Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Kuo Su-chun (
Kuo made the remarks after the Central News Agency on Thusday quoted an anonymous legislator who attended a luncheon with People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
Kuo said the KMT was not against referendums, but opposes holding plebiscites in conjunction with the legislative and presidential polls.
PHOTO: CNA
The nation has been plagued for months by the dispute over whether referendums should be scheduled on the same days as the elections, she said.
"It would be a good thing if we could draw up clear rules of the game in this matter," she said.
At a separate setting, Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Chen Chi-mai (
"No conclusion was reached on his suggestion during the meeting," Chen Chi-mai said.
Chen Chi-mai said the president had not yet decided whether to launch a third referendum to be put to a vote in conjunction with the other UN referendums.
He was referring to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) suggestion earlier this week to hold a referendum on joining the UN that is phrased such that both political camps approve, to prevent the referendums from failing and giving the international community the impression that the Taiwanese do not want to join the global body.
Since there is not enough time before the referendum date for members of the public to initiate a third plebiscite, the DPP suggested either the legislature or the president initiate the referendum application.
Article 17 of the Referendum Law states: "When the nation is exposed to an external threat that may affect its sovereignty, the president may, following a resolution by the Executive Yuan, place national security matters before the public for decision in a referendum," known as a "defensive referendum."
The legislature is also authorized to initiate referendums.
However, the Central Election Commission (CEC) is required to announce the content of a referendum 28 days before the vote. The legislature would have to present the application for a third UN referendum to the CEC by Feb. 23.
Although the DPP said it was willing to cooperate with the KMT on a referendum concerning UN membership, the DPP is opposed to the KMT caucus' proposal to pass a binding resolution that requires the government to "return to" or "join" the UN using the national title "Republic of China [ROC]" once the new legislature convenes.
The KMT said on Thursday this would resolve the UN referendum dispute.
According to a a senior KMT official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, such a resolution, if ratified by the new legislature, would reflect the public's willingness to join the international body, while making it unnecessary for the government to hold any referendum on UN membership.
DPP Department of Information and Culture Deputy Director Hsieh Hsin-ni (
Voting in referendums is a way for the public to express their "Taiwanese consciousness," she said. Dropping the referendums and passing a resolution would be an insult to the public, she said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,