A new bill has been introduced into the US Congress calling on the Taiwanese government to grant medical parole to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
“Chen has not been able to receive adequate medical treatment in accordance with his wishes, such as selecting either doctors or hospitals, and has not been able to have complete access to his medical records,” the bill says.
Sponsored by US Representative Robert Andrews, the bill urges medical parole “effective immediately.”
The bill says that since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to office in 2008, a large number of investigations and prosecutions have been brought against members of the Democratic Progressive Party administration.
“Most of these prosecutions were politically motivated, in an apparent pattern of political score-settling,” the bill says.
Earlier this month, the New York Times ran an article on Chen, saying that his time in power “vexed Beijing with his advocacy of Taiwanese independence and riveted Washington, which saw him both as democratic pioneer and mercurial troublemaker.”
It said if Ma showed leniency, he would anger Chen’s old KMT opponents, “but doing nothing has left him looking heartless and vulnerable to continuing criticism.”
“Taiwan authorities need to understand that Chen’s imprisonment is severely damaging the international image of Taiwan as a free and democratic nation,” Formosan Association for Public Affairs president Mark Kao (高龍榮) said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back