With the petition to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) already submitted, activists from the Appendectomy Project have now turned their efforts to the two other campaigns to recall KMT legislators Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) and Lin Hong-chih (林鴻池).
With the deadline to submit the petitions on Friday, the project redoubled its efforts in the New Taipei City constituencies of Wu and Lin over the weekend.
In order to attain the required 13 percent threshold to launch a recall referendum, the project must garner the support of 37,469 signatories in Wu’s constituency of Tamsui/Sanjhi (淡水/三芝) districts, and 27,677 in Lin’s Banciao (板橋) constituency.
Photo: Courtesy of the Appendectomy Project
Project activists said more than 5,000 signatures were collected in Banciao on Saturday thanks to volunteers who canvassed several traditional marketplaces. However, the project has collected less than half of the required signatures to recall Lin.
It has had better luck with the petition to recall Wu, with nearly three-quarters of the required signatures gathered.
The petition to recall Tsai, which passed the required threshold last week, is now under review by the Central Election Commission, which has 40 days to verify the information provided by the petitioners. If it validates the petition, a recall referendum is likely to be held before the end of February.
The name Appendectomy Project was chosen because the term for pan-blue camp legislators in Mandarin Chinese, lan wei (藍委), is pronounced the same as the word for “appendix” (闌尾).
The project said it targeted the three KMT lawmakers because they adhered to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) instructions rather than the public’s wishes.
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
Hong Kong’s Andy Lau (劉德華) on Wednesday announced that he would perform in Taiwan for the first time since 2013, with four shows at the Taipei Arena from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3. The concerts are part of Lau’s upcoming “Today... is the Day” tour, which began in Shanghai yesterday. He is also to perform in Singapore and Malaysia as part of the tour. In a news release, Lau said it felt good to be able to rehearse his dancing and singing for the tour, even though he had to don a face mask. “Holding these concerts has been something I have
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
’PLAYING WITH FIRE’: Instead of escalating matters, the DPP should carefully navigate cross-strait affairs and place the welfare of Taiwanese first, the former president said The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should stop “playing with fire” and endangering the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution and Taiwan with its new “two-state theory,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Friday. Since the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was created on Oct. 1, 1949, both sides of the Strait have been in a state of “denial of [the validity of] mutual sovereignty, and not gainsaying mutual right of government,” Ma wrote on Facebook. Ma said he and his administration had always handled the issue carefully during his presidency, adding that they never allowed comments such as “the ROC and