Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (
Lin, who founded a group to oppose the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and sought the downsizing of the Legislative Yuan, said he is glad that the KMT and DPP could work together to pass constitutional revisions that include halving the number of seats in the legislature and changing the electoral system.
For his part, Lien said it was the KMT's responsibility as a major opposition party to see to it that bills on legislative reforms be passed and promulgated.
Lien said he began some 20 years ago to push for a "single seat, two votes" legislative election system, and stressed that the idea is by no means a new one.
Reducing the number of legislative seats was also agreed upon by almost all of the nation's major parties, Lien said.
Lin, a former political prisoner under the KMT who has participated in a number of hunger strikes to champion his ideals, gave Lien a book written by his daughter, Judy Linton (
The killings came shortly after Lin smuggled a letter out of prison that detailed his mistreatment by his captors after the Kaohsiung Incident.
Linton is now a mother of three and a musician living in the US.
Lien also said that all politicians should do a great deal of soul-searching.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is