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Taipei Mayor Hau to talk pandas with ARATS chairman

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday he would meet with Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) next week to discuss the gift of two pandas to Taipei City.

Hau refused to confirm the date of the meeting when asked whether he would accompany former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) on a visit to the ARATS leader.

The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that Lien would meet Chen on Thursday during a ceremony to formally announce that Beijing will send the two giant pandas it had promised to the Taipei City Zoo.

Lien would represent Taiwan in accepting the two pandas, the paper said.

The zoo would give Beijing Formosan sika deer and Formosan serow in return, the newspaper said.

Hau said the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and ARATS were arranging the meeting and Chen might visit the zoo.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors condemned Hau for pandering to China and Chen, and helping the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by refusing to grant rally permits to the DPP in front of the Grand Hotel on Thursday and Friday.

Taipei City Police Department Commissioner Hung Sheng-kung (洪勝坤) said the department refused the DPP a rally permit to prevent clashes.

DPP Taipei City Councilor Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that he would lead more than 100 supporters to protest against Chen by hiking to the rear of the hotel to light firecrackers as a protest.
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