Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday expressed his hope that he would see a draft statute on promoting innovative industries (產業創新條例) clear the legislature as it reconvenes today.
Wu said both ruling and opposition parties were greatly concerned about the bill and that the executive branch has amended it to avoid accusations that it was tailor-made for the high-tech industry or certain big businesses.
The bill will be an extension of the Statute for Industrial Upgrading (促進產業升級條例) after it expired at the end of last year. The bill for industrial innovation aims to encourage business to invest in innovation, research and development.
After Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) threatened to pull out of Taiwan if the legislature passes the bill, which would grant preferential tariff treatment to the world’s top 500 international businesses, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said the Executive Yuan had decided to scrap the article because of its controversial nature.
Wu and Shih made the remarks while addressing a meeting chaired by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman.
The meeting was called by the KMT for Cabinet officials and party lawmakers to discuss how to better cooperate with each other during the new legislative session.
Ma threw his backing behind a government plan to introduce absentee voting despite accusations by the Democratic Progressive Party that the KMT was planning the system to manipulate elections.
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said the government planned to implement the measure during the next presidential election in 2012, but did not rule out doing it earlier if legislation and supplementary measures are completed on time.
Jiang said his ministry would start with a transfer system to allow voters to cast their ballots in the constituencies where they work rather than where they are registered. Currently, voters can only turn in ballots at designated polling stations near their registered address, preventing many from voting.
Calling it a “human rights” issue, Ma said any democratic country must have absentee voting, although there was room for discussion regarding how extensive it would be.
“It concerns the protection of human rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.
On the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), Ma said he hoped the second round of official negotiations would take place as soon as possible so both sides would have a better idea about what the items of the “early harvest” measure will be.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
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