Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) hopes to travel to Hungary later this month to attend a global political convention, although whether she can make it remains up in the air, sources said yesterday.
"It remains uncertain whether I will travel to Budapest. I am still making an overall evaluation," Lu said during an inspection tour of the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park.
London-based Liberal International, a coalition of political parties from more than 60 countries, has invited the DPP to attend its annual congress in Hungary from March 21 to March 23, sources said.
"We've invited the DPP to the meeting because the DPP is a member of the Liberal International. The party can decide whom it will send," Federica Sabbati, Liberal International's program officer and secretary-general elect, told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.
"But no specific invitation is made to Annette Lu," Sabbati added. "But of course she is invited as she is a member of the DPP."
Defining the meeting as "exchanges among political parties," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokes-person Katharine Chang (張小月) said the ministry would do its best to realize the vice president's trip to Budapest.
But Chang said Lu's visit has yet to be finalized and is still subject to receiving a visa from the Hungarian government.
Chang also said that if Lu made it to Budapest, she would be going there as a member of the DPP rather than in her capacity as the vice president of Taiwan.
Lu's name is not listed on the congress' draft program posted on Liberal International's Web site.
DPP Vice Secretary-General You Ying-lung (
Tien noted that Lu's attempt to attend Liberal International's annual congress in Canada in 2000 was thwarted.
At the sidelines of the congress, the DPP delegation plans to showcase Taiwan's democratization as well as the historical evolution of the DPP, Tien said.
The delegation, scheduled to depart on March 19, is also to travel to Poland and Germany to meet with like-minded European political parties, Tien added.
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) is to begin his one-year alternative military service tomorrow amid ongoing legal issues, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Wang, who last month was released on bail of NT$150,000 (US$4,561) as he faces charges of allegedly attempting to evade military service and forging documents, has been ordered to report to Taipei Railway Station at 9am tomorrow, the Alternative Military Service Training and Management Center said. The 33-year-old would join about 1,300 other conscripts in the 263rd cohort of general alternative service for training at the Chenggong Ling camp in Taichung, a center official told reporters. Wang would first
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS