Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/01
By Liao Jen-kai and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Aug. 1 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is in good health, the hospital conducting his annual health checkup said Saturday.

Except for Ma’s old injuries to his right knee, he is otherwise healthy, according to the China Medical University Hospital in Taichung City.

Ma is 178 centimeters tall and weighs 75.1 kilograms, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 23.7.

It is the first time that the president has picked a hospital far away from Taipei for his annual checkup. The previous hospitals were located in the capital or Taoyuan City, both of which are in northern Taiwan.     [FULL  STORY]

‘WORD GAMES’:Students said the ministry should not distinguish between students aged above and below 18 and called for all the charges to be dropped

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 02, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Charges will probably not be pressed against high-school students who entered the Ministry

of Education building on Thursday last week, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said yesterday.

“For students who are still in high school, we hope not to press charges, while students older than 18 who are willing to acknowledge their actions were ‘disorderly’ will also be taken care of through through nonlegal means,” he said.

He said that not pressing charges was the ministry’s “objective,” but that the ministry hopes the public supports the idea that people should express their points of view only by “reasonable” means.

The ministry has ordered the removal of the barricades across the ministry’s main gate to demonstrate its willingness to communicate with students, he added.

Before yesterday morning protesters in the ministry courtyard had to snake through an extended path between razor wire obstacles to enter and exit the ministry gates.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/01
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Aug. 1 (CNA) An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.5 on the Richter scale shook northern Taiwan at 3:36 p.m. Saturday, according to the Central Weather Bureau.

The epicenter of the earthquake was about 6.3 kilometers north of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 83.6 km, the bureau’s Seismology Center said.

The strongest tremor, which posted an intensity of 2, was felt in Yilan County’s Luodong Township, Taipei City’s Xinyi District where is located Taipei’s landmark “Taipei 101”, as well as some areas of New Taipei City, Taoyuan City and Hualien County, the center said.

The intensity of a quake gauges the actual effect of a temblor.

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/07/31
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, July 31 (CNA) Two microphones used by late Republic of China President Chiang

Kai-shek (蔣介石) for two significant wartime broadcasts will go on display together in Taiwan for the first time beginning Aug. 3.

The two microphones – separately preserved at the Taipei-based Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) and Radio Taiwan International (RTI) until now – made their first appearance together on Friday at a RTI event held to announce the exhibition.

The microphone preserved at BCC was used by Chiang to make his famous1937 remarks at Lushan in China’s Jiangxi Province.

During the speech, which marked the beginning of the ROC’s eight-year (1937-1945) War of Resistance against Japan, Chiang said China had reached the limits of its endurance of Japanese aggression.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-07-31
By: CNA

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe affirmed Wednesday that Taiwan is an important

partner that Japan should cherish.

Abe made the remarks in an interpellation session of the Special Committee on Peace and Security of the Senate when replying to questions raised by senators of the opposition parties.

The Japanese Senate is now reviewing the nation’s new security bill approved earlier this month by the lower house of the Diet, which would allow Japan’s military forces to participate in military operations abroad for the first time since the end of World War II.

“Taiwan is an important partner of our country that shares basic values with us,” Abe said when referring to the relations between the two neighboring countries.

“Taiwan is a friend that Japan should cherish,” the Japanese prime minister reiterated, adding that “to maintain substantial non-governmental relations with Taiwan is our position.”

Referring to the future development of relations between Taiwan and Japan, Abe said that future bilateral cooperation and dialogue between the two countries will be conducted on the basis of “our country’s basic position.”

Textbooks already printed: Wu

Taiwan News
Date: 2015-07-31
By Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Education Minister Wu Se-hwa told students outside his ministry Friday afternoon that he would not resign, even after the suicide of one of their spokesmen.

Lin Kuan-hua, 20, was discovered dead on Thursday in what was widely believed to be a protest against government changes in the high-school curriculum guidelines. He was one of 33 people, including three journalists, who were detained for a while after having intruded into the education minister’s offices on July 23-24.

After the news of Lin’s death broke, students again took to the ministry Thursday evening to demand Wu’s resignation and the withdrawal of the curriculum changes, which they say reflect a pro-China ideology.

Coming out of the MOE building before 2 p.m. Friday, Wu remained silent when the students shouted for his resignation.