The KMT yesterday announced that its chairman, Lien Chan (
This will be the second time that Lien has taken part in a protest march. He attended a demonstration last year to highlight worsening unemployment and economic problems.
According to KMT spokesman Alex Tsai (
Tsai urged the DPP to stop suppressing farmers and fishermen, saying the ruling party is continuing to drift apart from these two groups.
The Ministry of Finance has proposed closing the credit cooperatives of farmers' and fishermen's associations -- notorious for their high percentage of overdue loans.
Pan-blue accusations
Opposition parties, however, have accused the DPP of attempting to eliminate the associations under the pretense of financial reform.
The KMT plans to pass an agricultural finance bill to establish a national agriculture bank that would supervise the troubled credit cooperatives.
In addition to inviting Lien, the organizer of the demonstration extended an invitation to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (黃主文), Premier Yu Shyi-kun and legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) to join the march.
These politicians' attendance is still uncertain.
Also yesterday, a group of DPP legislators accused the KMT of manipulating the demonstration in an attempt to embarrass the DPP government.
KMT mobilization
The legislators, including Chiu Chuang-chin (邱創進), Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) and Tang Huo-shen (湯火聖), said they have been informed that the KMT has ordered its members working in farmers' and fishermen's associations to mobilize at least five people each with a goal of having 100,000 people show up for the event.
The KMT has also told the protesters to bring items such as rotten eggs, putrid meat balls and dead chickens to the scene, which they will throw at the Ministry of Finance.
Lee Chuan-chiao (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching