Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
"[The DPP] is a governing party that fails to make progress. It is just exploiting a historical scar and doesn't dare face up to the corruption of its administration over the past seven years," Ma said in Lishan (
Ma was responding to criticism the DPP leveled at the KMT on Saturday at a Taipei event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the lifting of martial law.
At the event, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) compared the KMT to a "caretaker who harmed our people, raped our daughters and stole our property," adding that the public must not allow the "caretaker" to administer the country again.
Ma slammed Hsieh for his remarks, saying he "was surprised to hear Hsieh speak ill of others, because Hsieh is religious."
Ma also challenged Hsieh's idea of "reconciliation and coexistence," calling it "hollow words."
"The DPP is the governing party now. If it wants to attack the opposition, it should prove that the DPP can do better than the opposition instead of exploiting history," Ma said.
"The fact that the KMT was bad in the past doesn't prove the DPP is good now," Ma said.
"The KMT has stepped down [following the 2000 presidential election] and has reflected on its conduct during the martial law period," he said.
In response, Hsieh said yesterday while visiting Sanchong (
While speaking with 15 victims of political persecution during the martial law era, Hsieh showed them statistics over political persecution cases from the period.
The entire families of those individuals targeted for persecution also suffered, Hsieh said.
Hsieh said the victims should forgive their persectors but never forget.
"Those who forget history will be forgotten by history. Those who abandon history will be abandoned by history," Hsieh said.
"Those who have harmed others are in no position to ask their victims to forget."
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
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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