Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams was facing a fine of between NT$500,000 and NT$5 million yesterday after the Taipei City Election Monitoring Group, an agency of the Taipei City Govern-ment responsible for supervising the legality of election campaign activities, decided she should be fined for stumping for the Demo-cratic Progressive Party's (DPP) presidential campaign.
The peace activist from Northern Ireland appeared at an election rally on Sunday night with Vice President Annette Lu (
Election Monitoring Group said Williams' appearance was in violation of Article 96 of the Election and Recall Law (
The group said it would inform the DPP, which invited Williams under the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy's (TFD) auspices, of the actual amount of the fine by letter in the next few days.
Williams was officially invited to visit Taiwan by the TFD, a government organization supervised by the four major political parties.
The TFD paid about US$40,000 for Williams' trip.
Although the TFD sponsored William's trip to Taiwan, it was the DPP that invited her and organized her activities here.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kau (
Kau, who is also the TFD president, told the legislature yesterday he did not know Williams would appear in the DPP rally.
"Williams not only joined a street parade with Lu but also showed up in the DPP rally. She has obviously violated the law," said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sun Kuo-hwa (
Kau said the TFD did not know the details of William's itinerary and did not know that she intended to stump for the DPP at the rally Sunday.
Sun said he believed Williams flouted the law unintentionally and advised the TFD to inform foreign guests it invites of related regulations concerning their activities here so as to prevent similar situations from happening again.
According to Kau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has invited more than 40 groups of foreign election-observers to Taiwan and the Government Information Office has invited 30.
The Mainland Affairs Council also invited election observation groups from Hong Kong and Macau.
"Williams would not feel wronged if the foundation had informed her of the regulations," Sun said.
DPP Legislator Lin Chung-mo (
The DPP presidential campaign headquarters condemned the fine as a "great disrespect and insult" to the Nobel laureate and demanded the monitoring group review its decision.
Lin cited examples of how Ma, one of the KMT's future presidential hopefuls, once flouted the law when he was campaigning for Taipei mayor by soliciting votes on the streets earlier than the legally-appointed time.
Lin also questioned whether KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), the opposition presidential candidate, also violated the law yesterday by declaring James Heckman, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics, as his government's economic advisor if he is elected.
Ma emphasized yesterday the monitoring group fined Williams "in complete accordance with the law."
Late last night, the Centrtal Election Commision said that the decision whether or not to fine Williams was its decision alone, and would be based on evidence supplied by the monitoring group.
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
PEACE AND STABILITY: Maintaining the cross-strait ‘status quo’ has long been the government’s position, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan is committed to maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” and seeks no escalation of tensions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, rebutting a Time magazine opinion piece that described President William Lai (賴清德) as a “reckless leader.” The article, titled “The US Must Beware of Taiwan’s Reckless Leader,” was written by Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Defense Priorities think tank. Goldstein wrote that Taiwan is “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint” amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the situation in the Taiwan Strait has become less stable
FRESH LOOK: A committee would gather expert and public input on the themes and visual motifs that would appear on the notes, the central bank governor said The central bank has launched a comprehensive redesign of New Taiwan dollar banknotes to enhance anti-counterfeiting measures, improve accessibility and align the bills with global sustainability standards, Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday. The overhaul would affect all five denominations — NT$100, NT$200, NT$500, NT$1,000 and NT$2,000 notes — but not coins, Yang said. It would be the first major update to the banknotes in 24 years, as the current series, introduced in 2001, has remained in circulation amid rapid advances in printing technology and security standards. “Updating the notes is essential to safeguard the integrity
REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.
RSS