The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government may hold a referendum next year to determine if Taiwan needs a new constitution, a DPP legislator said yesterday. DPP caucus whip Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said that the government may hold such a referendum when Taiwan's society has become more mature and when there is a consensus among the people on the need to change the Constitution. Yeh's remarks came after a report in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun on Saturday said that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had renewed his pledge in an interview that he would draft a new constitution before his term ended in 2008. Yeh acknowledged that public opinion on this issue is divided at present and that the president needs to make greater efforts in seeking a consensus. "If he can obtain the support of the majority of the people on the issue of constitutional reform, then no one, including the United States, will have the right to oppose such reform," Yeh said. On opposition legislators' plan to amend the Referendum Law (公投法) by scrapping Article 17 which allows the president to hold a referendum on national security issues when the nation comes under the threat of external invasion, Yeh said that Article 17 is necessary to safeguard national security and that the DPP would oppose such a move.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
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