The majority of respondents to a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-run opinion poll hoped for a prosperous year this year as well as wishing that construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant would be suspended and the cross-strait service trade agreement renegotiated.
“The survey found that almost all of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) major policies have gone against mainstream public opinion. Hopefully, that will change in 2014,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) told a news conference yesterday.
On the controversial nuclear plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), 64.3 percent of respondents supported an immediate halt to construction, while more than half of those who identified themselves pan-blue camp supporters opposed continuing building the plant.
The same phenomenon was observed in the question about the service trade pact, with 61.4 percent of respondents — including more than half of the pan-green and pan-blue supporters — saying the agreement should be renegotiated, Lin said.
The strong opposition to Ma’s policies is perhaps why 70.8 percent of respondents called for a Cabinet reshuffle, of which 42.8 percent said they wanted to see a large-scale change, he said.
Asked what their wishes are for the new year, respondents’ top three picks were a safe and prosperous year, a better economy and an increase in wages.
In an opinion piece published by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) listed the party’s three wishes for the new year: a prosperous economy and stable commodity prices, the suspension of the fourth nuclear plant and the renegotiation of the service trade pact.
He also promised that the party would be “public’s guardian angel” this year.
In related news, former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Thinking Taiwan Foundation has launched an online campaign for people to announce their new year’s wishes over the Internet.
Nine options are given and users can select their top three wishes and either forward them to friends and families by e-mail or share them on social Web sites such as Facebook.
All nine options revolve around current social issues, including a nuclear-free homeland, improved food safety, better protection for stray animals and lower housing prices.
“The campaign is part of an effort in support of an end to heavily commercialized year-end countdown parties with fireworks displays that waste taxpayers money,” project leader Cheryl Lai (賴秀如) said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods