Television viewers last Saturday witnessed violence committed by pan-blue demonstrators, who insanely attacked police officers maintaining order on Ketagalan Boulevard with slingshots and sticks and threw Molotov cocktails, fire extinguishers and rocks. Journalists documenting the event also fell victim to the crowd's brutality. Our law does not tolerate such barbarism. We urge judicial authorities to speed up their investigation so that the outlaws who commit-ted crimes that night can be put behind bars.
According to police accounts, dozens of citizens and law enforcement officers were injured that day, including a dozen photographers and reporters, some of them women. These brutal beatings startled television audiences. By yesterday, Taipei police had gathered concrete evidence showing that at least two protesters who encouraged other demonstrators to attack the police and journalists belong to organized crime groups.
In this light, we can see that some gangs had been waiting for an opportune moment to take action in order to benefit from the political turmoil. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (
In retrospect, the disorder in the wake of the presidential election can be traced back to the Taiwanese media. News organizations did not act according to professional ethics, but instead reported inflated opinion polls conducted with specific political motives. On election day, in their competition for ratings, many TV news programs reported fraudulent vote figures showing that the pan-blue camp led by a large margin. The reported results were completely inconsistent with those reported by the Central Election Commission (
In addition, KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Taiwan upholds not only democracy but also the rule of law. Election conflicts among different parties are not something new for us, but have been occurring ever since the implementation of local autonomy. Therefore, if Lien and Soong are not satisfied with the election results, they should seek a solution through the judicial system. That's what opposition leaders should do, rather than repeating untrue accusations. Nor should they attempt to force President Chen Shui-bian's (
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to