Independent Legislator Li Ao (
"Fools, do not apply for party membership because you are not welcome. We won't stop you if you want to join us, but you are fools," Li said at the inauguration.
Li defined "fools" as people who believe statements by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
"In public, the KMT likes to proclaim the continued existence of the Republic of China [ROC]. In private, its late leader Chiang Kai-shek [
Li also called the DPP cowardly, saying that although the DPP had been in power for seven years, it had not declared formal independence.
Applicants for the party must take an intelligence test composed of 10 questions, including: "Do you believe the Republic of China is a country?" "Do you believe in Taiwanese Independence?" and "Do you believe Taiwan can enter the UN under the name `Taiwan?'"
Li said that intelligent people would say no.
Li, who is an essayist-turned-independent lawmaker is known as a maverick. He will serve as chairman of the new party.
Last year Li discharged a canister of tear gas at a legislative meeting while holding an electric stun-baton and a respirator attached to a Guy Fawkes mask similar to the one used in the movie V for Vendetta as a protest.
Li said that his new party was more like a fan club than a political party.
Two Ministry of the Interior officials in charge of political party affairs were invited to the ceremony to show that the party registration was complete.
Li said that he would seek re-election in the Jan. 12 legislative 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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater