A group advocating LGBTQ+ and women’s rights in Taiwan has posted on its Web site an interactive voting guide highlighting candidates in the country’s January presidential and legislative elections who support the group’s causes.
The Taiwan Equality Campaign, which was launched in 2016 by five organizations promoting women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, have compiled the guide, known as “Pride Watch,” the group told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Thirteen legislative candidates from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition Social Democratic Party, the New Power Party and Taiwan People’s Party have pledged to push for more inclusive policies if elected.
Photo: CNA
The Web site would continue to update new LGBTQ-friendly candidates if more of them register with the platform and fill in the questionnaire to demonstrate their pledge, said Joyce Teng (鄧筑媛), the group’s executive director.
The guide also features the geographical distribution of the complying legislative candidates, meaning people can now search for candidates running in their own district in the upcoming elections.
The constituents would also be fully informed of candidates’ comments, either for or against LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, as the group promotes more political awareness, action and participation among voters and people, Teng said.
Once the Central Election Commission releases the party lists for legislators-at-large on Jan. 2, the platform would also invite those candidates to fill out the questionnaires and pledge to support more LGBTQ+ and women-friendly policies.
As for the presidential candidates, the platform urged all the major candidates to showcase their LGBTQ+ and women’s policies, which would be compiled in the guide, Teng said.
The guide has been updated several times since it was launched in 2018, according to the Web site.
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