After weeks of speculation, the TPP and KMT agreed to a joint presidential ticket today. This announcement took place after a meeting today between TPP presidential candidate and chair Ko Wen-je, KMT chair Eric Chu, KMT presidential candidate Hou You-yi, and former president Ma Ying-jeou...
Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan said in comments to the media earlier this week that the ministry would propose draft amendments to existing laws to legalize surrogacy in Taiwan. This would make it easier for same-sex couples and single women to have children...
Ahead of elections, China has threatened to end the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement that dates from the time of the Ma administration. In particular, China claims that Taiwan is currently violating the terms of the agreement under the Tsai administration by continuing to maintain trade barriers on some Chinese goods, while also alleging that the Tsai administration has increased the number of Chinese goods blocked from entering Taiwan...
TSMC announced late last month that it would no longer be considering Longtan as a possible location for fab construction. This took place after the company–the major Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing giant–previously considered building facilities in the Longtan Science Park...
New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed Tanele Maseko, human rights defender from Swaziland and the wife of Thulani Maseko. Thulani Maseko, an opposition politician and human rights lawyer, was killed by unidentified gunman in January of this year. As this took place after comments by Swazi monarch King Mswati III suggesting that critics of his should be killed, it is thought that this killing was ordered by the monarch. Tanele Maseko was visiting Taipei for the Oslo Freedom Forum on October 18th. Despite the questionable human rights record of Swaziland, which was renamed Eswatini by Mswati III in April 2018, it is one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies. Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen most recently visited Eswatini this September. ...
The TPP has come under fire for a possible party list candidate that the DPP claims to have formerly been a CCP member. The prospective candidate in question is Xu Chunying, the chair of the Taiwan New Residents Development Association, which advocates for the rights of foreign-born spouses in Taiwan. Xu is naturalized to Taiwanese nationality through marriage to a Taiwanese man...
The KMT continues to politicize the issue of vaccines in Taiwan, lashing out at the use of Medigen flu vaccines and framing this as the Tsai administration favoring the vaccine developer. This occurs even as Medigen is just one of a number of brands that will be used domestically...
Foxconn has seen inspections by Chinese authorities in past days over taxes in Guangdong and Jiangsu, while inspected over land use in Henan and Hubei...
DPP presidential candidate William Lai has hit out at Lu Shiow-yen’s mayoral administration in Taichung over the Blue Line of the Taichung MRT. Lai alleged that the stops along the line were adjusted in order to please “powerful people'' in Taichung. This has, in turn, been denied by the Lu administration...
When questioned in the legislature earlier this week, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai said that according to government back-channels, Chinese group tours to Taiwan would not likely be resuming this year. This occurs even as tourism is expected to return to pre-COVID levels next year...
