The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will dispatch two five-member delegations to the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention in the US later this month and early next month respectively, a senior party official said yesterday.
In a recent meeting, the KMT decided that Deputy Legislative Speaker Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) will lead the delegation to the 2008 Democratic conference to be held in Denver, Colorado, between Aug. 25 and Aug. 28.
Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), a KMT vice chairman, will head the delegation to the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, from Sept. 1 through Sept. 4.
The purpose of the US party conventions is to officially nominate the party’s candidate for president and to adopt the party’s platform and rules.
Since Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have already locked up their candidacies for the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, the choices of their running mates will be the focus of the conventions.
A senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said that traditionally, the ministry does not dispatch delegations to the US party conventions, although high-ranking officials of Taiwan’s representative office to the US usually observe them.
KMT legislators Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), Justin Chou (周守訓), John Wu (吳志揚) and Shuai Hua-min (帥化民) are members of the delegation to the Democratic convention, while Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛), Alex Tsai (蔡正元), Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) and Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) will attend the Republican event.
The Democratic Progressive Party will also send delegations to both conventions.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
City buses in Taipei and New Taipei City, as well as the Taipei MRT, would on Saturday begin accepting QR code payments from five electronic payment providers, the Taipei Department of Transportation said yesterday. The new option would allow passengers to use the “transportation QR code” feature from EasyWallet, iPass Money, iCash Pay, Jkopay or PXPay Plus. Passengers should open their preferred electronic payment app, select the “transportation code” — not the regular payment code — unlock it, and scan the code at ticket readers or gates, General Planning Division Director-General Liu Kuo-chu (劉國著) said. People should move through the
RSS