The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday pledged that its protest against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) upcoming trip to China will be peaceful.
"We will call on our supporters to be rational and stage the demonstration peacefully," said TSU lawmaker David Huang (黃適卓). "We'd also like to see the New Party reciprocate and ask its supporters to refrain from being provocative and deliberately inciting violence, or they will have to shoulder the political responsibility."
The TSU has called on its supporters to bring eggs to CKS International Airport to "see off" Lien on Tuesday, when he leaves the country for his eight-day trip.
In a bid to thwart the TSU's plan, the New Party has vowed to launch a counter-protest, saying that it does not rule out the possibility of mobilizing gravel trucks and bulldozers in its cause.
Although Huang said that he is not certain how many people will eventually turn up, his party has so far booked five 45-person buses and he believes that more than 1,000 people will participate.
In a bid to test Lien's political stance and his "psychological state" to see whether he is fit for making the trip, Huang posed eight questions, which he says he hopes Lien will answer openly.
"If he receives a failing grade, we'll be certain that he will jeopardize Taiwan's national interests and fall into the snare of China's unification schemes during his trip," he said.
Those questions are: Do you think the relationship between Taiwan and China is a domestic affair or an international one? What do you think of China's proposal that it will help us enter the World Health Assembly (WHA) as a "social group"? Who do you think has the final say on the future of Taiwan? Do you dare to ask Hu to push for China's democratization? Do you dare to express the concern of the international community over China's poor human rights record and suppression of religious freedom? What do you plan to say to Hu regarding its missiles targeted at Taiwan? How do you react to Hu's reiteration of the "one China" policy? What will you say to Hu about the "Anti-Secession" Law?
When asked to speculate on what score Lien would get on the test, Huang said that he suspects Lien would score zero out of a possible 100.
TSU Legislator Tseng Tsan-teng (曾燦燈) said that his party is most concerned about the transparency of Lien's talks with Chinese authorities during his visit.
"The public is still being kept in the dark about what issues he will discuss with Chinese authorities," he said. "It is not impossible that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) will promise Lien the position of head of the Taiwan special administrative region."
If that is the case, Tseng said that he is afraid that the pan-blue camp's "soft coup" attempted after last year's presidential election may eventually become a genuine one.
Tseng also expressed his apprehension over Lien's "swaying" political stance.
Tseng said that when Lien was running for the presidency last year, he sprawled on the ground and kissed it to signify his love for this land.
But after losing the election his attitude quickly changed as he leaned toward Beijing's "one China" principle.
"It is natural for us as well as the people of Taiwan to question his position on the nation's sovereignty," Tseng said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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