a home search is utterly reprehensible given that there is little chance the act of possessing documents from a period marred by the absence of the rule of law would break any laws,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said on Facebook.

Kuan said she has written to the Ministry of National Defense demanding an explanation for the Feb. 19 search of the house belonging to a man, surnamed Wei (魏), who has been charged by the Taipei Military Police Station with possessing stolen property and interfering with personal privacy by selling old government documents.      [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/06
By: Chen Chia-lun, Lawrence Chiu and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, March 6 (CNA) Taiwan has reaffirmed that the “1992 consensus” and “one China,

different interpretations” are the key to institutionalized talks and interactions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait after Chinese leaders made similar remarks stressing Beijing will adhere to the consensus as a political foundation.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Cabinet-level agency responsible for China policy, made the reaffirmation in a statement released late Saturday, in which it also explained that the core of the consensus is to reflect the sovereignty of the Republic of China.

“The mainland should face up to the cross-strait reality of separate rule, so that it can truly respect and understand Taiwanese people’s feelings and views,” the MAC statement said.

Only with such an attitude can cross-strait relations be developed pragmatically in the future, it added.     [FULL  STORY]