Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-29
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Following the beheading of a 4-year-old girl, the White Rose Social

Care Association said Tuesday it planned an event in support of the death penalty in front of the Presidential Office Building on April 10.
The brutal death of the toddler at the hands of a random attacker in Taipei City Monday has triggered a revival of the debate surrounding the existence of capital punishment in Taiwan.

The group said it hoped 10,000 people could plan to attend the April 10 rally. If each one of them donated NT$50 (US$1.5), the group said it would be able to afford to set up a stage on Ketagalan Boulevard, the scene of frequent mass protests and social events.

The White Rose movement had initially announced it would stage the rally on Saturday April 9, but it later found out another group had already applied to use the boulevard that day, forcing it to move its event to the Sunday.

The group said the random killing of a child in the street on broad daylight showed that capital punishment was still necessary.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/29
By: Timothy Huang and Y.F. Low

New York, March 28 (CNA) Taiwan’s President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is among the 127 nominees for Time magazine’s annual list of “the 100 most influential people” for 2016.

As of March 23, Tsai was ranked within the top 30, garnering 1.2 percent of the votes in an online poll by readers of the magazine, tied with American singer Beyoncé and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Tsai was ahead of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (1.1 percent), U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (1 percent), Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook (1 percent) and U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (0.9 percent).

Leading the poll was Bernie Sanders, another Democratic presidential candidate, who has gained 4.3 percent of the votes.

Myanmar’s democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi (2.8 percent), South Koren boy band Big Bang (2.1 percent), U.S. President Barack Obama (2 percent) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai (1.9 percent) rounded out the top five.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Today
Date: March 29, 2016

Taiwan climbed three places to 35th in the latest World Happiness Report released by

Sustainable Development Solutions Network in the lead up to March 20 World Happiness Day.

The country ranks ahead of Malaysia, 47th; Japan, 53rd; South Korea, 58th; Hong Kong, 75th; and Indonesia, 79th to finish fifth in the Asia-Pacific. The top five comprises New Zealand, eighth; Australia, ninth; Singapore, 22nd; and Thailand, 33rd.

Denmark is the happiest country and territory in the world, followed by Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland.

First launched in 2012, the survey was conducted in conjunction with Columbia University’s The Earth Institute. Using Gallup World Poll data, the report assesses the progress of 156 countries and territories spanning generosity, gross domestic product per capita, freedom to make life choices, healthy life expectancy, perceptions of corruption and social support.

Taiwan gained 6.379 points across these indicators, showing relatively advanced level of human welfare compared with the global baseline of 2.33.     [FULL  STORY]

CONFLICT:The killing renewed calls to uphold the death penalty, with TV host Jacky Wu calling for collective punishment to include the suspect’s family

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 29, 2016
By: Wang Chun-chung and Huang Hsin-po / Staff reporters, with CNA

The decapitation of a four-year old girl in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) yesterday sparked

public outrage and rekindled the debate over capital punishment.

Internet users questioned the necessity of abolishing the death penalty and the possibility of rehabilitating serious offenders, saying the suspect, Wang Ching-yu (王景玉), who allegedly beheaded the girl in an apparently random attack, should be given a speedy trial and immediately executed.

Netizens said that people have to pay for their wrongdoings and “criminals like Wang” have no right to live.

“Legislators should revise the law to establish a mandatory death penalty for those convicted

of random killing to prevent random attacks and protect public safety. The public is advised to pay attention to their surroundings and strangers as such incidents pose a threat to people,” Coalition Against Abolishing the Death Penalty convener Chen Cheng-yu (陳正育) said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said she has proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to subject people who kill children under 12 to a mandatory death sentence or life sentence, and submitted the proposal for review by the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/29
By: You Kai-hsiang, Wang Hung-kuo and Y.F. Low

Taipei, March 29 (CNA) In the wake of the shocking decapitation of a 4-year-old girl in a random attack in Taipei on Monday, many people have laid flowers, dolls, candies and cards at the scene to mourn the victim.

The items presented by the mourners extended more than 10 meters as of 9 a.m. Tuesday.

“Although Taipei has been sunny for two days in a row, everyone is feeling sad inside,” a mourner surnamed Liao said.

The killing occurred at Section 1 of Huanshan Road in Neihu District. As well as its heinous nature, the crime is particularly shocking given, the age of the victim and the circumstances in which it happened.

The girl, who was riding a strider bike, and her mother were on their way to Xihu metro station to meet the girl’s grandfather and two of her siblings for lunch, when an attacker grabbed the child from behind and decapitated her with a cleaver.     [FULL  STORY]

What surprises foreign riders the most about Taipei MRT?

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-03-28
By: Chia Lee, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

March 28, 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of Taipei Metro system, or MRT. Known for

being clean and comfortable, Taipei’s MRT is considered the best way to get around the city, and has impressed many city residents and foreign visitors alike for its convenience and efficiency.

For many foreign visitors, the MRT has impressed them with cleanliness, friendly services and clear guidelines, which make the travel experience so much easier for those who do not speak Chinese.

What particularly surprising about MRT for the foreign visitors to Taipei, in fact, were the carriage seats and the rules against eating and drinking in the stations.

A female Japanese tourist, who came to Taipei for the first time, was surprised when she saw the seats in MRT’s carriage that were made of plastic, as opposed to cushioned ones as they were in Japan’s metro system. The plastic seat was difficult to sit in at the first time, she said, which was hard and slippery. But she became accustomed to it right away.

Another surprising feature of the MRT carriage seats, was the “priority seating.” The darker-colored designated seats meant to be used by passengers with disabilities, elderly and pregnant women, have baffled some foreign riders about whether they are allowed to sit in them.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/03/28
By: Yang Shu-min and S.C. Chang

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency issued an official report Monday on a

shooting incident involving Taiwanese fishing boats and Indonesian government vessels, saying that the latter caused 17 bullet impacts on the cabin of a Taiwanese fishing boat without warning in the early hours of March 21 in the Strait of Malacca.

In its first official report on the incident, the agency’s director-general, Tsay Tzu-yaw (蔡日耀), cited the Sheng Te Tsai’s voyage data recorders (VDR) as saying that it was sailing at a speed of seven to eight knots — at which speed it was unlikely to be setting nets and fishing.

The fact that both the Sheng Te Tsai and the Lien I Hsing No. 116 had been sailing at that speed between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. pokes a hole in an Indonesian government claim that the Taiwanese fishing boats were poaching in its territorial waters, Tsay said.

He also quoted the two captains as vowing that neither of them had tried to ram their ships into the Indonesian patrol boats, as had been claimed by the Indonesians.

Agency officials who investigated the two boats found a total of 17 bullet holes and scars, nine of which were outside the cabin, four were outside of the crew’s sleeping area, two were inside the cabin, one in the rescue raft and one on the funnel, according to Tsai.     [FULL  STORY]