Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday called on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) to step away from the campaign initiated by several civil groups to recall KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇).
Wu topped what the Constitution 133 Alliance, an alliance of civil groups, called a list of “bad” lawmakers to be recalled because of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration’s poor performance.
The DPP and TSU have encouraged their supporters to sign the petition to recall Wu.
KMT Policy Committee head Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) told a press conference that the party has no problem with civil groups launching a recall campaign, but the DPP and the TSU should not to get involved.
A lawmaker who is in a different political party with opposing points of view did not constitute a reason to be recalled, Lin Hung-chih said, adding that rather, it represented “degradation of the democracy.”
KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said the DPP and the TSU should refrain from partisan hostility, adding: “We could launch a campaign to recall DPP lawmakers, but that would trigger a vicious circle and instability in politics.”
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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