Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), arrived in Los Angeles Friday to attend celebrations for the party's 18th anniversary and drum up support for the party's candidates for the year-end legislative elections.
Speaking at a news conference at the DPP's US West Coast chapter office in Rosemead on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Chang said he will take advantage of his current U.S. tour to campaign for the DPP candidates for expatriate legislative seats.
Chang said all DPP legislative candidates and party workers are making concerted efforts to win voter support ahead of the Dec. 11 legislative elections.
"Our top goal is to win more than half of the seats in the new Legislative Yuan to facilitate the DPP's political reform programs," Chang said.
Noting that the legislature has long been controlled by the opposition "pan-blue alliance" of the Chinese Nationalist Pary and its ally, the People First Party, Chang said the DPP administration has been unable to put many of its policy initiatives into practice since it came to power in 2000.
Chang said the DPP is determined to closely cooperate with its ally -- the Taiwan Solidarity Union -- in the year-end elections with the ultimate goal of winning a majority in the new legislature.
A total of 225 seats will be up for grabs, with 168 regional seats, eight seats each for aboriginal and expatriate communities, and 41 at-large seats.
Following his Los Angeles visit, Chang will travel to Houston, Texas to attend celebrations for the party's anniversary.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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