Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/09
By: Joseph Yeh and Christie Chen 

Taipei, Feb. 9 (CNA) Singapore sent one military aircraft loaded with earthquake relief supplies to Hualien Friday.

The C-130 transport aircraft arrived at around 3 p.m., carrying medical supplies, tents and flashlights, the Hualien County government said in a statement.

The county government said earlier in the day that Singapore would send two military aircraft to Taiwan, but later changed the number to one. The Republic of China Air Force also confirmed that only one of the aircraft will be sent.

Two days earlier, the Singaporean foreign ministry issued a statement saying the city state’s government was saddened to learn of the loss of life and damage caused by the earthquake that struck Hualien.    [FULL  STORY]

EXPEDITED: While the Taipei High Administrative Court did have concerns about the constitutionality of the act about ill-gotten gains, it felt a timely ruling was needed

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 10, 2018
By: Stacy Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday rejected the National Women’s

League’s request to halt the execution of the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee’s naming of the league as a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) affiliate.

The league filed for the request after the committee on Feb. 1 determined it to be affiliated with the KMT, questioning the constitutionality of the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), and argued that the committee’s ruling could cause irreparable damage to the league.

The committee also froze all of the league’s assets, including NT$38.5 billion (US$1.31 billion) in cash, in response to the league’s member representatives’ vote on Jan. 31 against signing an administrative contract with the government to voluntarily dissolve itself.

In its ruling yesterday, the administrative court said that in most cases, when a court encounters laws or regulations that could be unconstitutional, it has to rule to suspend the court case until a constitutional interpretation has been issued.    [FULL  STORY]

Rescuers continued their search for survivors in a dangerously tilted building more than a day after an earthquake shook Taiwan’s east coast.

US News and World Report
Feb. 8, 2018
By: Taijing Wu, Associated Press

HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) — Rescuers in Taiwan continued their search for survivors in a

dangerously tilted building Thursday, more than a day after it was damaged in an earthquake that shook the island’s east coast and killed at least 10 people.
The Yunmen Tsuiti building was one of several damaged by late Tuesday’s magnitude 6.4 quake. At least four midsized buildings in worst-hit Hualien county leaned at sharp angles, their lowest floors crushed into mangled heaps of concrete, glass, iron and other debris. Firefighters climbed ladders hoisted against windows to reach people inside apartments.

Residents at temporary shelters set up in Hualien City described the terror of the powerful quake and their immediate worry for loved ones. Chen Chu-rong, 52, said she wasn’t home when the quake toppled the walls of her building, but her son was and he had to climb down from their second floor unit.

“That fear is still there,” she said. “I’m still afraid because things kept on falling down.”
[FULL  STORY]

The Filipina’s body was discovered on the 7th floor of the building in which she had been working

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/02/08
By: Maggie Huang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A female Philippine caregiver, identified as Melody Albano Castro, was confirmed dead in the earthquake that hit Hualien City in eastern Taiwan before midnight on Tuesday, according to reports.

The Filipina’s body was discovered on the 7th floor of the building in which she had been working. She was found crushed by a bed and failed to escape when the accident occurred.

The 28-year-old woman worked as a caregiver for a Japanese family that consisted of a 63-year-old woman, her 68-year-old husband, and the elderly woman’s mute younger brother.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/08
By: Chiang Chin-yeh and Frances Huang

Washington, Feb. 7 (CNA) A bill to encourage exchange visits by government officials between Taiwan and the United States was passed by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Wednesday.

Republican Senator Bob Corker, who serves as chairman of committee, said the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act shows that Taipei and Washington embrace common interests.

The Senate committee passed the legislation without any amendment. The bill will now move on to the floor of the Senate.

Ahead of the vote in the Senate committee, Corker told his colleagues that Taiwan is a good friend and partner of the U.S., and that Taipei has been providing assistance to Washington in dealing with a wide range of matters on the global stage.
[FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 09, 2018
By: Su Yung-yao, Yu Yao-fu, and Lin Hsin-han  /  Staff reporters

President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday paid another visit to areas of Hualien that

were devastated by Tuesday’s earthquake and ate dinner with evacuated residents temporarily being sheltered in the county’s indoor stadium, where the president also planned to stay overnight.

The president continued to command units responding at collapsed building sites and stopped at an ad hoc command center for the rescue effort at the Yun Men Tsui Ti (雲門翠堤大樓) commercial and residential complex for a briefing, before a late afternoon visit at an elementary school, that has been turned into a temporary evacuation shelter.

In the evening, Tsai visited the Hualien County Stadium, which is also being used as a temporary shelter.    [FULL  STORY]

CNN
Date: February 7, 2018
By Ben Westcott, Jason Hanna and Liu Kwang-Yin, CNN

Taipei, Taiwan (CNN)Fearing people may be trapped inside, rescue workers and search dogs probed the perimeter of a multistory building leaning precariously early Thursday

in the Taiwanese city of Hualien, more than a day after a deadly earthquake.
The magnitude 6.4 quake struck late Tuesday 22 kilometers (13 miles) north of the city, killing at least eight people and injuring 262 others, authorities said. It also damaged bridges and buckled roads in and around Hualien, a city on the island’s northeastern shores.

Dozens of people were unaccounted for by Thursday morning in Hualien, many of whom were believed to have been living or temporarily staying at the now badly damaged and tilting Yun Men Tsui Ti building, officials said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/02/08
By: Miao Zong-han, Wang Cheng-chung and William Yen 

Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) A 40-year-old woman from Xiamen City in China died between 8 and 9 p.m. Wednesday from severe head injuries incurred in the Hualien earthquake, according to the Buddhist Tzu Chi Hospital in downtown Hualien.

The woman, identified only by the surname Yu (余), was on a visit to Taiwan with her son when the magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck late Tuesday night.

Yu sustained a head injury when the residential building they were staying at partially collapsed during the earthquake, while her son escaped with minor scratches.

Yu’s husband traveled from China to Hualien on Wednesday with the assistance of the Kinmen County government.    [FULL  STORY]