Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday she would push the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration during its first Cabinet meeting tomorrow to immediately resolve a dispute that has hindered the city government's plans to build a landmark at two Kaohsiung Harbor piers.
Chen, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, told reporters at city hall that she would participate in the Cabinet meeting to deliberate the land controversy surrounding the construction of a pop music center at Kaohsiung Harbor’s piers 16 and 17.
She said the land acquisition should top the priority of the new Cabinet, adding that the new administration should meet the expectations of Kaohsiung residents without delay.
Chen has expressed the city government’s eagerness to settle the location controversy as the city would be forced to abort the project should it fail to obtain the piers from the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau by the end of next month, as requested by the Council for Cultural Affairs.
Although the location of the pop music center was agreed on in June last year, the bureau, which falls under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, has yet to hand over the land to the city government.
The city government received NT$4 billion (US$121 million) from the council to build the center, but a dispute between local maritime industry associations, the bureau and the city over the location of the music center has hindered the project.
The city government initially favored Pier 10 for the center, but it later changed the location to piers 16 and 17 in response to opposition from the bureau and other associations.
However, the maritime groups and labor unions remain opposed to the plan, arguing they did not understand why the Cabinet would give up two piers that are still in use.
Chen said yesterday that the project should proceed despite the change in government.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift