Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week.
To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday.
School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs, are also to perform, Chueh said.
Photo: CNA
Olympic medalists Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷), Lee Yang (李洋) and Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) would also make appearances and are scheduled to sing the national anthem, and fashion models are to do a catwalk show, she said.
An official ceremony in front of the Presidential Office Building is to be held on the morning of Thursday next week, where President William Lai (賴清德) is to deliver a speech, his first National Day address since taking office in May.
The ceremony, which begins at 9am, is to include performances by marching bands, cheerleading teams and acrobatic troupes, said Kuo Shu-jen (虢恕仁), a representative of the ceremony’s organizing team.
The singing of the national anthem would be led by three retired military personnel involved in the Battle of Guningtou over Kinmen County in 1949 and the teenage choir Nibun Chorus, Kuo said.
The Battle of Guningtou marked the failed attempt of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) troops to seize Kinmen and establish a foothold for further advances against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops that had relocated to Taiwan after losing to the CCP.
The celebrations would culminate in a 40-minute fireworks display at 8pm at Yunlin County’s Agriculture Expo Eco Park, Yunlin County Government official Su Chien-tsang (蘇建蒼) said.
Following the setting off of 30,000 fireworks, the event would be wrapped up by a drone show and a performance by singer Nana Lee (李千娜), Su said.
“The Republic of China [ROC] is like a dark and thin old man” who “has been locked up in a black hut for the past eight years,” said Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who also heads the official ceremony’s organizing team.
The metaphor of the shriveled up man reflects the KMT’s longstanding allegations that the Democratic Progressive Party government has deliberately downplayed the ROC’s symbols and flags at National Day celebrations.
The National Day ceremony in front of the Presidential Office Building is usually organized by a team headed by the legislative speaker. This year’s event would mark the first time in eight years that the organizing team is led by an opposition leader.
Han also called on the public to “firm up” their belief in the ROC and demonstrate their patriotism by “hanging flags of the Republic of China” on Thursday next week.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS