SHOW OF SOLIDARITY:The protesters criticized Yuen Foong Yu Group’s chairman for E Ink Holdings’ decision to close a Hydis plant while keeping other businesses open

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 28, 2015
By: Jake Chung  /  Staff writer

A group of South Korean workers yesterday protested inside a branch of Bank SinoPac in

Taipei to highlight the decision by E Ink Holdings Inc — a subsidiary of the Yuen Foong Yu Group that owns the bank — to close a Hydis plant in South Korea on Tuesday.

E Ink purchased Hydis — a plasma display manufacturer originally owned by South Korea’s Hyundai Group — in 2008 and laid off 400 employees in 2013 before deciding to close the plant this year.

E Ink said that despite the plant’s closure, it would ensure that Hydis remains in business.     [FULL  STORY]

The Treasure Hill Environmental Art Lantern Festival will kick off tomorrow with art installations that shed light on social issues and historical injustices

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 27, 2015
By: Ho Yi  /  Staff reporter

Do not expect there to be real lanterns at the Treasure Hill Environmental Art Lantern Festival

(寶藏巖環境藝術燈節), set to open at 7pm tomorrow at Taipei’s Treasure Hill Artist Village (寶藏巖國際藝術村). Instead, installations will illuminate the hills, creating a pensive mood for visitors to contemplate the controversial history of this now popular cultural attraction.

Launched in 2012, the annual festival features performances and installations by contemporary artists from Taiwan and Japan, some of whom were former artists-in-residence.

“We don’t come up with a theme and give it to the artists. The artists have to come here and examine the place first, and then start to think about what they want to do,” says Yang Hsiao-wei (楊筱薇) from the Taipei Culture Foundation’s Department of Artist-in-Residence (台北市文化基金會藝術村營運部).     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-03-26
By: CNA and Staff Reporter

Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, received courteous treatment during his just-concluded visit

to Singapore to pay his last respects to Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of the city-state who died March 23 aged 91, an unnamed source said Wednesday.

Escorted from the airport, Ma was greeted personally by Lee’s son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and his wife at the Istana, site of the prime minister’s official residence, according to the source.

Lee Hsien Loong was waiting for Ma when he arrived at the Istana, where the family held the private wake, the source said, adding that that they enjoyed close interaction.

The source said the prime minister thanked Ma for making the time for a short visit, repeatedly saying that he was “very grateful to you for coming” during a 30-minute chat.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/03/26
By: Chen Ching-fang and Ted Chen

Taipei, March 26 (CNA) Taiwan Blood Services Foundation on Thursday urged the public to stop spreading and heeding an outdated request for type B rh-negative blood, as it is causing inconveniences for medical institutions.

The foundation was referring to an urgent message calling for blood for a women receiving medical care at an unnamed hospital in northern Taiwan.

The message has since gone viral, after being circulated by countless members of the public through LINE, a popular messaging app.     [FULL  STORY]

’DISMISSAL IS MURDER’:Protesters demanded a meeting with Yeung Foong Yu Group chairman Ho Shou-chuan, and demonstrated outside his house in Taipei

Taipei Times
Date:  Mar 27, 2015
By: Lii Wen  /  Staff reporter

Union representatives from South Korea’s Hydis Technologies, a subsidiary of Taiwanese

e-paper manufacturer E Ink Holdings, yesterday held a rally in Taipei to protest E Ink’s decision to cease operations in Icheon, South Korea.

Now on their second trip to Taiwan, the South Korean workers have staged a series of demonstrations over the past week, expressing stiff opposition toward E Ink’s plans to dismiss more than 350 Hydis employees by the end of this month.

They said that it was against South Korean labor regulations for a profitable company to implement a mass layoff of its employees, adding that Hydis made more than NT$2.8 billion (US$89.81 million) last year from its patent royalties in fringe field switching — a key technology in the LCD electronics industry.     [FULL  STORY]

The//Intercept
By Laurent Bastien Corbeil

When the Republican National Committee convened in Chicago last August for its annual

summer meeting, it unanimously approved a resolution urging the White House to supply a host of weapons, ranging from submarines to advanced warplanes, to the island nation of Taiwan.

However, Justice Department records show the resolution was not written by any of the RNC’s members, but by Marshall Harris, a lobbyist who had been hired by the Taiwanese government to further its interests in Washington.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, lobbyists representing foreign governments are required to disclose their activities to the U.S. attorney general. According to the disclosure documents filed by Harris’s employer Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based law firm, he wrote a draft of the resolution a month before the RNC’s 2014 summer meeting.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/03/25
By: Yin Chun-chie and Maubo Chang

Taipei, March 25 (CNA) The death of former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) is a loss not just to Singapore, but also Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou said late Tuesday.

After returning from a trip to Singapore to pay last respects to the late Singapore founder, Ma said he hopes other Singapore leaders will be as supportive of Taiwan as Lee, who built the friendship between the two countries.

Ma told journalists at Taoyuan Airport that Singapore is one of Taiwan’s close trade partners, and Lee was a close friend of the country’s late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Lee’s deep concern about the island was borne out by the fact that he visited Taiwan 25 times, Ma said.     [FULL  STORY]