Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/17
By: Sophia Yeh and Christie Chen

Taipei, Feb. 17 (CNA) President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday

called for restraint in the South China Sea, after news surfaced that day that China has deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system on one of the islands in the contested region.

Tensions are now higher in the region, Tsai told reporters before attending a DPP conference, when asked how China’s actions would impact regional safety.

“I call on all parties to exercise self-control based on the principle of peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea,” she said.

Fox News published satellite images from ImageSat International (ISI) on Tuesday (U.S. time), showing two batteries of eight surface-to-air missile launchers as well as a radar system on Woody Island, according to the news channel.     [FULL  STORY]

Presidential Office strikes back

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-16
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – In a new book, former President Lee Teng-hui blasts

top politicians for claiming the Diaoyutai Islands belong to Taiwan, but his accusations provoked a swift negative reaction from the Presidential Office, reports said Tuesday.
The uninhabited islands are controlled by Japan, but both China and Taiwan claim sovereignty over them, with rich fishing grounds and potential oil or gas reserves as the prize. Lee has come under fire before for supporting Japan’s claims.

The former president, who ruled Taiwan from 1988 to 2000, will publish a Chinese-language book with a title which could be freely translated as “Yu Sheng (The Rest of My Life): My Life Journey and Taiwan’s Road to Democracy.” He was absent at the official presentation Tuesday due to ill health, reports said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/16
By: Chang Jung-hsiang, Wang Shwu-fen and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Feb. 16 (CNA) Eighty-six buildings in Tainan are no longer fit for human habitation in the wake of the recent magnitude 6.4 earthquake, the city’s Public Works Bureau said Tuesday.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, the bureau had received notification to check on 546 damaged buildings after the quake that left 116 dead in the city, including 114 in an apartment complex in the city’s Yongkang District and two others in the city’s Guiren District.

The results show that 86 are not fit for habitation, while 64 can still be lived in but will require reinforcement.

A total of 280 buildings passed checks, while 116 were still being assessed.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: February 16, 2016

Temples play a key role in the daily lives of many Taiwan people, offering

spiritual guidance and serving as venues for important rituals.

One such facility in central Taiwan has taken this a step further by providing public microloans with zero collateral. Zinan Temple in Nantou County is issuing NT$600 (US$18.18) in “Land Lord’s Cash” to those in need with a valid ID.

Chuang Chiu-an, head of the temple’s administration office, said the practice dates back to the decades before Taiwan’s economy took off.

“During this tough time, such financial assistance really made a difference to the people in the rural community,” he said. “While the debt was not legally binding, the great majority of borrowers paid back the money as promised.”

According to Chuang, as Taiwan’s economy improved, the money lost its importance but retained its appeal. “The number of recipients grows by around 3 percent every year,” he said, adding that during the Lunar New Year vacation, around 14,000 people came to Zinan for the loan each day.    [FULL  STORY]

Macau Daily Times
Date: February 15, 2016

Taiwan’s newly completed Aviation Education Exhibition Center will not permit

entry by PRC nationals (including those from Macau and Hong Kong) due to security concerns, say center authorities, because it is located inside Taiwan’s Air Force Academy, which is part of the Gangshan Air Base.

The exhibition center features a UFO-shaped exterior that is intended to represent an advanced high-tech aircraft. It will display a total of 36 decommissioned planes from the Air Force, Navy and Army, 19 of which will be suspended from the ceiling. The center is the first museum in Taiwan to exhibit historical aircraft in such a manner.

Among those that are planned to hang from the ceiling are an AT-6 fighter trainer, an F-84G fighter, a U-3A liaison aircraft and other planes from the period between 1945 and 1967 when Republic of China forces were fighting communist forces on the mainland.     [FULL  STORY]

The Daily Star
Date: Feb. 15, 2016
By: Agence France Presse

TAIPEI: Flags flew at half-mast across Taiwan Monday as the island mourned more than 100 victims of a powerful earthquake who died when an apartment complex collapsed, as families demanded justice.

Many residents of the 16-story Wei-kuan complex in the southern city of Tainan were buried in rubble after last Saturday’s 6.4-magnitude quake.

Rescuers called off the desperate search for survivors over the weekend as the missing were accounted for.

All but two of the 116 dead were from the building — more than 380 people were inside the complex on the night of the quake.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Central Geological Survey (CGS) said Monday it will make public areas prone to soil liquefaction in three levels for six metropolitan regions in mid-March, with other regions to be announced later.

The Feb. 6 earthquake that caused heavy casualties in the city of Tainan has also aroused public concern about the issue of soil liquefaction in Taiwan.

Since the 921 earthquake in 1999, the CGS of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has been investigating active faults as well as the basic geological background of metropolitan regions around Taiwan, including areas prone to soil liquefaction.

CGS deputy director Shieh Kae-shyuan said the CGS has completed the investigation of soil liquefaction in the Taipei, Kaohsiung, Yilan, Hsinchu, Tainan and Pingtung regions and will announce the results in three colors according to degrees of potential, with orange to mean high, light orange to mean middle and green to mean low.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/15
By: Wang Ching-yi and Christie Chen

Taipei, Feb. 15 (CNA) A total of 34 historic monuments were damaged in the

magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit southern Taiwan on Feb. 6, Culture Minister Hung Meng-chi (洪孟啟) said Monday.

Twenty-three of the monuments are located in Tainan, with the city’s landmark Confucius Temple and Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple among those suffering the most serious damage, Hung said.

The Ministry of Culture began repairing the monuments immediately after the earthquake, and the repair work will cost an estimated NT$520 million (US$15.71 million), he said.

The Tainan Confucius Temple, built in 1665, is the first temple in Taiwan dedicated to the ancient Chinese sage and teacher Confucius, while the Tainan Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple honors the deity Guan Gong.     [FULL  STORY]

WITHDRAWAL REJECTED:Architect Cheng Chin-kuei’s wife attempted to withdraw NT$10 million in cash from his Taishin International Bank account, but was rejected

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 16, 2016
By: Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with CNA

The Tainan City Government yesterday filed for additional provisional

seizures of NT$220 million (US$6.58 million) in assets and funds belonging to people under investigation in connection with the collapse of the Weiguan Jinlong residential complex, including developer Lin Ming-hui (林明輝) and architects Cheng Chin-kuei (鄭進貴) and Chang Kuei-pao (張魁寶).

The complex — built by now-defunct Weiguan Construction Co (維冠建設) — in the city’s Yongkang District (永康) claimed 114 lives after it collapsed when a magnitude 6.4 quake struck Tainan on Feb. 6. Prosecutors and city officials said Weiguang Construction workers should be held responsible for circumventing safety codes.

Lin — believed to be the former owner of Weiguan Construction — and the two architects were among nine people named in the city’s original NT$30 million provisional seizure request that the Tainan District Court granted, Tainan Department of Legal Affairs Director Siao Bo-ren (蕭博仁) said.     [FULL  STORY]