Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) plans to file a provisional injunction over the government’s rejection of her proposed nuclear referendum in New Taipei City (新北市) in a bid to stop the fuel rods from being installed at the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the city’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled at the Taipei High Administrative Court today over the lawsuit Lu has filed against the Executive Yuan for rejecting her referendum proposal, which had been previously approved by New Taipei City’s Referendum Review Committee.
Lu told a press conference yesterday that the Executive Yuan’s rejection has failed to respect the tens of thousands of people who signed the petition.
The former vice president, who is among the aspirants for the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidacy in the Taipei mayoral election in November, has made the anti-nuclear issue one of the main themes of her election campaign.
Citing former Japanese prime minister Morihimo Hosokawa, who ran an anti-nuclear campaign in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, as her inspiration, Lu said she would continue with her efforts, noting that the wishes of the millions of residents in the evacuation zone around the nuclear power plant should be respected.
Lu also accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of flip-flopping on another referendum proposal Lu launched in Taipei, saying that Hau had shunned the responsibility for referring the proposal to the Ministry of the Interior, which subsequently determined that a nuclear referendum is a national issue that cannot be decided by a local referendum.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday established a friendship group with their counterparts in Ukraine to promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. A ceremony in Taipei for the Taiwan-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Association, initiated by DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), was attended by lawmakers and officials, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) and European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan Director Lutz Gullner. The increasingly dire situation in Ukraine is a global concern, and Taiwan cannot turn its back when the latter is in need of help, as the two countries share many common values and interests,
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