Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) hari ini Selasa (18/3) akan melanjutkan rangkaian kampanye partainya di wilayah Jawa Tengah dan Jawa Timur. Setelah kemarin berkampanye di Bantul, SBY dan rombongan jurkamnas akan berkampanye di Tulungagung.

Tadi malam, SBY dan rombongan telah menginap di Hotel Merdeka Kota Madiun, Jawa Timur. SBY juga telah mengajukan cuti untuk berkampanye dalam kapasitasnya sebagai Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat di sejumlah wilayah di Jawa Tengah dan Jawa Timur.

SBY dan rombongan menuju ke Tulungagung melalui Ponorogo. Di Ponorogo, SBY juga telah dijadwalkan akan mengunjungi sejumlah titik, namun agenda tersebut masih dapat berubah.

Seperti yang telah diketahui, Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono juga telah memberitahukan cuti untuk mengikuti kampanye selama dua hari, pada tanggal 17-18 Maret.

Izin cuti tersebut juga telah disampaikan ke KPU RI dengan mengirimkan surat dari Sekretariat Negara Nomor B.233/M.Sesneg/D-2/KN.00.02/03/2014, dengan tembusan kepada Presiden RI, Wapres RI Boediono, dan Badan Pengawas Pemilu.

Cuti Presiden tersebut dimaksudkan untuk pelaksanaan kampanye Partai Demokrat di daerah pemilihan Jawa Tengah VI dan Jawa Timur VI. Di antaranya di Magelang dan Yogyakarta, serta di Tulungagung dan Blitar.

Adapun, pelaksanaan kampanye rapat umum terbuka untuk Pemilu Anggota DPR, DPD, dan DPRD dilakukan selama 21 hari, mulai tanggal 16 Maret hingga 5 April mendatang.

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.