The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) delayed celebration of its election win will finally start next Sunday with a series of thank-you rallies around the country.
The original rally, scheduled for the evening of April 10 in Taipei's Chungshan No. 1 Park, has been changed to April 11 and will instead take place in Tainan City and Tainan County, the home county of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The switch from Taipei to Tainan in the south is believed to have been made to avoid a possible confrontation with supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance who have threatened to stage protests to coincide with the celebration.
DPP Deputy Secretary General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday said that a total of four celebration rallies would be held in Tainan City and Tainan County on April 11, Taoyuan County on April 17 and Taichung City on April 24.
Cheng Wen-tsan (
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) has also planned to hold similar thank-you rallies on April 10 in Kaohsiung City. Former president Lee Teng-hui (
In addition to the four rallies, the Government Information Office and the Council for Cultural Affairs will hold inauguration parties on the evenings of May 19 and May 20, the inauguration date of the president.
The May 19 inauguration party will be held in Kaohsiung City and the May 20 party will be held in Taipei County.
Meanwhile, Cheng yesterday said the formation of a reform task force to beef up coordination between the government and the DPP would be high on the agenda of the April 10 congress meeting.
In a meeting with high-ranking officials at DPP party headquarters yesterday, Chen instructed that such a task force be formed to develop strategies for party administration in the medium and the long term, as well as for the four major elections to be held before 2008.
Cheng yesterday said the formation of the task force was expected to be approved at the April 10 congress meeting.
"Chen's renewal of his party chairmanship in July will represent the consolidation of the synchronization of party and administrative affairs. This mechanism will be further strengthened in Chen's second presidential term," Cheng said.
On the upcoming legislative elections in December, Cheng said the party had reached consensus on cooperating with the TSU to snare a legislative majority.
"The party has agreed to cooperate with the TSU in the year-end legislative elections in the hope that it will enable the pan-green camp to become the majority in the legislature," Cheng said.
On proposed amendments to regulations selecting candidates for lawmakers-at-large, Cheng said the proposal that overseas and Aboriginal lawmakers be nominated by the party chairman was likely to be dropped.
He said that the original regulation, in which performance in the party primary and the opinion poll was equally weighted to determine the successful nominees, would remain.
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
As of 4pm this afternoon, 27 monitoring stations across Taiwan had issued an orange rating for air quality, mostly concentrated in the central and southern regions, the Ministry of Environment (MOENV) Web site showed. An orange warning indicates air quality that is “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” None of the monitoring stations nationwide reported a “green” air quality rating, with all other stations recording yellow for “moderate” air quality. The ministry advised those sensitive to pollution, such as the elderly, children and those with weaker immune systems, to reduce strenuous outdoor activities and wear masks for protection. Northeasterly winds could carry
K-pop group Twice drew massive crowds in Kaohsiung over the weekend as Taiwanese member Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) returned home to perform for the first time, attracting thousands of fans to Kaohsiung National Stadium. Greeting fans in Mandarin, the 26-year-old on Saturday night said she was thrilled to finally bring her bandmates to Kaohsiung. Fans began lining up early on Saturday to buy official merchandise, and by afternoon more than 10,000 people had gathered to listen to the group’s rehearsal, cheering loudly as the music carried across the stadium grounds. Large numbers of foreign fans were seen in the area, packing nearby MRT stations,
LOYALTY CONFLICT: If Chinese spouses are allowed to retain their citizenship and also hold office, they would be torn between their duty to China and Taiwan, an expert said A national security official yesterday warned of national security risks in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) plan to allow Chinese spouses to run for public office without renouncing their Chinese citizenship. The remarks came after KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) on Thursday said the government was depriving Chinese spouses of their rights, Chinese spouse Deng Wanhua (鄧萬華), who served as warden of Syuetian Village (學田) in Hualien County’s Fuli Township (富里), was removed from her post on Aug. 1 after she could not produce evidence that she had renounced her Chinese nationality. The Hualien County Government recently ruled in her favor
RSS