Pro-independence organizations said yesterday they would hold an anti-government demonstration in Kaohsiung on May 17 to complement a rally planned by the DPP in Taipei.
The groups said they would demonstrate on May 17 in protest of the government’s China policies.
At a joint press conference, the groups said it would be difficult to rent enough buses to send people in central and southern Taiwan who wanted to demonstrate to the rally in Taipei. For this reason, they would organize a rally in Kaohsiung on the same day.
Former presidential adviser Koo Kuang-min (辜寬敏) said the DPP and pro-independence groups could find only 1,000 buses to take people to Taipei, whereas if a rally were held in Kaohsiung, it would likely attract more than 100,000.
Koo said those who would like to demonstrate but live in Taichung or north of Taichung could go to Taipei, while those who live south of Taichung could go to the Kaohsiung rally.
World United Formosans for Independence chairman Ng Chiau-tong (黃昭堂) said the proposed rally in Kaohsiung was not intended as a boycott of the DPP, but was meant to complement the rally.
On whether the Kaohsiung demonstration could detract from the rally in Taipei, DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said the protest in the capital was the main event.
The party would ask its supporters to join the Taipei rally, he said, and did not anticipate any problems.
“The DPP has held many rallies over the last 20 years and it hasn’t been difficult for people from around the country to gather in Taipei,” he said.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400