Taiwan Today
Date: July 22, 2016

The Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is taking the three-

pronged approach of timely issuance of tourist visas, enhanced marketing coordination between domestic and foreign travel agencies, and new promotional campaigns.

The expedited visa program, implemented in November 2014, allows fast-track entry by organized tourist groups from five nations, namely India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In early July, 110 members of the Thai Travel Association, as well as members of Thailand’s media, were invited to visit Taiwan to hold meetings with 121 of their Taiwan counterparts from the travel and accommodation industries.

A highlight of the bureau’s promotional campaign, titled “Light Up Taiwan – Leisure Travel to Lighthouses at Four Extreme Points of Taiwan,” is slated to begin July 23. The campaign encourages travelers from home and abroad to visit the four lighthouses at Taiwan’s outermost points of Fugui Cape in the north, Sandiao Cape in the east, Guosheng Harbor in the west, and Eluanbi in the south.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-21
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Legislature has recently passed the first reading of an amendment to the Nationality Act

aimed at reducing the problems of statelessness and inequality for Chinese and other foreign spouses. Civic groups, however, argued that five articles in the act failed to protect the human rights of new immigrants, making some Chinese and foreign spouses easily subjected to statelessness.

The Secretary General of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights Eeling Chiu indicated that Taiwan’s regulations have created more and more stateless people on the island, which is obviously at odds with two statelessness conventions and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW), and has been criticized by international experts.

Chiu advocates the removal of the requirement of the abdication of the original nationality after acquiring ROC citizenship for foreign spouses, which has been considered helpful for promoting gender equality and flourishing diversity.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/21
By: Liu Jian-bang and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, July 21 (CNA) Most of the NT$83.23 million (US$2.6 million) stolen from First Bank’s automated teller machines (ATMs) earlier this month has been recovered, with only about NT$5.79 million still left unaccounted for, police said Thursday.

Police had already recovered NT$60.27 million of the NT$83 million stolen from 41 First Bank ATMs from July 9 to 11 and had initially thought they had retrieved the remaining NT$23 million after discovering a bag containing a large amount of money near a hiking trail in Neihu on Wednesday.

But a count of the money in the bag yielded only NT$12.63 million, NT$10.4 million short of the intended target, and police said Wednesday they would continue to try to track down the remaining amount.

Later Wednesday, a father-and-son pair handed to police another black bag containing bundles of cash they discovered earlier that day at Xihu Park in Neihu. After the money was counted, police found it amounted to NT$4.54 million, leaving nearly NT$5.79 million still unaccounted for.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: July 20, 2016

Taipei 101, the tallest green-certified building in the world, recently concluded a memorandum of

understanding on adopting a cloud-based energy management platform with Siemens Ltd., Taiwan, putting the landmark structure on the path toward becoming one of the smartest and greenest of its kind in the world.

Under the memorandum, Taipei 101 will use Siemens Navigator to monitor its energy supply, demand and system performance, as well as produce advanced analytical reports based on building-generated data. This is expected to optimize efficiency, save costs and assist in the development of sustainable energy management strategies.

Chou Te-yu, chairman of Taipei 101 management firm Taipei Financial Center Corp., said July 13 that innovative technologies such as navigator help create a more comfortable, safer and energy-friendly environment for tenants and visitors. “We aim to make Taipei 101 the global benchmark when it comes to efficient energy management and reducing impact on the environment.”

Echoing Chou’s remarks, Eugene Chien—chairman of Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy—said upgrading building energy management is critical if Taiwan is to play its part in keeping a global temperature rise this century below 2 C and driving efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, a main aim of the agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris last December.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-20
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

With the Rio 2016 Olympics only 16 days away, Kaohsiung City Government officials visited the city’s eight athletes training for the Olympics at the National Sports Training Center (NSTC) in the city’s Zuoying District on Wednesday, saying that the city will make sure mosquito repellent and mosquito nets are provided in light of the prevalent dengue and Zika epidemics in Brazil.

Kaohsiung Deputy Mayor Chen Chin-de said during the visit that Brazil is a hot spot in the dengue fever outbreak, with nearly a million cases at the moment. Kaohsiung City understands the seriousness of the dengue epidemic and has asked the authorities to provide sufficient mosquito repellent and mosquito nets to protect the health of the athletes.

In addition to the dengue epidemic, mosquitoes can also spread Zika virus, posing a risk for birth defects, Chen said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/07/20
By: Justine Su and Lilian Wu

Taipei, July 20 (CNA) A group of lawmakers who had traveled to Taiwan-controlled Taiping

Island in the South China Sea said Wednesday that it is “absolutely an island,” rather than a rock, as ruled by an international tribunal.

Chiang Chi-chen (江啟臣), an opposition Kuomintang (KMT) legislator and convener of the Legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, said the group observed a demonstration of 40-mm guns deployed on the island, as well as a newly built harbor and hardware facilities.

He said that after the group had completed its tour of Taiping — the largest island in the Spratly Islands — they were convinced that it is an island and not a rock.

Chiang, who initiated the visit, said that after years of improvement work, Taiping has been transformed into a place that can sustain long-term human habitation.     [FULL  STORY]

COMPLICATED:Huang Kuo-chang said it was difficult for him to vote for the DPP’s agenda, reluctantly voting in favor to expedite the handling of ill-gotten party assets

Taipei Times
Date: Jul 21, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

The legislature yesterday voted to call an extraordinary legislative session and has listed a draft

bill to deal with ill-gotten party assets on the top of tomorrow’s discussion agenda.

A meeting of the general assembly was yesterday morning held to decide whether an extraordinary session would be called.

Before the meeting started, the legislature observed a minute’s silence to pay tribute to the 26 people who died in a tour bus accident on National Freeway No. 2 in Taoyuan on Tuesday.

As a cross-caucus negotiation convened before the meeting failed to achieve a consensus on whether the extra session would be called and if called, what would be placed on the agenda, the issues were put to votes.     [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: July 21, 2016
By: Sun Hsin Hsuan

TAIPEI, Taiwan — About NT$10 million in cash stolen from Taiwan ATMs remains missing as of

Wednesday, according to police.

Police announced the figure after counting the sum in a bag of stolen cash retrieved from the mountains of Neihu on Wednesday afternoon.

A total of NT$83 million had been stolen from First Bank ATMs in Taiwan from July 9 to July 11, prosecutors said.

The ATM heist was allegedly committed by three Eastern Europeans: Latvian Andrejs Peregudovs, Romanian Mihail Colibaba and Moldovan Niklae Penkov.

Police arrested the suspects on Sunday and recovered around NT$60 million of the stolen money.

Investigators made a major breakthrough after returning to Neihu District with one of the suspects, Peregudovs.     [FULL  STORY]