Ma, Chen meet for 5 min this morning

The 11:00 am meeting involved a gift exchange, handshakes and photos. Chen Yunlin only addressed Ma politely and used no title whatsoever.

Despite the super quick and super sneaky meeting designed to avoid protests, the DPP is going ahead with today's seige plan at the Taipei Guest House, where Chen and Ma met. The DPP hoped to gather 100,000 people. Apparently there have been some injuries, as the crowd has charged the police at least once and has broken through the first line of police defense. More news as details come out later. Some pictures here and here.

Yesterday's news that the police would be stopping and searching buses coming up from the south appears to have been false (or canceled).

Last night protesters surrounded the hotel Chen was in and kept him effectively bottled up until after 2:00 am, when they finally started to trickle off were forced to leave and go home. Various video can be found here.

Chen also canceled his meeting with the NPSU this morning.