One hundred members of the European Parliament have given their firm support for Taiwan's campaign to gain entry to the UN, just days ahead of two referendums on the issue that are set to take place alongside Saturday's presidential election.
The parliamentarians, including Vice President of the European Parliament Edward McMillan Scott and Graham Watson, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, gave their support in a two-page statement that ran in the latest edition of The Parliament Magazine.
In the statement, the members gave their backing to Taiwan's UN campaign while lambasting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his position on Taiwan's applications to the world body, saying that "the Republic of China with its 23 million citizens is a sovereign state" with its own government and territory that has "never been under the control of the People's Republic of China."
They called for better representation for Taiwan in international organizations and called on the EU and members of the UN to give serious consideration to Taiwan's application.
In an interview with the Taipei Times, Michael Kao (
He said they had overcome considerable pressure from China to make their voices heard, adding that it was no coincidence that many of the signatories were from eastern European countries, as they had experience of dealing with "big bullies."
Kao said he hoped the show of support from Taiwan's friends in Europe would strengthen the will of the Taiwanese people to take part in the referendums.
The plebiscites, one proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and one proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), have been at the center of much controversy, with the US and several other countries opposing the DPP version, saying it would raise cross-strait tensions.
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,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
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
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS