The Junior Chamber International Taiwan (JCI Taiwan) urged the public yesterday to boycott the two upcoming referendums on the country's bid to join the UN, which are set to be held alongside the March 22 presidential election.
Making the call during a news conference in Taichung, Shen Po-chang (沈伯璋), JCI Taiwan vice president in charge of international affairs, claimed the referendums were unhelpful to the UN bid because they are only a tool being employed by the parties to try to influence the outcome of the election.
"Although joining the United Nations is the common desire of the whole nation, we will not be able to fulfil the wish whether the referendums are passed or not," Shen said.
He announced that the group would hold a series of events in Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung and Kaohsiung today to promote their campaign to boycott the referendums to ensure "a smooth path" for the presidential election.
Meanwhile, a parade with statues of local deities aimed at promoting the Democratic Progressive Party referendum on the country's bid to join the UN using the name Taiwan arrived in Taipei yesterday.
The parade, kicked off on Friday in Keelung City, aims to promote the referendum on a 13-day round-the-nation tour.
With six balloon statues of deities widely worshipped, including Matsu (
"We must work hard together to achieve the goal of entering the United Nations through the blessings of the gods," said Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀), secretary-general of the National Cultural Association which organized the tour.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
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