With 51 votes for and 14 against, the DPP legislative caucus passed a resolution yesterday saying that DPP Legislator-at-large Chiu Chang (
The passing of the resolution means that Chiu's case will be passed on to the party's Central Review Committee (CRC,
The party alleges that in refusing to show her ballot, Chiu ignored a party resolution requiring members to show how they voted. Chiu's refusal, the resolution said, cast doubt on whether she had voted for the DPP candidate.
PHOTO: LIAO RAY-SHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
On April 1, the party's CRC voted 8 to 2 to strip Chiu of her membership. That ruling, however, was overturned by the DPP Arbitration Committee on April 3, because of procedural flaws.
Yesterday's meeting started with a videotape of the incident, after which Chiu spoke in her defense. Following Chiu, reports were presented by Tsai Huang-liang (
Even though the meeting was help in a spirit of openness, there are reports that the party's Justice Alliance (
If the CRC decides to expel Chiu, she will become the third DPP legislator to be expelled from the party in its history, following Hou Hai-hsiung (侯海熊) and Chang Chin-cheng (張晉城). She would also lose her post as a legislator-at-large and become one the legislature's shortest-serving members ever.
In reaction to the landslide decision in favor of passing her case on to the CRC, Chiu said, "It's OK, I'll continue fighting," adding that she had submitted a request for a constitutional interpretation last week.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s