SHOW ME THE MONEY:Borough wardens took aim at Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je, saying the funds granted to them by the city for special events are limited

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 07, 2016
By: Sean Lin / Staff reporter

The Taipei City Government should issue more public funds to help cover the cost of community events, several borough wardens said yesterday in response to Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) suggestion that they hold more activities to help mentally unstable or reclusive residents fit into society.

“I have a lot of ideas and I am willing to cooperate with the mayor, but where does the money come from?” Zhengshou Borough (正守) Warden Lin Ju-hsuan (林洳萱) said.

Lin said that the funds granted to her borough are limited to the “basics,” and that she sometimes has to use her own money to cover some of the costs of community trips she organizes.

Lin said that larger events that require stages and sound equipment to be set up can cost tens of thousands of New Taiwan dollars.

The Daan District (大安) Office’s Civil Affairs Division said the city government allocates NT$60,000 (US$1,849.45) each year for wardens to hold events, in addition to a NT$300,000 “borough and community development fund” which wardens can use to hold special events on holidays, such as on Mother’s Day and the Double Ninth Festival.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 06, 2016
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

A survey by Taiwan Media Watch found that close to 97 percent of the respondents said that the news media coverage of the killing of a four-year-old girl in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) on Monday last week caused widespread panic in society.

The non-profit foundation said it launched a four-day survey on Wednesday last week to evaluate how the television news coverage of the random killing was perceived by the public.

Nearly 1,400 questionnaires were gathered, with 70 percent of respondents saying they read or watch the news every day. The main sources of the news were social networks (48.8 percent), news media Web sites (28.5 percent) and television (20.7 percent).

According to the foundation, the most significant finding was that 96.9 percent said the coverage of the murder had caused panic in society, while 91.1 percent said that the coverage would harm the mental health of children.

Meanwhile, 92 percent said the “excessive” media coverage of the killing would encourage copycats to do the same thing, the foundation said, adding that some of the respondents said they believed that two similar incidents happened immediately afterward as a result of the non-stop coverage.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/04/05
By: Huang Chiao-wen and S.C. Chang

Taipei, April 5 (CNA) An environmental technology company is testing two garbage collection machines in which users can pay or get a refund with EasyCards or iPasses.

Liu Han-yu (劉涵宇), deputy general manager of Hao Yang Environmental Technology Co., said users can swipe an EasyCard or iPass to open the machine, throw in the garbage and then push the confirm button within 20 seconds. The machine will then show the weight and amount of money deducted.

In another machine, users can put in 8 tin cans to get a NT$1 refund on their EasyCards or iPasses. This is part of a government policy to encourage people to recycle.

Liu said the garbage collection machine, which is patented, has cooling, compressing and deodorizing functions. Citizens would no longer have to buy garbage bags to store their household waste.

He said his company plans to launch a pilot project in five locations in Taipei’s Xinyi District in August. If successful, the garbage collection machines will be promoted in other areas where residents will no longer have to hurry back home from work to wait for garbage trucks.      [FULL  STORY]

BETTER THAN EXPECTED:A Budget Center report showed employees have received more bonuses than are granted to civil servants, including for three major holidays

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 06, 2016
By: Chen Yu-hsuan / Staff reporter

The Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center recently advised the cash-strapped Veterans and Veterans’ Dependents Foundation to reduce the benefits it grants to its staff, which are better than what civil servants are entitled to.

The center recently said that the foundation not only allots 1.5 months of pay to its workers for year-end bonuses, in line with the standard for civil servant benefits, it also grants special bonuses during three major holidays — Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival — and NT$35,000 as a performance bonus for each senior employee evaluated as having performed well.

The center said those benefits surpassed those enjoyed by public servants and should be eliminated.

During deliberation over the central government’s general budget for 2013, the Legislative Yuan passed a resolution stating that foundations established with government aid are under the aegis of government policies, they are public interest groups and should act as such, the center said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-04-04
By: Jennifer Lin

The National Taiwan Museum and Quartet Cultural & Creative have jointly organized a Taiwan-Indonesia bilateral literary forum, with the first session being held on April 3. This forum will invite two famed Indonesian writers and four Taiwanese writers to talk about the spirit of international immigration literature and the environment for literature creation.

Pipiet Senja, dubbed as the “mother of migrant workers” by young Indonesian migrant workers around the world, and Wu Ming-yi, a professor in the Department of Sinophone Literatures at the National Dong Hwa University, will engage in in-depth discussion on the topic of migrant workers’ literature and culture. He predicts that ratio of young writers with multiple origins of races and immigrants will increase and the languages and culture of their home countries will inject new perspectives into Taiwan’s literature and culture.

Nowadays, universities in Taiwan have an “imbalance of culture”, with almost no schools having a Southeast Asian language-related department, and very few Taiwanese students chose languages of Southeastern Asia as their second language. “It is a great regret that a deep culture discrimination exists,” Wu said.

Pipiet doesn’t think that language is a hindrance between cultural exchange. She found that new immigrants can learn local language very quickly, she said. When she teaches them how to compose, she often encourages them to write letters to their children and practice writing at the same time.     [FULL  STORY]