Fulfilling its earlier promise, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday took advantage of the Lunar New Year to call on former party members to come back to the fold.
"The KMT, with a grateful attitude and the utmost respect, would like to invite 18 new members to the presidium of the Central Advisory Council (CAC). In this new year, we hope to use your experiences to hold ourselves to the spirit of the cock that crows despite the dark and rainy night," said KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) yesterday while issuing invitations to senior pan-blue politicians.
In honor of Wednesday's Lunar New Year's day, the KMT held a tea gathering yesterday at its Taipei headquarters for Lien to officially meet with blue camp old guard members and invite them to become members of the presidium.
A focus of media attention yesterday was the inclusion of former KMT members Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), Lin Yang-kang (林洋港), Hsu Li-lung (許歷農) and Shao En-hsin (邵恩新) on the list of presidium candidates.
All four were former KMT heavyweights who are either now independents or New Party members.
"By welcoming Hau, Lin, Hsu and Shao back into the KMT's ranks, the KMT is fulfilling the decision made in our Jan. 19 Central Standing Committee meeting to invite `old comrades' to rejoin the KMT. This is only the first of such invitations," KMT Spokesman Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) said in a statement released Saturday night.
The KMT decided last month to begin inviting former party members back into the party as part of its efforts to consolidate the pan-blue camp. The party also decided last month to amend its party's regulations so that ex-members who had been expelled from the party or whose party membership had been revoked more than a year ago could immediately apply to re-join the party with no restrictions.
The amendment has been widely viewed as an appeal to members of the People First Party (PFP). The PFP and KMT were originally slated to merge after last December's legislative elections, but the two parties have remained split after disagreements in the runup to that election.
At yesterday's new year's meeting, Hau urged PFP Chairman James Soong (
"I won't give an opinion on Soong returning to the KMT," Hau said yesterday. "However, I still hope that he will come back, in the interest of unity."
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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