NO APOLOGIES:Lee said it is ridiculous to ask someone telling the truth to say sorry, and the president would be better off formulating policies beneficial to Taiwan

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 23, 2015
By: Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff reporter

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said the Chinese Nationalist Party’s

(KMT) vituperative attacks on him over an interview he gave to a Japanese magazine were baseless and were an attempt to win votes.

Over the past few days, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and other KMT and pan-blue politicians have criticized Lee over remarks he made during an interview with the Japanese magazine Voice, when he said that Taiwan did not fight a war of resistance against Japan during the Japanese colonial era, and that many Taiwanese joined the Japanese Imperial Army at that time to fight for their motherland, which they thought of as Imperial Japan.

“Politicians should always tell people the truth,” Lee said, before he walked into a fund-raising dinner for the Lee Teng-hui Foundation in Taipei, in response to media requests for comment on the KMT’s accusations.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/22
By: Claudia Liu and Elaine Hou

Taipei, Aug. 22 (CNA) Taiwan’s Army on Saturday denied local media reports that Israel

is interested in recruiting a Taiwanese Army pilot who was disciplined after he breached military security by giving civilians access to Taiwan’s AH-64E Apache attack helicopters earlier this year.

The Army said it was not aware of such a development and it dismissed the reports as ungrounded rumors.

The local media reported Saturday that Israel was interested in recruiting Lt. Col. Lao Nai-cheng (勞乃成) as an adviser, as the country was planning to purchase AH-64E Apache helicopters.

Lao, a qualified Apache pilot, was removed from his post as deputy head of a helicopter squadron in Taoyuan under the Army Aviation Special Forces Command, after he was found to have given a local TV personality and other civilians access to Taiwan’s most advanced helicopter, the AH-64E Apache, in March.     [FULL  STORY]

Outbreak News
Date: August 22, 2015
By: Robert Herriman

The number of locally acquired dengue fever cases in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan

is increasing a rapid pace in August as health officials have reported 1,235 cases this summer as of Aug. 19, according to a Tainan City Health Bureau news release Thursday (computer translated).

About half the cases (662) have been reported in the North, while Annan District has seen 149 cases.

Focus Taiwan reports the city has seen in excess of 1,500 cases this year to date, including two deaths.

The movement of people, coupled with high vector mosquito density environments have greatly increased the risk of infection.

Tainan Mayor William Lai, along with public health and environmental officials, visited residential and commercial areas advising people on ways of preventing further spread of dengue fever.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-08-22
By: Lin Yu-ping, Tsao Ming-cheng, Kan Chia-wen and Staff Reporter

Taiwan police on Aug. 20 announced that they had caught two suspects who scammed

investors out of NT$1 billion (US$30.6 million), reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau in Taipei said that since March, many cases of fraud have been reported by Taiwanese users of Hong Kong-based bitcoin trading platform Mycoin, which was shut down in February by Hong Kong authorities for similar reasons. Two Taiwanese suspects have been charged in connection with the website-related fraud, 47 year old Chen Yun-fei and 39 year old Lu Kuan-wei, who was the former president of the Taoyuan Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Chen and Lu held several events for investors convincing each one to spend NT$1.62 million (US$49,600) for 90 bitcoins and an account with Mycoin’s parent company, which would distribute 0.63 of a bitcoin every day for a total value of NT$11,000 (US$337). The investors were told that their investment would be returned to them after just four and a half months. One 40 year old woman reportedly spent over NT$14 million (US$428,700) on such scam. The bureau estimated that the combined amount that investors lost in the scheme exceeds NT$600 million (US$18.3 million).     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/21
By: Oscar Wu and Brook Hsiao

Los Angeles, August 21 (CNA) Two of Taiwan’s popular tourist attractions, the National Palace Museum and Taipei 101, have been named among the World’s top 500 sights in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist 2015.

Travel website Lonely Planet has created a listing of 500 places that travelers must visit, in which the National Palace Museum and Taipei 101 are ranked No.397 and No.448, respectively.

Lonely planet said that the National Palace Museum owns many of the best Chinese artistic works such as Ming dynasty porcelain and ancient paintings that were brought from China by the Kuomintang government led by Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese Civil War.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date:  Aug 22, 2015
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday came under fire from pro-independence

groups for a remark he made in Shanghai earlier this week that Taiwan and China belonged to “one family.”

Members of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign yesterday protested in front of the Taipei City Government building, demanding an apology from Ko for what they called his “inappropriate” remark.

Group founder Peter Wang (王獻極) said that Taiwan and China are two nations and enemies with each other.

“Under this circumstance, how can we be in ‘one family’?” he asked.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-08-22
By: Jocylin FC, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Former president Lee Teng-hui angered Kuomintang (KMT) when he told the Japanese

magazine, Voice, during the interview that Taiwan was part of Japan 70 years ago so Taiwanese did not fight in China’s War of Resistance against Japan. This contradicts what President Ma Ying-jeou recently said at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Republic of China’s (ROC) war against Japan. Lee told the press on August 22 that he was stating a historical fact which is known by all Taiwanese who are over 70 years old. “Why should I apologize?” said Lee.

Lee attended Lee Teng-hui Foundation’s fundraising dinner on August 22. He said politicians should tell the truth. Taiwan was part of Japan at that time; of course there wouldn’t be “China’s War of Resistance against Japan” in Taiwan. Everyone who is over 70 years old knows this fact. China’s War of Resistance against Japan occurred in mainland China and it was fought by KMT. “KMT do not need to stir up nationalism and punish me with their views just because the election isn’t going well for them,” said Lee.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-08-21
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – No charges were brought against 15 suspects in the Apache

case, including entertainer Janet Lee, as Taoyuan District prosecutors rounded up their investigation Friday.

The case came to light after Lee posted pictures of herself in front of and inside an Apache helicopter at a military base on her Facebook page last March 29. The images stirred up public outrage and doubts about security measures at sensitive military installations.

A statement from the prosecutors found that the 15 suspects had not violated any military-related laws with the organization of the visit. Lieutenant Colonel Lao Nai-cheng, the deputy head of the Army helicopter squadron in Longtan, Taoyuan City, invited Lee and several other civilians to the base, where he allowed them to pose for pictures with the Apache AH-64E attack helicopter.     [FULL  STORY]