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Typhoon-tilted mailboxes go viral

TILTED LOVE:Chunghwa Post Co chairman Philip Ong said the two mailboxes would stay as they were, and that the post office plans to make them into a tourist attraction

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 10, 2015
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Two mailboxes in Taipei have become tourist attractions after a shop sign fell on them

Members of the public yesterday pose with Chunghwa Post officials who were inspecting two mailboxes on Taipei’s Longjiang Road after they were knocked into a slanted position by a falling sign during Typhoon Soudelor on Saturday. Photo: CNA

Members of the public yesterday pose with Chunghwa Post officials who were inspecting two mailboxes on Taipei’s Longjiang Road after they were knocked into a slanted position by a falling sign during Typhoon Soudelor on Saturday. Photo: CNA

during Typhoon Soudelor, with visitors saying they now resemble two people standing next to each other and leaning.

The mailboxes — one red and the other green — are on Longjiang Road (龍江路) in Taipei.

The photos of the two tilted mailboxes quickly went viral, drawing dozens of people to the site yesterday.

Many visitors also leaned to the side and posed for photographs next to the mailboxes. Some netizens suggested that the Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) keep the two mailboxes as they are, as a reminder of the damage wrought by the typhoon.     [FULL  STORY]

Hualien suffers heaviest agricultural losses in storm

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/08
By: Tsai Yu-shu and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Aug. 8 (CNA) Taiwan had suffered agricultural losses of NT$143.34 million 201508080023t0001(US$4.53 million) due to Typhoon Soudelor as of 2 p.m. Saturday, according to the Council of Agriculture (COA).

In a very preliminary assessment of the damage caused by the typhoon that is likely to increase in the coming days, the COA said Hualien County in eastern Taiwan suffered the biggest losses at NT$87.04 million.

It was followed by Taoyuan City at NT$18.4 million, New Taipei at NT$9.64 milion, Nantou County at NT$7.55 million and Miaoli County at NT$7.31 million.

Losses to agricultural produce were estimated at NT$85.87 million, with 1,832 hectares of crops affected.     [FOCUS TAIWAN]

Record 3 million homes lose power

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

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A record 3.84 million homes were left without electricity some

Record 3 million homes lose power. Central News Agency (2015-08-08 21:11:39)

Record 3 million homes lose power. Central News Agency (2015-08-08 21:11:39)

time during the passage of Typhoon Soudelor, the Taiwan Power Corporation said Saturday.

The amount was not only a record, but due to the size of the problem, Taipower’s website stalled as too many people went online to report problems.

The previous record of 2.79 million households without power was reached during a typhoon in 1996, reports said.

Taipower said it was doing its best to fix the problem, but continuing strong winds and torrential rain in the wake of the typhoon was making repair work slow and difficult.

By 1 p.m. Saturday, 1.91 million homes were still left without power, but the number was brought down to 1.41 million by early evening, Taipower said. Central Taiwan’s Changhua County was the worst affected, with 400,000 homes still waiting for power to come back on. Taoyuan and New Taipei had 230,000 households each without power, Taichung 220,000, Yunlin County, where the eye of the typhoon left Taiwan’s main island, 160,000, Chiayi County 140,000 and Kaohsiung 100,000.     [FULL  STORY]

More people left missing, injured as Soudelor sweeps through Taiwan

Want China Times
Date: 2015-08-08
By: CNA

Typhoon Soudelor has left four people dead and four others missing in Taiwan as of

A pedestrian walks past an uprooted tree in Taipei, Aug. 8. (Photo/CNA)

A pedestrian walks past an uprooted tree in Taipei, Aug. 8. (Photo/CNA)

11:15am Saturday, authorities said, as the powerful storm moved into the Taiwan Strait to the west. Sixty-four others have been injured.

Even though the typhoon center exited from Yunlin county around 11:00am, strong winds and heavy rains remained in the forecast, especially for southern Taiwan, forecasters said.

Typhoon Soudelor generates near record gusts in Taipei

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/08
By: Chen Wei-ting, Huang Li-yun and Elaine Hou

Taipei, Aug. 8 (CNA) The gusts generated by Typhoon Soudelor in Taipei were the 201508080026t00011second strongest in recorded history in Taiwan’s capital, the Central Weather Bureau said Saturday.

The Taipei weather station registered level 13 winds on the Beaufort Scale, representing wind speeds of 133 to 149 kilometers per hour, at 5:25 a.m., the bureau said.

That was second only to level 14 winds (representing wind speeds of 150 kph to 166 kph) recorded at the Taipei station in 1996, when Typhoon Herb pounded Taiwan, it said.     [FULL  STORY]

PFP presidential candidate Soong takes aim at KMT

Taipei Times
Date:  Aug 08, 2015
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

People First Party (PFP) presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday struck

People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong, right, speaks about his presidential candidacy with radio show host Clara Chou in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong, right, speaks about his presidential candidacy with radio show host Clara Chou in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

back at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over its criticism of his presidential bid, saying he is neither a person crippled by a dismal support rating after eight years in the office, nor someone who forcibly expropriated people’s private property to benefit large corporations.

Soong made the remarks yesterday morning during an interview with Hit FM radio host Clara Chou (周玉蔻) in response to an accusation on Thursday by the KMT that he is derived from former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) spirit.

“Chiang’s spirit contained two parts: cross-strait policies and domestic policies. The former emphasized that he was both a Chinese and a Taiwanese, and that he would not turn his back on the Zhonghua minzu [Chinese ethnic group, 中華民族], nor walk away from his responsibility to Taiwanese,” Soong said.

As for his domestic policies, Chiang attached great importance to economic development, but at the same time, he also stressed the importance of justice in wealth distribution, added Soong, who served as a personal English translator for Chiang.

Typhoon Soudelor batters Taiwan

At least 4 dead, Taipei MRT affected

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

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – As Typhoon Soudelor battered its way through Central Taiwan

Typhoon Soudelor batters Taiwan. Central News Agency

Typhoon Soudelor batters Taiwan. Central News Agency

Saturday, at least four people were reported dead, while over a million people lost power and transportation came to a standstill.

The storm made landfall on the east coast at 4:40 a.m. and left the island from Yunlin County moving into the Taiwan Straits around 11 a.m., the Central Weather Bureau said.

The four casualties included a mother and a child who had gone swimming near Suao in Yilan County before the typhoon arrived. Late Friday evening, a man in Suao was hit by a falling billboard, while early Saturday in Pingtung County, a fire fighter died after he was hit by a car as he was clearing debris from fallen trees.

Four persons were also reported missing and 64 were injured. There were reports of flooding, mudslides, fallen trees, billboards and scaffolding from all over the country.     [FULL  STORY]

Typhoon Soudelor batters Taiwan after making landfall

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/08
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Aug. 8 (CNA) Typhoon Soudelor made landfall in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien 2015080800011County early Saturday, pummeling the island with strong gusts and torrential rain, the Central Weather Bureau said.

The streets in Taipei, which is in the northwest of the island, were strewn with fallen trees and debris as initial reports said several people were injured around the island, some of whom were hit by falling signboards.

The eye of Soudelor hit the land in Sioulin Township at 4:40 a.m., and as of 6 a.m., the storm was centered 60 km west of Hualien, making its way across the island’s central mountains at a speed of 19 km per hour in a west-northwesterly direction, the bureau said.

It is packing maximum sustained winds of 173 kph, with gusts reaching 209 kph, it said.     [FULL  STORY]

Premier mulls drafting political neutrality in education act

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/06
By: C.C. Wang and Lillian Lin

Taipei, Aug. 6 (CNA) Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) on Thursday spoke of the possibility 201508060034t0001of drafting a political neutrality in education act, and he expressed his wish that with the establishment of a transparent and credible mechanism, the educational environment will not be dominated by a single ideology.

Referring to the dispute over the high school curriculum guidelines, the premier suggested at a Cabinet meeting that by adopting such an act, political neutrality in education will have a legal basis, and the educational content will not be dominated by a single specific value.

The proposed act can help secure an open and stable environment for learning, he added.     [FULL  STORY]

People of China and Taiwan unite! A video about “gutter oil” is bringing consumers in both nations closer

Quartz
Date: August 07, 2015
By: Zheping Huang

The people of Taiwan and China are joining forces to fight a common enemy: food safety

"Mum, no more." (Reuters/Jason Lee)

“Mum, no more.” (Reuters/Jason Lee)

failures. The catalyst? A surprise viral video shot on a tour bus full of mainland tourists in Taiwan.

The video shows a female tour guide urging the passengers—one of whom apparently took the video—to boycott the products of Tingyi Cayman Islands Holding Corp., which makes the popular Master Kong sauces and instant noodles, and had profits of $400 million last year.

What does a Taiwanese tour guide leader have against China’s largest food and beverage maker? Its Taipei-based parent company, Ting Hsin International Group. Last year Taiwan’s health ministry found that Ting Hsin had for years been cutting costs by mixing lard meant for animal feed into the cooking-oil products (paywall) it sells to consumers.

The discovery caused an uproar among Taiwanese consumers. Wei Ying-chun, one of the key executives involved, was detained last October on charges of fraud and violating trust. Prosecutors sought a 30-year jail sentence (earlier this year he was released on bail).     [FULL  STORY]