One of the leaders of protesters occupying the legislative chamber said the students could not at this time accept an invitation from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who had, seven days into the occupation, finally agreed to meet with representatives from the group.
Protest leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) confirmed that the group received a call on Tuesday from Presidential Office spokeswoman Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏), who delivered an invitation for student representatives to talk with the president in the Presidential Office, but Lin said that the protesters were not ready to accept it.
Lin and the activists had initially planned to accept the invitation, but upon hearing that during a cross-party negotiation in the afternoon, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers had refused to allow the cross-strait service trade agreement to be returned to the Internal Administrative Committee for review, the students changed their mind about meeting with Ma.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“We’re worried that the president is being duplicitous,” Lin told a press conference held on the legislative floor.
“He pretends to be open-minded and willing to talk with us on one hand, but he asked KMT lawmakers to block a review of the trade pact,” Lin said.
“Until Ma promises that KMT legislators will not boycott a renewed review of the agreement, we will not agree to talk with him,” the student leader added.
He added that the talk should involve other social groups and should be held in public, such as on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office.
Lee said the president still expects to speak with the students under no preconditions and that the Presidential Office would agree to allow media participation in the meeting.
“It looks like, at the moment, the students have yet to reach a consensus among themselves, and we will wait until they are ready to respond to our invitation,” she said.
“We will try our best to arrange a meeting with the student activists,” she added.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
RSS