The first phase of a referendum on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) organized by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) will be completed a month ahead of schedule and with far more than the required number of signatures.
TSU officials told the Taipei Times yesterday they expected to be able to deliver nearly 200,000 signatures to the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee by the middle of this month, more than double the 86,000 signatures needed to pass the first review.
TSU Associate Director Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said the party’s projections were based on the overwhelming response it had received from non-profit organizations and grassroots movements.
In a show of support, the independence-leaning Neo Formosa Magazine delivered an additional 10,000 signatures to the TSU yesterday afternoon.
Among the signatures was that of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who according to his office secretary is a supporter of the referendum drive.
This was the second attempt at a referendum on the controversial trade pact.
A drive initiated by the DPP last year was rebuffed by the Referendum Review Committee despite having an initial review passed by the Central Election Commission.
The committee turned down the petition on the grounds that it was based on a hypothetical situation that did not meet the criteria of the Referendum Act (公投法).
TSU officials said yesterday that in light of government plans to sign the pact in June, these comments would no longer stand.
Chiang said that if the review committee once again rejected the proposal, pro-independence organizations and the TSU would have no choice but to band together and rally in support of the referendum, promising to send up to 1 million protesters onto the streets.
A DPP poll showed that 66.1 percent of the public supports holding a nationwide referendum before government agencies can sign the agreement.
The proposal by the TSU will ask voters to choose whether they agreed or disagree with the government signing any type of economic agreement with China, as exemplified by “President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) ECFA proposal.”
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he had asked the Mainland Affairs Council and Ministry of Economic Affairs to provide DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) with information concerning an ECFA by April 19, one week ahead of their scheduled debate on the topic on April 25.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
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
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. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS