The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is mulling whether to pull out of a scheduled debate between party Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Sunday amid intensified controversy over allegations of influence peddling.
“We are still evaluating the situation before making a final decision,” DPP spokesperson Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said yesterday.
The debate, to be televised by the Public Television Service, will be about the cross-strait service trade pact signed in June.
There has been widespread public concern about the negative impact caused by a potential influx of Chinese investment and workers.
Several DPP members raised concerns about the necessity of the debate since Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), former minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) were accused of involvement in influence peddling by the Special Investigation Division on Friday. The allegations have created a political storm within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Hung Chih-kune (洪智坤), a member of the DPP’s Central Executive Committee, said the party should withdraw from the debate because Ma’s abuse of the state apparatus, in particular the judiciary, as a political tool and his ignorance of the nation’s democratic system have made the debate unnecessary.
The DPP should launch a non-cooperative movement by withdrawing from the debate, shutting down communication channels between the two parties, suspending administrative measures authorized by the central government in DPP-governed counties and cities, as well as beginning to work with civic groups on a civil disobedience movement, Huang said.
However, DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said the party should seize the opportunity to question Ma on the constitutional crisis that he has created and on democratic principles.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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