Jailed former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday lashed out at Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) over his allegations that former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) were “accomplices” in Chen’s “corrupt administration.”
Chen said in the pro--democracy online magazine Neo Formosa Weekly that while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) enjoyed talking about fighting corruption, the party that he heads, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was the most corrupt political establishment in history.
Corruption was the reason dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan, Chen said. Corruption was also attributed to the KMT’s defeat by the DPP in the 2000 presidential election, he said.
Questioning Ma’s connection with Taipei’s problem-plagued Wenshan-Neihu MRT line, Chen said Ma was an accomplice to Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration. Had the same thing happened to him when he was Taipei mayor, Chen said he would have been investigated — but Ma has remained above the law.
Ma is also a willing participant in a campaign to “annihilate” the Republic of China (ROC), Chen said. While the DPP has no great love for the national flag of the ROC, his administration insisted that the flag be flown if China wanted Taiwan to participate in the Olympic torch relay prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he said.
However, under Ma’s presidency, ROC flags were nowhere to be seen when Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited Taiwan in November 2008 and students recently were told not to wave the national flag when cheering for local basketball teams, Chen said.
“The administration’s talk about protecting the ROC is nothing but an election gimmick aimed at swindling voters,” he said.
It would also be appropriate to say that Ma was also an accomplice to dictators such as Chiang, his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Chen said.
Ma’s reluctance to address the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre and to approve the visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama were evidence of this, Chen said. Ma’s administration has also blacklisted World Uyghur Congress leader Rebiya Kadeer and failed to call for the release of Chinese rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) until other world leaders made such calls, Chen said.
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
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
Taiwan’s three major international carriers are increasing booking fees, with EVA Airways having already increased the charge to US$28 per flight segment from US$25, while China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines are set to follow suit. Booking fees are charged by airlines through a global distribution system (GDS) and passed on to passengers. Carriers that apply the fees include CAL, EVA, Starlux and Tigerair Taiwan. A GDS is a computerized network operated by a company that connects airlines with travel agents and ticketing platforms, allowing reservations to be made and processed in real time. Major players include Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. EVA Air began
RSS