Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) yesterday accused Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) of “ruining the city's economy.”
At a press conference to launch her campaign office, Huang said Chen had failed to improve the city's economy because of her focus on “political ideology.”
PHOTO: CNA
“For example, when everyone in the city was gearing up for a boost in tourism, Chen invited the Dalai Lama to visit and aired a documentary about [Uighur dissident] Rebiya Kadeer in Kaohsiung,” Huang said.
Huang was referring to an invitation extended by seven Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mayors and county commissioners to the Tibetan spiritual leader after Typhoon Morakot devastated the southern part of the country in August last year, and the city government's decision to air The 10 Conditions of Love, a 53-minute documentary on Kadeer and her fight to improve human rights in Xinjiang in September.
Huang said Kaohsiung's unemployment rate had topped the list of cities and counties over the past decade, with the latest figures putting unemployment at 5.9 percent.
She said that passenger volume at Kaohsiung International Airport had also been in decline, which she said showed that the city was losing its allure rather than developing.
A number of senior KMT politicians, including Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chen Tien-mao (陳田錨), voiced their support for Huang at the press conference.
Wang said he hoped the party would overwhelm the DPP in the November election the same way it did during the 2008 legislative election in Kaohsiung County.
Meanwhile, Chen's campaign office highlighted the mayor's achievements in developing the cultural and film industry and attracting investors to the city.
Office deputy director Ting Yun-kong (丁允恭) said Chen had attracted businesses such as Sony and Shogakukan to invest in Kaohsiung.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai