Welcome to the Daily Bloom! The Daily Bloom will be a daily shortform blog with updates on the day’s political going-ons. If something particularly exciting happening in Taiwan, we will be providing live updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account. At the end of the day, we will compile the live updates to provide a chronological timeline of the day’s events. If not, we will simply report on what happened that day, or what might be of note that happened. If you have news tips about what would be interesting to cover, send to [email protected]!
July 25, 26, and 27, 2014
Farglory Group Chairman, Chao Teng-hsiung, released on bail of 30 million NT. Chao had previously been denied bail on July 18 and has been jailed since June 3rd on charges that he bribed Taoyuan Deputy County Magistrate Yeh Shih-wen in order to secure a housing contract for a low-cost housing project in Taoyuan. Farglory Group was prominently featured in the news in April and May because of threats of violence by Farglory employees against activists protesting Farglory Group’s illegal removal of trees at the site of the construction for the future Taipei Dome. As for Chao himself, he is estimated to be worth 1.7 billion USD by Forbes, which is approximately 51 billion NT.
China’s PLA to hold land, sea military exercises in near future. A series of land-based live fire drills involving six regional military commands is to be held until September and is thought to be in response to recent US, Japan, and Indian cooperative military exercises off the coast of the Sea of Japan. Another military exercise has been held in inner Mongolia since mid-July. Furthermore, starting from tomorrow, China will be holding live fire exercises for five days in the South and East China Seas starting Tuesday. These exercises are said to be larger scale and higher profile than previous exercises.
KMT to exhibit historical documents, artifacts in celebration of 120th anniversary. The exhibition will begin in Tainan this Saturday, then travel to Pingtung City on August 30th, Yilan City on September 30th, Zhongli City on October 5th, and Taipei on October 18th. The exhibition includes documents of Mao Zedong and former CCP general-secretary Chen Duxiu’s registration in the KMT as well as letters by female revolutionary Qiu Jin.