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.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS