Several civic groups yesterday invited people of all ages to join a 50-day nationwide walkathon in an effort to send a message that referendums must be held on all cross-strait agreements and that the Referendum Act (公民投票法) be amended immediately.
The People’s Sovereignty Movement (人民作主運動), sponsored by the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association, Taiwan Labour Front, Green Formosa Front Association and the Union of Taiwanese Teachers, is scheduled to begin tomorrow in Taipei
Participants are expected to make a full circle of Taiwan on foot visiting all coastal counties.
“Ever since President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] entered office last year, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] has dominated the government and completely overlooked the people’s will. This ego-centric government has said it will sign an economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] with China regardless of concerns voiced by the public,” movement spokeswoman Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), told a press conference yesterday.
Cheng formerly served as National Youth Commission chairwoman under the Democratic Progressive Party administration.
Labor activist Sun Yu-lien (孫友聯) said although Taiwan’s democracy is highly respected in Asia, unfortunately its referendum system was nothing but a false pretense.
Heads of the civic organizations called on the government to “come clean” over its decision on US beef and its plan for an ECFA.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift