Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-25
By: CNA

Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, said Wednesday it is up to a presidential candidate

to decide whether to visit the United States before the elections in January.

It is not necessary for all presidential candidates to go to the US but they have autonomy to decide whether to go there to speak about their political platforms, Ma said in response to reporters’ questions during a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“It depends on each candidate’s assessment,” he said, addressing the media and foreign affairs officials on his administration’s achievements in the area of “viable diplomacy.”

Citing his own experience, Ma said he did not visit the US during his presidential campaigns ahead of the 2008 or 2012 elections, both of which he won on the Kuomintang ticket.     [FULL  STORY]

Malaysia Chronicle
Date:  25 June 2015

PETALING JAYA – A television news report of local policemen inducing a Taiwanese tourist to give them money to forget an alleged incident of shoplifting has been circulating online.

According to a Monday news report by Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS), Yew, 40, vacationing in Langkawi with 40 other Taiwanese sports equipment dealers, was approached by policemen at a duty free outlet, and accused of shoplifting two pairs of panties.

Denying this, Yew insisted on seeing footage from the shop’s closed-circuit television as proof he committed the crime.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/23
By: J.F. Shen and Lillian Lin

Taipei, June 23 (CNA) The local government of the Matsu Islands, an outpost during

the years of military confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, is offering to help surviving veterans who served on the islands between the 1950s and 1990s to search for certain people, special sites, or old memories of serving on the islands.

A spokesman for the Lienchiang county government’s Department of Culture said Tuesday that the small islands, about 10 nautical miles from the Chinese mainland, have welcomed an increasing number of tourists in recent years, but many of them are not aware that Matsu was an important military post for over four decades until 1992, when it shed its military role.

Calling it a special mission, the Department of Culture said it believes the initiative, which will last until the end of July, can help many former soldiers and residents of the islands to accomplish unfulfilled dreams of their youthful years.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 23, 2015
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan  /  Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） presidential hopeful Hung Hsiu-chu （洪秀柱） yesterday proposed

placing political talks on the cross-strait agenda to relieve the bottleneck holding up development of cross-strait relations and to ensure that both sides of the Taiwan Strait are on an equal political footing.

During a radio interview yesterday, Hung, branded by some as a “radical pro-unification advocate,” clarified the “one China, common interpretation” policy she has proposed in lieu of the so-called “1992 consensus” — a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means, which President Ma Ying-jeou （馬英九） claims was reached by the two sides in Hong Kong in 1992.

Instead of Taiwan and China each having their own interpretation of what “one China” means, Hung has proposed that both sides have a “common interpretation.”     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/06/22
By: Cheng Che-fon and Elizabeth Hsu

Kaohsiung, June 22 (CNA) Taiwan and Papua New Guinea inked a memorandum of understanding on Monday in which the two countries agreed to cooperate in cracking down on illegal fishing.

Fisheries Agency Director-General Tsay Tzu-yaw (蔡日耀) signed the pact with John Edward Kasu, his counterpart from the Pacific nation, at the agency’s headquarters in Kaohsiung.

The ceremony was witnessed by the deputy chief of the Council of Agriculture James Sha (沙志一).

Tsay said Papua New Guinea has been an important fishing ground for Taiwanese fishing boats for tuna and has attracted Taiwanese investment in fish processing factories.     [FULL  STORY]