Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-14
By: CNA

Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan has been using aerial photography to track down sources of

air pollution, with officials saying the new technology helps them work more effectively.

The Environmental Protection Bureau of southern Taiwan’s largest city, known for its highly developed heavy industry, said it has carried two missions recently using unmanned aerial vehicles.

The operation has already discovered an underground construction project and a cement factory in violation of environment laws, the bureau said.

In the past, violators could easily cover up if they were using excessive amounts of gravel, while monitoring underground operations are especially challenging, according to the bureau.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/14
By: Lu Hsin-hui and S.C. Chang

Taipei, April 14 (CNA) Hung Chi-chang of the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called on his fellow party members Tuesday to be pragmatic and responsible in drafting the party’s China policy as it prepares for the 2016 presidential election.

Hung, who served as Taiwan’s top negotiator with China during the DPP’s final years in power 2007-2008, has been calling on the DPP to drop its plan to pursue Taiwan’s de jure independence, as this might be a stumbling block to the party’s road toward regaining power.

But his advice was jeered by pro-independence groups such as the Taiwan North Society and the Taiwan South Society, which called him “a passe DPP politician” like Hsu Hsin-liang, a former DPP chairman who claimed that the opposition party did not rule out the possibility of unifying Taiwan with China during its early years.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 15, 2015
By: Alison Hsiao  /  Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday used their majority advantage to pass

a motion to have Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) handed over to the legislature’s Discipline Committee for allowing a representative of an activist group to sit in during a legislative committee hearing and “harass” a KMT legislator last week.

Representatives of Taiwan March, an activist group that has been pushing for the passage of amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), sat in on a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee on Thursday last week to review the act. Their presence was sanctioned by Yao, the committee convener who presided over the meeting that day.

After the meeting adjourned, Taiwan March founder and Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) confronted KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), accusing him of spouting nonsense and obstructing the review of the Referendum Act, and calling him the “shame of the legislature.”     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/13
By: Lee Shu-hua, Hsu Chih-wei and Ted Chen

Taipei, April 13 (CNA) Former National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General King

Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said Monday he has been judged with the double standards by his critics, while other opposition figures have remained unscathed after committing infractions.

During a radio show interview, King, long one of President Ma Ying-jeou’s closest confidants, said he had behaved ethically throughout his political career while listing a number of infractions by other figures.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/13
By: Claudia Liu and S.C. Chang

Taipei, April 13 (CNA) A former Kuomintang official who was in charge of managing the

party’s assets demanded on Monday that political pundit Hu Chung-hsin (胡忠信) apologize for allegations about the assets or face legal action.

Lin Te-jui (林德瑞) said in December 2014 when he headed the party’s Administration Committee, he told acting party chairman Wu Den-yih that the party’s assets were worth NT$23.3 billion (US$743 million), not NT$135 billion as Hu claimed during a TV talk show.

During the talk show, Hu quoted Lin as telling a close aide to KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) that he (Lin) handed over NT$135 billion worth of assets to the new leadership under Chu in January this year and wondered “why no one has made this public?”     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-13
By: CNA

The basis of maintaining Taiwan’s status quo and its relations with China is the

understanding that Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country constitutionally named the Republic of China, Hung Chi-chang, a senior member of Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party, said Sunday.

His comment came in the wake of a statement Saturday by DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, the DPP’s presumptive presidential candidate for 2016, who said that the party’s basic principle in handling cross-strait relations is “maintaining the status quo.”

Hung, who previously served as Taiwan’s top negotiator with China, said that maintaining the status quo in cross-strait relations is the consensus among the majority of people in Taiwan. It has also been the foundation for the co-existence of the ROC and the People’s Republic of China over the past 65 years and for the change from two belligerent forces to two separate governments, he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-12
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

The best investment Taiwan could make in national defense would be in the research and

development of advanced technology, an educator said Saturday in Taipei.

Lee Chia-tung, an emeritus chair professor at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, said Taiwan spends a lot of money buying weapons from other countries but has not done enough to encourage private sector development of advanced technology.

The education of officers in the armed forces is also not up to par, Lee said in a speech that focused on the idea that everything in Taiwan would have to start from basics over the next century.

Commenting on a recent flap over a security breach in which an Army pilot gave a local TV personality and other civilians access to Taiwan’s most advanced attack helicopter, the US-made AH-64E Apache, Lee said “it’s no big deal.” One can find countless Apache photos in any Google search, he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/12
By: Worthy Shen and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, April 12 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) visited a fisherman’s home in the

coastal township of Dong’ao in Yilan County Sunday, where he ate fish caught in the once disputed waters between Taiwan and Japan, to celebrate his administration’s success in ending the disputes.

The Taiwan-Japan Fishery Agreement, signed on April 10, 2013, is the best proof that disputes between two countries can be resolved peacefully, Ma said on his visit to the home of Su’ao Fishermen’s Association Chairman Chen Chun-sheng (陳春生).

Chen initiated a “For Survival, Defending Fishing Rights” protest campaign on Sept. 25, 2012, after Japan bought the disputed East China Sea islands from their private owner, stripping Taiwanese fishermen of their traditional fishing rights in the controversial waters.     [FULL  STORY]