The government's new measures concerning cross-strait exchanges will take into consideration China's recent enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law, the vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Johnnason Liu (
The KMT legislative caucus invited officials from the MAC and the Council of Agriculture to report on the future course of cross-strait relations after hundreds of thousands of Taiwan people staged a march Saturday to protest against Beijing's newly-passed law.
KMT Legislator Su Chi (
Su asked what the government will do in addition to staging the March 26 protest. In response, Liu said, the government will not restrict cross-strait exchanges that are conducive to lowering tensions.
Noting that the private sector hopes to resume cross-strait talks and that the MAC said last month that cross-strait talks can be based on the bilateral discussions in Hong Kong in 1992, Su also asked about Beijing's response.
Liu also said that the government wants to forge a national consensus on a resumption of cross-strait dialogue.
Another KMT legislator, Kuo Su-chun (
In addition to exempting Taiwanese agricultural products from a 17 percent value-added tax, Guangzhou will also facilitate customs clearance, Kuo said, adding that the government should support the participation of Taiwanese agricultural products in the fair.
Chen Chieh (
Council Vice Chairman Lee Chien-chuan (
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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