Amid public anger over the disqualification of Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) at the Asian Games in China, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said it will voice its support for Yang in tomorrow’s rally in Taipei City, which is aimed at boosting support for Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) re-election bid ahead of the Nov. 27 elections.
The KMT’s announcement yesterday attracted criticism from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who -accused the KMT of exploiting the incident.
“The KMT has not done much to defend our athletes in the past and it should not make use of them now for their own gains,” Su said.
The KMT has been indecisive about the theme of tomorrow’s march. It had originally planned to hold the event along the lines of a traditional political rally to consolidate pan-blue support for Hau. However, the sizable number of swing voters has prompted the party to play down the political implications and it changed the rally to what is described as “a carnival-like march.”
The party had added anti-corruption and judicial reform as motifs for the event following the Nov. 5 acquittal of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in a corruption case, but later dropped the politically charged theme after Chen was sentenced to 11 yeas in another corruption case.
KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) yesterday dismissed Su’s allegation over the political motive behind the latest theme of its rally and said the DPP should refrain from exploiting the issue.
“The theme of the rally has never changed. All the things that Taipei residents support can be included in the march and we believe that Taipei residents will join us to defend Yang’s rights,” King said when announcing the latest motif of the march at a press conference.
Hau, dressed up as a pilot and standing in front of a model plane, said the incident reaffirmed the city government’s determination to apply for the hosting rights of the next Asian Games to create a fair environment for local athletes.
“Sunday’s march is being organized to make Taipei more open and internationalized and we welcome all residents, whether they are pro-blue or pro-green, to join us and walk for the city’s future,” he said.
Titled “A Walk for Taipei — Taipei Flies High,” the march will begin at Taipei City Hall at 2:30pm tomorrow and end at the East (Jingfu) Gate (景福門) in front of the Presidential Office on Ketagalan Boulevard, where a campaign party will be held from 6pm.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
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