“Taiwan” should be added to international driver’s licenses to emphasize that Taiwanese travelers are not Chinese, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday.
DPP Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that she received complaints from members of the public about the licenses.
Travelers were misidentified as citizens of China because the name Taiwan is not on the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-issued documents, Lin said.
Photo: CNA
“The country’s passport says Taiwan on its cover and there is no reason for the international driver’s license to be different,” she said.
The ministry issued 39,828 international driver’s licenses last year, down from 190,000 in 2018 and 180,000 in 2019, she said.
The ministry would not have so many administrative problems were it to make design changes to the licenses, she said, adding: “Correct identification of the nation’s travelers will help secure their proper treatment by authorities.”
DPP Legislator Chen Su-yueh (陳素月) said the French parliament and the G7 Council of Foreign Ministers separately voiced support for Taiwan’s participation in international organizations over the past two days.
The time is right to restart the movement to rectify the country’s name on international driver’s licenses, Chen said.
“We should make it easier for the international community to identify Taiwan and know that it is different from China,” she said.
DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said that global support for Taiwan is growing, as is the realization that Taiwan and China are different countries.
There is no obstacle in international law that prevents the ministry from putting Taiwan on driver’s licenses, which would avoid misunderstandings for Taiwanese in foreign countries, he said.
Department of Railways and Highways official Lee Chao-hsien (李昭賢) said that the ministry agrees with the proposal to change the licenses, but it must consult other government departments before taking any action.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
RSS