Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) confirmed yesterday that the legislature had received a reply from the US to its nationality probe from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Wang said the legislature’s Procedure Committee was scheduled to discuss today whether to include the reply in Friday’s plenary agenda.
He said lawmakers would then decide whether to publicize the document, which was labeled confidential.
The citizenship controversy began when the Chinese-language Next Magazine alleged that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) still held US nationality.
Lee has argued that she obtained permanent residency in the US in 1985 and citizenship in 1991, but lost her US citizenship when she became a public official in Taiwan.
The Ministry only received the US reply recently. Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said it was not specific enough.
His silence drew criticism from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which alleged that Ou was trying to shield the KMT.
The Legislative Yuan on Tuesday asked the ministry to submit the reply to the legislature by last Thursday.
The DPP caucus also requested that copies of the reply be sent to all three legislative caucuses.
Asked by the Taipei Times on Thursday, both DPP and KMT caucuses said they had not received the reply while a ministry official reported not having received the legislature’s official request.
An official at the legislature’s Personnel Department, which is responsible for ensuring that lawmakers qualify for office, declined to comment when asked by the Taipei Times whether the legislature’s request had been sent to the ministry.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS