The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is lukewarm about a suggestion made by European parliamentarians that Taiwan become an observer in an inter-governmental organization because abolition of the death penalty is a requirement.
A ministry official told the Taipei Times yesterday that the time for Taiwan’s participation in the Council of Europe was not right, because doing away with capital punishment is impossible at present given that “as much as 80 percent of the public is against it.”
The latest call for Taiwan to seek Council of Europe observer status was made by Pedro Agramunt, a Spanish senator and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, during a visit to Taiwan late last month.
Agramunt said that an initiative to help Taiwan secure observer status got underway during a meeting on Friday last week with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), who received the guests on behalf of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
According to the official, who wished to remain anonymous, a number of parliamentarians in other European countries have suggested that Taiwan make a case for participation in the Council of Europe. It could be seen as part of efforts by some European countries calling for the abolition of capital punishment in Taiwan, the official said.
The ministry would consider the proposal “from the perspective of Taiwan’s national interests,” the official said, adding that “the overwhelming opposition to abolishing the death penalty has been a factor the ministry has to take into account.”
The Council of Europe is an inter-governmental organization aimed at promoting cooperation between European countries in various areas, specifically on human rights issues.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS