SEPARATED:Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je has compared flailing cross-strait relations to a dispute between a married couple that could be solved in the bedroom

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 05, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should part ways with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) for

his increasingly Beijing-friendly position, DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said yesterday.

Ko on Monday concluded the three-day Taipei-Shanghai twin-city forum with the independent mayor describing Taiwan and China as “one family” and “a community of common destiny,” provoking a mixed response from Taiwanese.

Yao said Ko’s “family” and “community of common destiny” motifs are a rehash of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) cross-strait narrative.

Xi has proposed the idea of a “community of common destiny” as a new cross-strait catchphrase under the ‘one China’ principle,” Yao said, adding that Ko’s assimilation of Xi’s political language cannot break the deadlock in cross-strait relations.

Yao, who has announced his intention to run for Taipei mayor in the mayoral and city council elections next year, said he supported pragmatic interactions between Taiwan and China, but not under Ko’s framework of cross-strait relations.

Ko said both sides of the Strait, though full of disagreements and arguments, should settle differences with harmonious “bedroom” relations, but Yao questioned Ko’s plan to reconcile with China.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: July 4, 2017
By: The China Post

Last weekend, one man received text messages from several village chiefs who each asked to

borrow NT$60,000, local media reported.

Chiang Chun-ting (江俊霆), chief of New Taipei City’s Department of Civil Affairs, said he received texts on the messaging app Line from village chiefs whose accounts had obviously been hacked.

After the scammers failed at getting Chiang to loan them money, they even tried to get his phone number so they could hack his Line account, according to the United Daily News.

Calling the scam ring “ridiculous,” Chiang posted screenshots of his conversations with the purported village chiefs to the social media site Facebook.

[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan Internatrional
Date: 2017-07-03

Chinese state media have reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump

recently held a phone call in which they discussed the “one China” policy. The media said that Xi acknowledged the importance of Trump’s reiteration of the “one China” policy and hoped that the United States will handle Taiwan-related issues in line with that policy.

However, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s government, Alex Huang, said Monday that the call had more to do with North Korea.

“Our understanding is that President Trump’s phone call was largely to discuss the situation in the Korean Peninsula with Chinese leader Mr. Xi Jinping, in particular the increasing threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program,” said Huang.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/07/03
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)–A ceremony was held Sunday to mark the completion of a project Taichung

City Government had undertaken since the end of last year to repair the Rainbow Village (彩虹眷村), a veterans’ settlement that has become a tourist magnet for central Taiwan that pulls in more than a million visitors annually all because of the colorful and childishly lovely mural paintings by a 95-year-old resident veteran–Huang Yung-fu (黃永阜).

Huang, known as “Rainbow Grandpa,” has been painting on the walls, doors, windows of a dozen empty houses and pathways in the veterans’ village since 2008 as a pastime. The subjects of his paintings range from birds to animals to celebrities.

The village, originally slated to be demolished to make way for housing projects, avoided the fate of being knocked down six years ago when the authorities agreed it should be preserved after a campaign to save the village was launched by local university students who saw Huang’s work.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/07/03
By: Lu Hsin-hui, Ku Chuan and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, July 3 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Monday during a meeting with Honduras’

parliamentary speaker that she welcomes imports of beef and sweet melons from the Central American nation and that progress is being made on making that happen.

Tsai expressed the hope that Taiwan-Honduras exchanges can be deepened and said Taiwan has sent trade and business delegations and coffee procurement groups to Honduras several times this year to advance economic exchanges.

Taiwan has also been working actively to address procedures needed to open the way for the entry of Honduran farm and livestock products, including beef and sweet melons, she said.

“Big progress will be made,” Tsai pledged during a meeting with visiting Honduran National Congress President Mauricio Oliva Herrera at the Presidential Office, noting that she expects Honduran agricultural products to hit Taiwan’s market soon.    [FULL  STORY]

BEYOND REHABILITATION:The husband and father of the two victims said he hoped Huang Lin-kai would be killed soon to save the expense of having to feed him

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 04, 2017
By: Hsiang Cheng-chen and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, staff writer

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the death sentence for Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was

convicted of the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, saying the “enormity of his crimes” preclude any chances of rehabilitation.

Yesterday’s ruling was the first time this year that the Supreme Court upheld a sentence for capital punishment, as judges in the lower courts are increasingly reluctant to hand out the death penalty.

Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted of the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and of killing her mother, after breaking into their house on Oct. 1, 2013.

Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide.

The Supreme Court upheld Huang’s death sentence for killing his ex-girlfriend, in addition to the life imprisonment sentence without the possibility of parole that he received for killing her mother.

The nation’s top court said that while Huang’s murder of the mother was cold-blooded, it was an unpremeditated crime and did not meet the legal requirements for capital punishment.

However, after Huang murdered the mother, he waited in the residence for an hour before ambushing Wang to commit premeditated rape and murder, as evidenced by the mask and rope he brought with him, the court said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: July 3, 2017
By: Chen Fan-neng, Special to The China Post

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Northern Taiwan was enjoying a reprieve Monday evening after being lashed by

heavy rain and lightning earlier in the day.

Although a heavy rain advisory was still in place for all of Taiwan proper — with an extremely heavy rain advisory remaining in place for Taipei and New Taipei — skies had cleared up and looked set to be partly to mostly clear through to Tuesday morning.

Occasional rain and thunder is forecast for Tuesday afternoon, except for the outlying islands, according to the Central Weather Bureau.

Earlier Monday, thundershowers and strong winds sent people fleeing indoors and caused chaos on the roads, as blankets of rain made the Taipei skyline fade into gray.    [FULL  STORY]

The Hill
Date: 07/02/17
By: Rebecca Savransky

A U.S. military official told CNN the destroyer sailed within 12 miles of the island, which is claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The Navy was conducting a “freedom of navigation exercise” around Triton Island in the Paracel archipelago, according to the network.

China claimed the destroyer went into territorial waters, CNN reported.

The network also noted that the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris, said last Wednesday that “fake islands should not be believed by real people.”

“I believe the Chinese are building up combat power and positional advantage in an attempt to assert de facto sovereignty over disputed maritime features and spaces in the South China,” Harris added.
[FULL  STORY]

Eleven artworks created by local artists highlight the natural beauty of the water terrace along the coast of eastern Taiwan.

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/07/02
By: Teng Pei-ju, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – With 11 artworks created to show the vitality of life and beauty of the east

coast of Taiwan, the 2017 Mipaliw Wetlands Art Festival (2017米粑流濕地藝術季) opened Saturday in Fengbin (豐濱鄉), Hualien.

The word, Mipaliw, which means mutual help in the language of the Amis (阿美族), an aboriginal group inhabiting in Hualien, serves as the theme of the festival, said Forestry Bureau’s Hualien branch, the festival organizer.

Eleven artists have stayed in Fengbin, a small coastal township located at the southern end of Hualein’s coastal mountain range, since May. For nearly two months, they were surrounded by the wetlands and water terraces, trying to create artworks that reflect the landscape and their beauty, said the bureau.

Through interactions and mutual help, artists built friendship with the village people during their stay, said Sumi Dongi (舒米如妮), coordinator for the festival.    [FULL  STORY]