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.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods