Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jyh-wey (謝志偉), who is in Washington as part of a personal trip to campaign and raise funds for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was confronted yesterday by members of the 319 Truth Investigation Alliance in Washington during a press conference.
Shieh is in the US after he was invited by Taiwanese expatriate supporters of the DPP to deliver speeches in five US cities. His first stop was Washington.
As soon as the conference began, alliance members Chang Wei-ping (張維平), Liu Li-tai (劉蒞台) Hsieh Chi-yu (謝啟宇) and others entered the conference venue, a McDonald's across the street from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Washington.
They then took turns blocking the conference by holding up placards, disregarding reporters' protests.
Chang, who works at Freddie Mac, a mortgage banker, also walked up behind Shieh and started calling Shieh names, even managing to land a blow on his back during the talk.
The spokesman for the conference urged the demonstrators to express their opinions later, but Chang and others then threw their placards at Shieh and got into a physical confrontation with him as he was leaving the conference.
Shieh urged the protesters not to launch physical attacks against him while McDonald's staff called the police.
However, the protesters had fled the scene by the time two police cars arrived.
Tsai Chung-li (蔡仲禮), director-general of the information division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, said the office chose to hold the conference at McDonald's in a bid to maintain administrative impartiality because Shieh was on a personal trip to the US.
Tsai expressed regret over the incident and apologized to Shieh.
When asked for comment, Shieh said such a demonstration was part of the fruitful democratic achievement owing to the sacrifice of Taiwan's democracy pioneers.
If the protest had taken place in the authoritarian era, these people would have been blacklisted and banned from returning to Taiwan, he said.
Shieh said he could accept the demonstration, but questioned whether the demonstrators had ever conducted a retrospection on the past wrongdoings of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its