Taipei Times
Date: Dec 22, 2015

The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSR) has officially inaugurated

three new stations this month, and train fares throughout the route have been cut back to the level of the year before last. Currently, there are three types of trains: direct trains, stopping trains and semi-direct trains, but most people do not know about them. The THSR explains that the train numbers that they assign to the trains are actually quite meaningful. As long as people understand what the numbers stand for, they can immediately tell which trains are direct trains.

According to a report in the United Daily News, with the exception of discount tickets, fares for direct trains, stopping trains and semi-direct trains are all the same; they only differ in travel time. For example, a journey from Taipei to Kaohsiung on a stopping train will take 42 minutes longer than on a direct train. However, if members of the public can decipher train numbers, they will be able to know which type of train they are taking.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-12-20
By: Ko Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

With the upcoming elections merely three weeks away, the Kaohsiung

District Prosecutors Office has established a hotline to promote the fight against corruption, reports said Sunday.

The hotline (0800-024-099) describes the city government’s efforts in combating corruption and asks the general public to become part of the team supervising the effort.

Informers who perceive or witness the act of bribery or any other illegal activities during the campaign period are advised to call authorities in the aforementioned hotline.

Should the allegations be established, and that there is enough supporting evidence to prosecute, the informant – whose identity will be kept confidential – will have the opportunity to collect NT$15 million as a reward, reports said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/12/20
By: Hsiao Po-yang and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Dec. 20 (CNA) The annual plum blossom season in the Xinyi

township of Nantou County opened Sunday, with people invited to join a series of celebratory activities.

Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) celebrated the beginning of the plum blossom season in the day along with the locals at the Dream Works of the Mei (梅子夢工廠), a winery run by the Xinyi Township Association of Farmers. Mei means plum in Chinese.

Wu also presided over a luck-praying ceremony for an 80-year-old plum tree in the winery area. Addressing the event, he suggested the county integrate the tourism with agriculture to boost its overall economic development.

In Xinyi Township (信義鄉) of the land-locked county in central Taiwan, plum trees cover areas spanning over 800 hectares in total, mainly concentrating in Fengguidou (風櫃斗), Wusonglun (烏松崙) and Niuchoukeng (牛稠坑). Each winter, people swarmed in to see plum blossoms every weekends.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
EDITORIAL
Date: 2015-12-17
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer

On Wednesday, the administration of United States President Barack Obama notified Congress of a proposal to sell US$1.83 billion (NT$60 billion) worth of military hardware to Taiwan.

The package included two Perry-class frigates, AAV-7 amphibious assault vehicles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, Javelin and TOW 2B anti-tank missiles, and a number of other systems and weapons.

The notification by the president to Congress is usually just a formality, with only a highly unlikely objection from members of Congress within 30 days able to derail it.

The announcement has been welcomed by just about all parties involved, with the predictable exception of China of course. The Obama Administration emphasized it was merely following the guidelines of the Taiwan Relations Act in supplying defensive weapons to the island.

Amid the sounds of praise at home and abroad, there were also expressions of “yes, but.” Republicans in the U.S. had remarks in the sense of “too little, too late,” faulting Obama for waiting until near the end of his second term to close the deal.      [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan  News
Date: 2015-12-18
By: By Chang Jung-hsiang and Christie Chen, Central News Agency

Gay rights activists in the southern city of Tainan on Thursday demanded

that the city follow the examples of Kaohsiung, Taipei and Taichung and allow its gay residents to register their partners in the city’s household records.

Kaohsiung, Taipei and Taichung have all opened household registration records to same-sex partners, but Tainan has yet to take a stance on the issue, noted the activists, who protested at the Tainan City Council. If Tainan does not support even the registration of same-sex partnership — which is not the same as marriage — it cannot prove that it cares about human rights, the activists claimed.

In response, Tainan City Bureau of Civil Affairs Director Chen Tsung-yen said different opinions in society should be respected and that the city government will not consider allowing same-sex partnership registration for the time being.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/12/18
By: Chen Chih-chung and Elaine Hou

Taipei, Dec. 18 (CNA) A student from St. Vincent and the Grenadines who is studying in Taiwan complained about unfair treatment of foreigners by local police during a meeting on campus Friday with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), with the president promising to look into the alleged police mistreatment.

The student from the Caribbean country complained that Taiwanese police seem to fail to protect foreigners, citing cases in which he described foreigners in Taiwan being mistreated by police.

Citing the case of a female friend, he said the friend — also a foreign national — had allegedly been stalked by a Taiwanese man on the MRT. But after the woman asked police officers posted at an MRT station for help, the police did not take action to catch the man but instead questioned the foreign woman, the student said.     [FULL  STORY]