Taiwan will review an agreement signed with the US to ensure Taiwanese diplomats in the US eventually enjoy full diplomatic immunity, Representative to the US Jason Yuan (袁健生) said on Saturday.
The right of “inviolability of the person” of Taiwanese diplomats in the US will be Taiwan’s focus of discussions, Yuan said.
His remarks come in the wake of the detention of a Taiwanese diplomat on labor fraud charges.
Jacqueline Liu (劉姍姍), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri, has been detained since Nov. 10 on charges of overworking and underpaying Philippine housekeepers.
The case sparked a legal dispute between Taiwan and the US over diplomatic immunity. Taiwan has argued that Liu should be granted immunity, while the US says Liu enjoys a status similar to that of consular officers, which means she has immunity only for acts performed within the scope of her authorized functions.
Yuan said an agreement on privileges, exemptions and immunities signed by Taiwan and the US in 1980 was far from perfect and that the two sides were willing to review the pact. The representative office will continue to correspond with the US Department of State on the matter, he said.
“This would be mutually beneficial. What is good for Taiwan will also be good for the American Institute in Taiwan, and we hope to find a way that will be good once and for all,” Yuan said.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the
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