Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/10
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, Oct. 10 (CNA) Hundreds of gay rights supporters unfurled a giant rainbow flag in southern Taiwan’s Tainan on Saturday to mark Taiwan’s National Day in their own way.

The 60-meter by 30-meter rainbow flag, which weighs 100 kilograms, was unfurled on a grassland in front of the Tainan City Hall to declare the ambitions of gays and lesbians to “govern the country,” according to the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, which organized the event.

Hsu Hsiu-wen (許秀雯), head of the alliance, issued a declaration that called on gays and lesbians in Taiwan to vote and weigh in on the legislative elections next year.

“I am a lesbian. I love my same-sex partner and we have promised to accompany and take care of each other. However, we cannot legally marry in this country – the island that I deeply love,” said Hsu, a legislator-at-large candidate for the political alliance between Taiwan’s Green Party and Social Democratic Party.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-10
By: Lin Yu-ping and Staff Reporter

A joint police force formed by the Taichung police and Taiwan’s Criminal

Investigation Bureau detained four suspects for conning iPhone carriers into replacing their damaged “iPhones,” actually fakes, with new ones, reports our sister newspaper China Times.

The knock-offs that Cheng Chiao-an and three other suspects used resembled the authentic iPhone so closely that most telecom carrier employees were not able to tell the difference. It was only after sending the phones in for maintanence with licensed Apple repair centers that the phones were identified as counterfeit, although by then the team had already made off with a new, real iPhone. The suspects were able to make off with at least 2,000 iPhones through the scam.

Cheng and his team acquired the knock-offs for US$62, upon which they would print a new International Mobile Equipment Identity number (IMEI), destroy the circuitry powering the iPhone and bring the ‘malfunctional’ phones in to telecom outlets to have them replaced.     [FULL  STORY]

EYE ON LEGACY?Ma said he was ‘worried’ about the ability of his successor to maintain the ‘status quo’ in a remark widely seen as aimed at the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 11, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his final Double Ten National Day speech

yesterday expressed concerns about the development of cross-strait relations, saying that any future president should continue to pursue a cross-strait policy based on the so-called “1992 consensus.”

“Without the ‘1992 consensus,’ the maintenance of the ‘status quo’ becomes an empty slogan; an unrealizable goal that does not advance the peaceful development of cross-strait ties,” Ma said in a speech to the crowd gathered in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei to celebrate the 104th birthday of the Republic of China (ROC).

The ceremony included military drills and dances involving hundreds of performers.     [FULL  STORY]

Asia One
Date: Oct 9, 2015

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taichung prosecutors yesterday pressed charges against

33 civilians and military personnel over an alleged procurement scandal involving locally produced eight-wheeled CM-32 Clouded Leopard armored vehicles.

Among those indicted yesterday were Chiang Yi-fu, chairman of Chung Hsin Electric and Machinery Manufacturing Corp. (CHEM), the main contractor in the project, and representatives of eight other subcontractors.

Master Sergeant Wang Chien-hsin of the 209th Factory under the military’s Ordnance Readiness Development Center (ORDC), and two civilian employees of the military’s Armaments Bureau, namely Lee Ti-kuang and Lin Hsing-jung, were also among those indicted, prosecutors said.

They are facing charges of fraud and corruption, as well as breaches of the Securities Exchange Act and forgery of documents, said the indictment.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/10
By: Hsieh Chia-chen and Jay Chen

Taipei, Oct. 10 (CNA) Maintaining the status quo in cross-Taiwan Strait relations has become a consensus in Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou is expected to tell the people of Taiwan later Saturday in a speech during an annual National Day ceremony in Taipei.

The consensus proves once again that his administration’s policy on China over the past seven years has become the mainstream in public opinion, he says, disputing criticism that his policy has sold out Taiwan’s interests in favor of China.

In the speech, the president compares running the country to building a highway.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/10/09
By: Chen Wei-ting and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, Oct. 9 (CNA) A hotel in Taipei is to hold a gay pride party on the day

of the 13th Taiwan LGBT Pride parade scheduled for Oct. 31 to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

The theme of this year’s parade, “no age limit,” has the aim of encouraging teenagers to liberate their sexuality and be their own masters, according to the Taiwan LGBT Pride organizer.

An estimated 65,000 people took part in last October’s parade, with thousands of foreign nationals participating in what was one of the largest gay pride events in Asia.

The party will take place at 10 p.m. Oct. 31, said Cary Gray, the hotel’s general manager.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-10-09
By: Tseng Fu-sheng

There will be 18.81 million people eligible to vote in Taiwan’s presidential

election on Jan. 16, 2016, and 1.29 million of them will be “first-time voters,” according to government voter data on the 2016 presidential and legislative elections, which will be held together.

Young voters, who will cast the first ballots of their lives in the 2016 elections, are seen as a key factor in determining the results of the elections.

Most of the younger generation has a “Taiwan consciousness” and support a democratic and free lifestyle. They believe that “the Republic of China is Taiwan,” recognize the ROC national flag, and generally back the opposition Democratic Progressive Party’s (DDP’s) presidential candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, who stands for “maintaining the status quo.”     [FULL STORY]