Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) yesterday finished the first day of his hunger strike in front of the legislature after receiving no response from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to three demands he made on Sunday.
The 70-year-old Hsu said he would not back down until Ma concedes.
After beginning a sit-in on Sunday afternoon, Hsu gave Ma 24 hours to respond affirmatively on three issues — freezing fuel and electricity prices, retaining the ban on beef imports containing residues of the feed-additive ractopamine and giving a presidential pardon to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Hsu vowed to stage an indefinite hunger strike if Ma failed to give “positive responses.”
Presidential spokesperson Fang Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said on Sunday night that Ma “had already made necessary adjustments to his policies” and urged Hsu to take care of his health.
Yesterday afternoon, Hsu said he still hoped Ma would agree to all three demands, adding that he would find it acceptable “if Ma offered concessions and agreed to negotiate the three issues with the DPP.”
On the issue of a presidential pardon, Hsu said it was an exclusive constitutional right of the president and a “higher power” than the judiciary.
“There is no such thing as interference with the judiciary, because it [a presidential pardon] is made out of political deliberation rather than legal consideration, with the president making his own judgement on the basis of the national interest,” Hsu said.
Hsu is one of five candidates for this weekend’s Democratic Progressive Party chairmanship election.
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
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS