President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen said that while "someone" had spread a rumor that the DPP would lose in the legislative election, DPP supporters must unite and prove its opponents wrong.
"Let's wait and see whether he was hasty," Chen said.
Chen made the comments in Taichung City, where he visited temples and stumped for DPP district legislative candidates Tsai Ming-hsien (蔡明憲), Hsieh Ming-yuan (謝明源) and Ho Min-hao (何敏豪).
Meanwhile, Hsieh yesterday criticized Shen for asking him to consider resigning from the DPP over differences with Chen and former DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun on the direction the party should take.
Hsieh thanked Shen for his concern, but said he would not quit the party as he identifies with the DPP's ideals.
"I am one of the drafters of the DPP Charter and the party platform," Hsieh said. "I was also involved in the enactment of the party's two resolutions concerning the country's international status."
Hsieh said he was astonished to hear Shen argue that a party member should withdraw if he or she has opinions that are at odds with the party.
Shen said on Monday that Hsieh should consider leaving the party because his "not so green" views and the "deep green" path embraced by Chen and Yu were confusing to DPP supporters.
On Shen's call to dump Hsieh if the KMT wins 60 percent of the legislative seats in January, Hsieh said Taiwanese would be disgusted by such remarks.
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
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love