Members of the opposition Democratic Progressing Party (DPP) filed lawsuits against Taipei police yesterday for physical assault, a day after clashes broke out between party protesters and police.

Blind Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng said on Saturday he has left a hospital in Beijing, where he has been for the past three weeks since he sought refuge in the U.S. embassy, and was waiting at the airport.

One suspects that Jerome A. Cohen, an 81-year-old jurisprudence scholar on the faculty of the New York University School of Law, was trying to be polite when he said earlier this week that President Ma Ying-jeou, a former student of his, “has the toughest job in Taiwan” because “the country has an extremely divided society as well as an intelligent but critical electorate.”

The Supreme Prosecutors Office (最高法院檢察署) yesterday indicted former President Chen Shui-bian for misappropriating confidential state documents. Chen is currently serving a reduced life sentence for graft at Taipei Prison.

A senior ruling party representative of Taiwan said yesterday that the government is using President Ma Ying-jeou's “one country, two areas” concept in its efforts to improve cross-Taiwan Strait relations.

Representatives from six industry and commerce associations plan to visit Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) and hope to meet the president to voice out their disagreement about the stock gains tax.

The increasingly unpopular President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday summed up four major failures over his past four years in office, as thousands of people took to the streets in Taipei protesting some of the government's recent controversial moves.

President Ma Ying-jeou was sworn in to the 13th presidential term of the Republic of China yesterday morning, calling his inauguration a milestone on Taiwan's journey to becoming a mature democracy.

President Ma Ying-jeou's apology to the people is not enough, said former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen at a mass protest, one day ahead of Ma's second inauguration.

Opposition legislators yesterday panned President Ma Ying-jeou's “one Republic of China, two areas” statement in his inaugural address.