President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was heckled in Taichung City yesterday when protesters expressed concern over the city’s proposed mass rapid transit system (MRT), which they said might end up with similar problems as the Muzha-Neihu Line in Taipei City if the capital city’s construction team were to handle the project.
Ma was heckled while addressing the audience at a ground-breaking ceremony for Taichung City’s MRT system.
Shouting “Ma Ying-jeou, shameless” and “Ma Ying-jeou, don’t come here,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taichung City councilors interrupted Ma’s speech soon after it began.
PHOTO: CNA
Ma, who ignored the hecklers, continued his speech, as city government officials and organizers tried to contain the noise, while Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) and Deputy Mayor Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家旗) looked embarrassed.
Seeking to make himself heard over the protesters, Ma raised his voice and said “let’s hope our DPP friends stop making so much noise for the sake of the future of the greater Taichung area.”
Protesters and city officials then engaged in a wrestling match, with officials trying to seize the protesters’ banners.
Protesters shouted: “Why are you pushing us? Is this the way you treat your guests?”
Protesters said they were worried that Taichung’s MRT system would have the same problems as the capital city’s Muzha-Neihu Line if the team responsible was brought in to build the new system in Taichung.
The Neihu-Muzha Line has experienced a series of malfunctions and system breakdowns since it began services on July 4. DPP Taipei City councilors have condemned the city government for doing a poor job of integrating the Neihu Line’s Bombardier system with the Muzha line’s Matra system. The constant problems led the city to consider returning the Muzha Line to the Matra system and suspending the Neihu Line for inspections.
Operations on the line have improved substantially since the Deaflympics began early last month. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) has said the city government will work with Bombardier to bring system stability to 99 percent by the end of next month.
Hau has apologized to the public over the system’s instability and formed an emergency response team to handle the crisis.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS