KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
On Thursday, after the PFP mediator for party cooperation quit, Soong said he would meet with Lien to make a last-ditch effort to try to save shaky KMT-PFP plans to cooperate in the year-end elections.
Lien said through an aide that he and Soong have met frequently -- once every couple of weeks -- since the opposition alliance was formed.
"He is willing to meet [with James Soong] any time that is appropriate," the aide said. The KMT chairman failed to respond to numerous questions from reporters.
KMT spokesman Wang Chih-kang (
Originally, the KMT and PFP proposed jointly supporting a single joint candidate in the commissioner's races in six counties. So far, they've failed to agree on a single joint candidate.
Politicians at the local level, especially those from the KMT, object to the arrangement because it denies them the chance to run for public office.
With no PFP candidate winning KMT backing, PFP officials have publicly blamed the KMT for not working hard enough to coordinate with them.
Both parties nominated their own candidates for Taitung and Taipei Counties, and the KMT is ready to nominate its own candidate in Kaohsiung County, too.
PFP lawmaker Chung Shao-ho (
However, another KMT aspirant, Wu Kuang-hsun (吳光訓), insists on being a candidate in the race.
Highlighting the confusion, Chao Shou-po (
Chao said in the name of cooperation, the KMT plans to nominate Huang for Kaohsiung County commissioner, while asking the PFP's Chung to serve as his deputy.
If that plan fails to materialize, Chao says the KMT will nominate Wu and have Huang serve as deputy.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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