Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-21
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The 2016 Taiwan Lantern Festival officially opens on February 22, the day on which this year’s traditional Lantern Festival falls, and last until Mar 6 in Taoyuan City.

The festival site is a 20-hectare belt starting from the Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) Taoyuan Station Square and expanding till the Qingtan Garden.

This year’s festival features a main theme lantern, secondary lanterns, and many other lantern theme areas. Optoelectronics are used to present images which manifest Taoyuan’s culture, technology and visions.

The event, taking place in Taoyuan for the first time, also features performances by well-known local and international performance groups.

This year’s performances will take place in the evenings of the rehearsal day on Feb. 21 and the opening day on Feb. 22, and on the night of the closing day on March 6. Performances on each night end with a fireworks show.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 22, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter

Former deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday urged

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members to stop blindly adhering to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) definition of what constitutes “loving Taiwan,” saying that the KMT should remain a staunch upholder of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution.

“Ever since [former president] Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) galvanized debates on Taiwan’s national identity two decades ago, the KMT has forfeited its right to interpret the meaning of ‘loving Taiwan,’” Hung said on Facebook yesterday.

Hung said the definitions proposed by the DPP have been the mainstream interpretations, regardless of whether the KMT was in power, forcing the party to follow and “honor the ideas with incense.”

“That, as far as I am concerned, is one of the major reasons contributing to the KMT’s disastrous defeat today,” said Hung, who is vying for KMT chairperson against three other candidates.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-20
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Three out of four candidates for the Kuomintang

leadership on Saturday discussed their plans for the party’s controversial assets at a public debate.

Following its catastrophic defeat in the January 16 presidential and legislative elections, the party has been trying to change, with a direct election for chairman slated for March 26.

Out of four remaining candidates for the position, only former Legislative Vice Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu remained absent from a debate hosted by young party activists Saturday, reportedly because of previous engagements in Southern Taiwan.

Acting chairwoman Huang Min-hui, legislator Apollo Chen and Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin were present though, with the KMT assets one of the more sensitive topics to turn up.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/20
By: Chang Jung-hsiang and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Feb. 20 (CNA) The annual Yanshui Fireworks Festival will begin in Tainan Sunday and culminate on Monday, the day of the Lantern Festival.

It is estimated that 200 “walls” (racks) each stocked with thousands of bottle rockets will be launched horizontally into crowds of onlookers during the two-day religious event.

Visitors can watch the fireworks from a safe location or get in close to experience the excitement of being shot by ear-splitting bottle rockets.

Tainan’s fire department, however, reminded visitors who want to venture near the fireworks to dress in full protective gear.       [FULL  STORY]

DEATH FROM ABOVE:Last month’s cold front saw tiles peel off more than 30 buildings, in a phenomenon that saw a Taipei man killed last year by an 80kg stone slab

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 21, 2016
By: Hsu Yi-ping, Chung Hung-liang and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer

The Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency (CPA) said it

is mulling amendments to the Measures Governing Buildings’ Public Security Inspection, Authorization and Application (建築物公共安全檢查簽證及申報辦法) to make inspection of ceramic tiles on a building’s exterior mandatory.

The extreme cold front over the nation last month resulted in more than 30 incidents of tiles peeling off from buildings’ exteriors in Taipei alone, the CPA said.

In March last year, a stone slab weighing 80kg peeled off from the exterior of the United Daily News building, killing 40-year-old Wang Cheng-fang (王成芳), who worked at a cram school in the building.

The agency’s construction management division chief Kao Wen-ting (高文婷) said that older buildings across the nation often have an extra layer of tiles applied to their exteriors, but very few building management committees maintain their building’s exterior.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-02-19
By: Chia Lee, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The new legislative session officially opened on Friday morning with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) taking up more than half of the legislative seats.

A new legislative session kicked off Friday with an interpellation session to question Premier Simon Chang. Disaster prevention, national land planning, and nuclear power issues were spotlighted during the interpellation session.

The ninth ROC legislature swore in on February 1, with 113 newly elected and reelected lawmakers reporting for duty at the Legislative Yuan.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has become the majority in the Legislature for the first time after winning 68 seats in the 113-seat Legislature in the Jan. 16 Legislative election, while the Kuomintang (KMT), New Power Party (NPP), and the People First Party (PFP) took 35, 5, and 3 seats respectively. One seat went to the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) and the remaining to an independent.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/02/19
By: Amy Huang and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Feb. 19 (CNA) The theme lantern of the Kinmen County Lantern Festival this year was unveiled Thursday, featuring the Monkey King from the Chinese classic “Journey to the West.”

Lu Kun-ho ( 呂坤和), director of Kinmen County’s Cultural Affairs Bureau, said the lantern was inspired by this year being the Year of the Monkey on the Chinese zodiac.

The lantern, which stands at 4.2 meters high and 4 meters wide, displayed the famous character in the Chinese classic in a high-tech aura with bright lights.

What was notable about the star lantern is how it also incorporated the distinctive landscape of Kinmen, depicting the Monkey King Sun Wukong stepping on a famous monument in the outlying island with the Chinese characters “Don’t forget the humiliation in times of peace and recover our lost land.” The phrase was written by Taiwan’s late president Chiang Kai-shek in 1952.     [SOURCE]

Taiwan Today
Date: February 19, 2016

Kurt Lu’s campaign advertisements for Tsai Ing-wen helped the chairwoman

of the Democratic Progressive Party win the 2016 ROC presidential election and revealed his emotional connection with the people of Taiwan.

Born in Tainan City 40 years ago, the former creative director of Ogilvy and Mather Advertising Taipei and J. Walter Thompson Taipei produced ads during his 15-year career for such big-name enterprises as Nike Inc., Toyota Motor Corporation and Uni-President Enterprises Corp.

Last year, Lu changed tack and entered the political field by directing Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je’s campaign ads. His success saw him invited to join Tsai’s team.

“Actually I have no special political inclination,” he said. “But when the DPP first came to me, I resonated with their ideas and hoped to realize them in conveying a positive approach to Taiwan’s future.

“My only condition was that the ads should not be too formal.”     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 20, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday, on

his debut in the legislature, challenged the Minister of Economic Affairs over nuclear waste storage and disposal, and elicited a heated response from the Minister of Labor on the issue of unpaid leave.

Academic and activist-turned-lawmaker Huang had the media’s attention when he asked his first question in the Legislative Yuan.

Huang visited both the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant and Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City on Thursday and said during yesterday’s session that the Cabinet has no mention of its policy for handling nuclear waste in its policy address, adding that the spent fuel pools at both plants are almost full.

Huang also asked if the government has plans for the nuclear waste after the power plants are decommissioned.

“The Atomic Energy Council said the spent fuel rods could be stored where the plants are located for another 40 years in dry casket facilities, but could the government promise that a place for the final disposal of the nuclear waste will be found in 2055?” Huang asked.     [FULL  STORY]