The 908 Taiwan Nation Movement, a local pro-independence group, announced yesterday that it will mobilize 3 million people to form a human chain around Taiwan on Feb. 28, 2008 to push for passage of a new "Taiwan Nation Constitution."
Wang Hsien-chi (王獻極), convener of the movement, told a news conference that last year's "1 million people human chain" activity helped President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) win re-election, but that it failed to realize the goal of enacting a new constitution for Taiwan and changing the nation's official title from the "Republic of China" to "Taiwan."
"We now plan to hold an even larger-scale activity to drum up support for our goal of writing a new constitution for Taiwan by mobilizing 3 million people to join hands to form a circle around Taiwan on Feb. 28, 2008 ahead of the next presidential election," Wang said, adding that the human chain activity will show the world the Taiwanese people's resolve to formulate a new constitution and establish a new "Taiwan Nation."
Following the end of the human chain activity, Wang said, his group will throw support behind the presidential candidate who explicitly backs its cause and promises to implement the new constitution if elected. The next presidential election is scheduled to be held in March 2008.
Wang said since two pro-unification Taiwan opposition heavyweights -- former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) -- made high-profile visits to China earlier this year, more Taiwanese people have leaned toward China.
Worse still, Wang said, the pro-China trend has become even more evident after charismatic Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) succeeded Lien as KMT chairman. Ma is widely seen as a shoo-in to win the 2008 presidential election.
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