In order to prepare for National Double Ten Day celebrations, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The boulevard is expected to be occupied with protesters taking part in an anti-President-Chen-Shui-bian (
"It has nothing to do with blue or green [camps]. Because we need to start working on the celebration ceremony, construction would be delayed if the protesters are still there," said Wang, who is head of the ceremony preparation team.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Lee Shu-chuan (
Lee said the department had granted the Shih camp's permission to use the boulevard until Sept. 27, while the police gave it parade permission until Sept. 20.
However, Lin said officials agreed yesterday to expand the demonstration area from the Ketagalan Boulevard to Renai Road and Xinyi Road on Saturday and Sunday, as the protest organizers plan to form a compass image -- inspired by the Nazca Lines in Peru -- in the area.
Lee said the organizers applied for the extension yesterday and it was granted, but only for the weekend.
"We also consulted with the police and traffic departments, and they will map out traffic rules during the weekend," he said.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (
"We don't have to be so nervous about the distant future," he said.
Shih noted that as others have obtained permission to use Ketagalan Boulevard on Sept. 16, he may lead his supporters on a "candlelight march through Taipei" the night of Sept. 15. He refused to say, however, where the candlelight march would go.
Meanwhile, Ma dismissed media allegations that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would be a "loyal opposition party" from now on and that he would not try to topple the Cabinet. The KMT chairman said he never made such remarks.
According to a China Times story yesterday, Ma was planning to announce on Saturday that the KMT would be a "loyal opposition party" until 2008 by refraining from trying to topple the Cabinet or seek to form a new Cabinet.
Ma would also not try to oust Chen or the Cabinet through street demonstrations because such protests are "outside of governmental system," the paper said.
"The KMT has never ruled out the possibility of toppling the Cabinet ? I don't know where such information comes from," Ma said.
He said the China Times had not sought confirmation of its story from him.
As the right to assembly and parade is protected by law, Ma said street demonstrations could not be seen an "outside the government" measures.
He also said he would not exclude any possibility in ousting the president.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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