The Formosa Alliance (喜樂島聯盟) yesterday in Taichung held the first meeting of its full organization, calling on its supporters to demand a referendum on formally declaring independence on April 6 next year.
Formosa TV chairman Kuo Pei-hung (郭倍宏) said the group plans to first push the legislature to amend the Referendum Act (公民投票法) before Aug. 31, then hold an independence referendum next year.
The referendum would hopefully help Taiwan achieve its goals of becoming a “normalized” nation and gaining international recognition, Kuo said, adding: “We want to become a normalized country.”
Kuo’s plan acknowledged that the referendum would not be allowed under current law, as the act does not allow questions on constitutional matters.
The target date was chosen to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), a Taiwan independence and democracy advocate who self-immolated on April 7, 1989, in defense of “100 percent freedom of expression,” Kuo said.
More than 5,000 supporters attended the event, including former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), former premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) and New Power Party Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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