Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ma still playing the blame game

Taipei Times Editorial

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is looking more and more like a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) version of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ma constantly criticized Chen for his feeble governing and for blaming every problem on 50 years of corrupt KMT rule. Now, when the Ma administration is critical of issues like the environmental assessment of the Central Taiwan Science Park and the dilapidated state of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, it resorts to blaming the Chen administration. How does this make Ma any different from Chen?

ECFA overlooks human rights: watchdog group

Taipei Times

A watchdog organization yesterday accused the government of overlooking human rights and environmental issues while developing closer economic ties with China.

“At the very beginning of a trade agreement signed between the EU and South Korea, it was mentioned that the environment and human rights should be fully respected in trade relations,” Tseng Chao-ming (曾昭明), a member of Cross-Strait Agreement Watch and secretary-general of Corporate Social Responsibility Taiwan, told the forum. “Unfortunately, such issues are not mentioned at all in the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) the government signed with China in June.”

TSU vows to go on after poll is rejected

Taipei Times

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday vowed to continue to push for a referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) after the Referendum Review Committee — for the second time — killed its proposal to let the public have a say on the recently signed cross-strait pact.

The committee yesterday rejected the TSU’s proposal in a 10 to two vote, saying the party failed to present a convincing argument.

KMT 'reconstruction' is ruining Taiwan's land

Taiwan News Editorial

On the eve of the first anniversary of the "August Eight Flood Disaster" triggered by Typhoon Morakot, over a thousand indigenous people from disaster areas in southern Taiwan held a dramatic "sleep-in" protest on Taipei's Ketagalan Boulevard to protest the drive of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government to force them to leave their home villages and divide their communities.

After massive floods and landslides swept away over 700 lives, a public outcry over the manifest failure of the KMT government in carrying out the essential tasks of disaster rescue and relief with speed and effectiveness led to the resignation of ex-premier Liu Chao-hsuan and a precipitous plunge in the satisfaction ratings of Ma's approval ratings from which the president has yet to recover.

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