Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Referendum law needs to be reformed to be useful

Taipei Times

Last Thursday, the Cabinet’s Referendum Review Committee approved the Consumers’ Foundation petition for a referendum on US beef imports by a vote of 16-0.

The proposed referendum has now entered the second stage, which requires 860,000 valid signatures.

Selling snake oil to the electorate

Taipei Times

In recent weeks, the government has begun to resemble a snake oil salesman in its frantic efforts to promote a so-called panacea for Taiwan’s economy — an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) that it is determined to sign with China.

In the months since the agreement was floated, the government has used a number of tactics to promote the pact, including an ethnically stereotyped cartoon, sleep-inducing public forums and, more recently, talk of enlisting the help of a thug politician to preach the ECFA gospel to a population that remains unconvinced.

Taking path of Finland could leave Taiwan cold

Chen Yi-nan 陳逸南

In a recent article entitled “Not So Dire Straits,” published in Foreign Affairs, US academic Bruce Gilley suggested that Washington consider excluding Taipei from its Asian allies if a “Finlandized” Taiwan leans toward China.

Writing in an opinion piece in a local newspaper on Jan. 4, Department of International Affairs Deputy Director Huang Chih-ta (黃致達) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that Gilley’s suggestion should be taken as a severe warning to Taiwan. If the Washington mainstream accepts Gilley’s suggestion, Taiwan risks not Finlandization but becoming the next Hong Kong.

Freedom House warns on rights in Taiwan

Taiwan News Editorial

President Ma Ying-jeou and his Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) administration should seriously re-examine its performance in civic and human rights in the wake of the downgrading of Taiwan's level of civil liberties by a prestigious international human rights monitoring organization.

In its annual survey of "Freedom in the World," the New York - based Freedom House downgraded Taiwan`s rating in civil liberties was reduced from grade 1 to grade 2 primarily due to violations of the rights of defendants in criminal cases and other new restrictions on freedom of expression and news freedom since the right-wing "formerly authoritarian" KMT regained governance in May 2008.

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