Members of the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association (Nuke-4 RIA) took to the streets yesterday morning to call for the government to "correct" flaws in the Referendum Law (公投法).
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Lin I-hsiung (
During the march, Lin, an outspoken activist dedicated to pushing for a nuclear-free nation, maintained his silence in the face of questions from reporters.
Nuke-4 RIA believes there are five major flaws in the Referendum Law, which was passed by the Legislative Yuan on Nov. 27, 2003.
The "shortcomings" include the setting up of a committee comprised of members of political parties in proportion to the number of seats each party holds in the legislature to screen proposed referendum topics and to make rules for implementing referendums after they are approved.
The design of such a supervisory committee undermines people's right to referendum, said Nuke-4 RIA, which believes there should be no limitations on the topics for referendums.
As a result, such a committee should be abolished, the association said.
In addition, Nuke-4 RIA criticized the requirement that 0.5 percent of registered voters' signatures must be collected in order for a referendum petition to be successful as well as the requirement that at least 50 percent of registered voters must cast ballots in a referendum to make it valid, saying both thresholds are too high and do not reflect the spirit of direct democracy.
Nuke-4 RIA chief executive Iap Phok-bun (葉博文), who led the march, urged the DPP to make the association's petition part of the joint political platform of DPP candidates running in the year-end legislative elections.
"Only such a move can be described as truly answering the people's demands," Iap said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not