• 60 young blue shark carcasses were discovered in north west Taiwan
• Local authorities are hunting the perpetrators behind the killings
• The deaths have caused outrage among internet users in the country
• Locals have said that the fins could have been used for shark fin soup

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

The Daily Mail
Date: 4 February 2016
By SOPHIE WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE

Authorities in Taiwan are investigating after around 60 baby sharks were stripped of their fins and left on an embankment to die.

The dead baby blue sharks were seen by a passerby in the city of

Hsinchu, Taiwan, the People’s Daily Online reports.

The photos have caused outage online with people in Taiwan asking for action to be taken.

Tiny creatures: The largest shark was 27 inches long with the smallest measuring 11 inches

The blue shark is a species that lives in the world’s tropical oceans.

Local authorities were informed of the discovery near a bridge and found that the sharks were mainly untouched apart from her severed fins.     [FULL  STORY]

The New York Times
By Paul Mozurfeb

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The month before he was executed, in April

1952, Guo Ching wrote letters to his mother, wife and children to say goodbye.

The letters had only 140 miles to travel, but they would take 60 years to be delivered.

When his daughter finally received her father’s farewell after a protracted negotiation with Taiwan’s government, she was in her 60s, twice his age when he died.

“I kept crying, because I could now read what my father had written,” said the daughter, Guo Su-jen. “If I’d never seen his writing, I would have no sense of him as a living person. His writing makes him alive again. Without it, he would live only in my imagination, how I picture him.”     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/04
By: Chen Chi-ching and Frances Huang

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) Joint efforts by Taiwan, China and the

Philippines have resulted in the busting of a cross-border drug trafficking ring, the Penghu District Prosecutors Office said Thursday.

Law enforcement officers involved in the joint efforts seized more than 70 kilograms of drugs and raw materials for drug production, valued at over NT$120 million (US$3.57 million), in the Philippines, Taiwanese prosecutors in Penghu, an outlying island of Taiwan, said.

A total of eight suspects in the drug trafficking group, including a Chinese national surnamed Zhou (周), have been caught in Cagayan, a small island located in the northern Philippines, by the country’s Drug Enforcement Agency, the prosecutors in Penghu said. Zhou was the leader of the drug trafficking ring.

The drugs seized by the joint efforts were comprised of 22.6 kilograms of amphetamine, 11.4 kilograms of ephedrine, which is a raw material used for amphetamine production, and about 40 kilograms of calcium chloride, the prosecutors said. The seized drugs were estimated at NT$123 million in total value, they added.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: February 4, 2016

President Ma Ying-jeou said Feb. 3 that Taiping Island is an

inalienable part of ROC territory and the nation’s sovereignty over the island, surrounding waters and seabed is indisputable.

“In keeping with its role as an international peacemaker and provider of humanitarian aid, the ROC has maintained a permanent presence on Taiping Island and developed it via government projects over the past decades,” Ma said.

“We aim to advance peace and cooperation with our partners in the region, transforming Taiping Island into an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island, while strengthening its capacity for peace and rescue operations.”

The president made the remarks during a visit to the headquarters of the ROC Ministry of National Defense in Taipei City.     [FULL  STORY]

‘HIGH-CLASS MAINLANDER’:The ministry cited procedural flaws in the government’s hiring of the former GIO official, nullifying his employment and denying him a pension

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 05, 2016
By: Huang Pang-ping / Staff reporter

The Ministry of Civil Service yesterday rejected former Taiwan

Provincial Government employee Kuo Kuan-ying’s (郭冠英) application for a monthly pension of NT$60,000.

Kuo, who retired on July 15, 2014, previously served in the now-defunct Government Information Office (GIO) in Toronto, Canada. He was dismissed from the post in 2009 after making derogatory remarks about ethnic Taiwanese in several articles published under his pseudonym, Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽).

These included commentaries referring to himself as a “high-class Mainlander,” while calling ethnic Taiwanese taibazi (台巴子, Taiwanese rednecks). He also wrote that China should suppress Taiwanese instead of granting them political freedom once it has taken Taiwan by force.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 04, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

The Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan yesterday agreed to

shelve the review of controversial bills during the three-month period before president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is inaugurated on May 20.

Premier Simon Chang (張善政) visited the Legislative Yuan to meet with Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) and the legislative caucuses to talk about the processing of bills during the interim period.

After a half-hour closed-door meeting, Su said that all caucuses agreed that the review of controversial bills should be suspended before Tsai is sworn in.
“However, the Legislative Yuan cannot lay idle either, so we have asked Premier Chang to send bills [related to the economy and public welfare] to the legislature,” Su said.     [FULL  STORY]