The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) passed the agenda yesterday for its year-end national congress at which President Chen Shui-bian (
In the party's weekly Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday, Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
The congress will feature a campaign rally to boost the DPP flag bearer's chances.
Immediately after the congress' campaign inauguration, the party will hold a massive campaign gala in the Hsinchuang Sports Stadium in Taipei County.
Chen's running mate is expected to make a speech on the occasion.
Though the DPP continued to play down the issue of Chen's running mate, it is widely believed that Vice President Annette Lu (
Commenting on the Cabinet's newly unveiled five-year, NT$500 billion public construction package, which aims to borrow money using a special budget, Chen said yesterday the projects are not intended to leave debt to future generations but to invest in the nation's offspring.
The "New 10 Key Infrastructure Projects" is named after the "10 Key Infrastructure Projects" initiated by the late Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president Chiang Ching-kuo (
Chen said the program differs from its predecessor in that the old one focused on major infrastructure projects when Taiwan was in economic difficulty in the 1970s, while the new one is aimed at elevating the country's cultural, environmental and living standards.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software