A pan-green supporter yesterday failed in an attempt to throw a chicken at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during Ma’s visit to Greater Tainan to attend a forum with local Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Tainan City branch director Chen Chang-hui (陳昌輝) protested against Ma’s visit outside the building of the KMT’s Tainan branch, and tried to throw a live chicken at Ma when he arrived.
His attempt failed after security guards blocked him 20m from the president and seized the chicken.
Photo: Lin Meng-ting, Taipei Times
Shouting “Step down, Ma Ying-jeou,” Chen said the protest was aimed at highlighting the Ma administration’s poor handling of anti-avian flu efforts following the nation’s first case of H7N9 avian influenza last week.
Ma, who also serves as KMT chairman, kept to his schedule and met with party members to discuss government policies, including the pension reform efforts and the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮).
The president said that the Labor Pension Fund and the pension fund for retired military personnel, teachers and civil servants are set to become bankrupt in 2019 and 2031 respectively, if the government did not begin pension reform now.
“I cannot leave this issue unsolved because the bankruptcy of the funds won’t happen during my term. I must plan for the next generations,” he said.
As to the controversies about the construction of the nuclear plant, Ma said issues such as electricity fees and electricity restrictions should be considered when determining whether to continue the construction of the plant.
The government has proposed a national referendum to determine the future of the plant. The proposed referendum cleared a vote in the legislature last week, paving the way for the plebiscite proposal to be passed in June.
If the proposal passes a second and third reading, a referendum would be held no sooner than one month and no later than six months later, without being subject to a screening by the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a