The DPP's legislative caucus agreed yesterday that issues concerning public policies, such as the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project, could be determined by a public referendum.
The ruling party issued a press release yesterday under mounting pressure from former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄). Lin led a group of anti-nuclear activists to a protest in front of the Executive Yuan, demanding the employment of a plebiscite to decide the future of the controversial power plant in Taipei County.
In October 2000, the government decided to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. But the following January, the government gave in to pressure from opposition parties and reversed its decision -- giving the go ahead to complete construction of the plant.
The DPP caucus leaders said that voting is a fundamental right of the people, but it will require cross-party negotiation on the application of such a law before it could be presented to the legislature.
Given the highly contentious nature of the power plant, the DPP supports the idea of a referendum determining the future of the plant's construction based on the referendum law. In this way, the procedure and legality of the referendum could be clearly regulated.
Chen Chi-mai (
In contrast to the DPP's more conservative position, the TSU vowed to push for a referendum law that can be applied to all issues, including politically sensitive subjects related to national identity.
The TSU's meeting of central executives reached an agreement that the TSU will propose a draft next Monday, calling for cross-party support in order to "return the people's rights to the people."
TSU lawmaker Chen Chien-ming (
He said people have the right to express their opinions on any issue related to their lives and this includes political issues.
The TSU's initiative has won endorsement from Chai Trong Chai (
Chen Chi-mai said his caucus has not yet decided on where it stands in regard to the TSU's scheme, adding that the details of the law would be discussed by the legislative committee once it passed the first reading.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,