Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/17
By: Chen Yi-wei and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Aug. 17 (CNA) Passengers on an express railway train running along the eastern

(Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Railways Administration)

coast of Taiwan were startled Monday by an unexpected traveler — a snake, which was spotted slithering in the aisle and then caught right before the train reached its destination of Hualien.

The serpentine stowaway was reported on the No. 208 Tze-Chiang Express (自強號) while the train was running southward toward Hualien during the morning commute. When the train stopped in Yilan, local firefighters were summoned to board the train in an attempt to capture the snake, which had by then managed to slink away.

Failing to have located the snake, the conductor decided that the train should continue its journey southward. The head of the train crew then finally managed to catch the reptilian rider while the train was running between Beipu (北埔) and Hualien, according to the Taiwan Railways Administration.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/16
By: Wang Shu-fen, Elaine Hou and Kuo Chung-han

Taipei, Aug. 16 (CNA) Taiwan is building a lighthouse on Taiping Island (also known as

CNA file photo

Itu Aba) which will be completed by the end of September, the Maritime and Port Bureau said on Aug. 7.

Reaching 13.7m above sea level, the lighthouse will have a range of 10 nautical miles. It will also be automated and regularly maintained, the bureau added.

With an area of 0.49 square kilometers, Taiping Island is the largest of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, which have been at the center of heated territorial disputes involving Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei in recent years.

Building the lighthouse could improve navigational safety, protect the natural environment and serve international community for the Republic of China, the bureau said.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-08-16
By: Xinhua and Staff Reporter

China’s State Archives Administration (SAA) plans to release videos documenting the

The first of the videos posted on the SAA’s website. (Internet photo)

suffering of women forced into sexual slavery at the hands of the Japanese military over 70 years ago.

The eight-part video series will be released on the SAA’s website, one per day, beginning exactly 70 years after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

Japan invaded northeast China in September 1931, with a full-scale invasion following in July 1937. Around 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured in the eight-year war which followed.

An estimated 200,000 women, euphemistically known as “comfort women,” were forced to work at brothels set up by the Japanese military. They were chiefly from Korea, China, Taiwan (then a Japanese colony), and Southeast Asian countries under Japanese occupation.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date:  Aug 17, 2015
By: Staff writer, with CNA

An identification or rescue flag, also known as a blood chit, attracted the attention of

A blood chit is exhibited at the Armed Forces Museum in Taipei on Thurdsay last week.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of Lu Wen-fang

many visitors on Saturday at the opening of an exhibition for the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Sponsored by Academia Historica, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education, the exhibition at the Armed Forces Museum features documents and photographs relating to the 1937-1945 conflict.

One section of the exhibition, which is to run until Nov. 28, is dedicated to the American Volunteer Group (AVG), which operated in China during World War II. Among the items on display is a blood chit bearing an Republic of China (ROC) flag and Chinese inscription.

The blood chit says: “This foreign person has come to China to help in the war effort. Soldiers and civilians, one and all, should rescue and protect him.”     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-08-15
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je apologized Saturday for his

Ko apologizes for handling of typhoon. Central News Agency

government’s shortcomings in handling the aftermath of last weekend’s Typhoon Soudelor.

The outspoken mayor had come under fire on several fronts, with critics blaming him for allowing the distribution of tap water that was allegedly too turbid for consumption and attacking his administration for being too slow in clearing the thousands of fallen trees and branches.

At a water conservation event hosted by environmental groups Saturday, Ko admitted he had been spending the morning reflecting about the case. Criticizing other people would not improve oneself, he said, so he would look and see what kind of things about himself he could change. “If something is wrong, it’s wrong, and if the results are no good, we apologize,” Ko said.

Even though he was traveling to Shanghai for a high-profile forum next week, the city government would still complete and publish a new set of standard operating procedures to handle problems caused by typhoons, he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/15
By: M.H. Chang, K.C. Chiu and Lillian Lin

Taipei, Aug. 15 (CNA) Officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said Saturday that hazardous chemicals released from deadly explosions at the port of Tianjin in China will not affect Taiwan, as southwesterly winds will take any pollution away from the island.

Rumors on social media had claimed that hazardous chemicals might have reached Taiwan two days after the Aug. 12 explosions and that people should avoid rain showers because the rain could be highly contaminated.

The officials said that the EPA applied the weather tracking method of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to study the spread of pollutants after the Tianjin explosions and figured that any pollutants would move in a northeasterly direction.

Since the explosions occurred at chemical storage facilities of Ruihai Logistics, a firm specializing in handling hazardous materials, the report of a chemical plant’s storage of 700 tons of sodium cyanide there by some Chinese media have caused panic.     [FULL  STORY]

BOYCOTT:The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions said its members would reject invitations to participate in public hearings on proposed curriculum guidelines

Taipei Times
Date:  Aug 16, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber and Sean Lin  /  Staff reporters

The approval process for a new 12-year education plan continues to use the same

Chang Hsu-cheng, president of the National Federation of Teachers’ Unions, right, speaks at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

opaque procedures behind earlier controversial adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, a teachers’ union alleged yesterday, calling for the process to be “rebooted.”

“The ‘fine-tuning’ of history curriculum guidelines was already unacceptable, but we care even more about the process under which new guidelines for all subjects are to be produced,” National Federation of Teachers’ Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) told a news conference in Taipei. “While in the past the Ministry of Education has tightly controlled the drafting of guidelines, we feel the process should be opened up to allow for a more diverse range of opinions to be represented.”

Chang said that all appointments to new guideline drafting committees were made by committee conveners directly appointed by Ko Hwa-wei (柯華葳), president of the National Academy for Educational Research, the agency that oversees the creation of curriculum guidelines, adding that a reliance on personal relationships had resulted in “like-minded” committee members making decisions that did not reflect the public’s point of view.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/14
By: M. H. Chang and Lillian Lin

Taipei, Aug. 14 (CNA) A law firm representing 74 residents in Yunlin County filed a class action on Thursday against five companies operating in the Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG) sixth naphtha cracker complex and demanded compensation of NT$70.17 million (around US$2.18 million).

At a press conference Friday, representatives of local residents filing the suit accused the complex, which has an annual output value of NT$1.66 trillion, of making profits by sacrificing the health of residents in neighboring areas.

They contended that the facility poses a major health risk, with families in the area getting cancer at an abnormally high rate compared with the general population since the complex opened.     [FULL  STORY]