Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新) yesterday said he had applied and been granted permission to hold a rally on Ketagalan Boulevard on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13, ahead of the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 14.
Ketagalan Boulevard, in front of the Presidential Office, is a popular site for large campaign rallies. Both the pan-blue and the pan-green camps have been trying to get permission to use the boulevard, and there have been a number of minor physical and verbal confrontations between supporters of the -different camps when lining up to file their applications.
In addition to getting permissions for rallies on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13, the KMT has also obtained permission for rallies on Jan. 7 and Jan. 8, because the pan-blue camp sent at least eight people to line up for applications.
When reached for comment yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that the party was not bothered by not obtaining a permit to hold a rally on Ketagalan Boulevard on Jan. 13.
“We are only interested in securing final victory in the [Jan.14] elections,” he said.
DPP officials said the party plans to hold a large rally on Jan. 13, the route of which will run from Sijhih District (汐止) in New Taipei City (新北市) to Zhongxiao E Rd in downtown Taipei. Details of the event, as well as other large campaign rallies, are still in the planning stage, DPP said.
With just 30 days to go until the Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections, the DPP on Wednesday launched a nationwide campaign to ramp up appeal for the votes of women and other grassroots supporters.
The DPP, which is traditionally strong in many local communities has started street canvassing at 1,000 traditional markets around the country, with many of the party’s senior members participating in an effort to court undecided voters.
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said that the Ma camp also plans to hold a number of large campaign rallies around Taiwan during the last week before election day.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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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