Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors yesterday lashed out at the Taipei City Government for spending more than NT$1.3 billion (US$440,000) to promote the Taipei International Flora Expo sites after the end of the event in 2011, urging the city government to stop trying to revive the venues via irrelevant activities such as singing contests.
The city government has turned the main venue of the six-month exposition near the Yuanshan MRT Station into Flora Expo Park, allocated a budget of about NT$500 million to establish the Exhibition Foundation for the management of expo sites and listed a four-year budget of NT$1.3 billion to keep the sites from being abandoned because Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) promised to maintain the popularity of the venues.
The foundation spent the money on various exhibitions and activities to attract visitors to the venue.
This year, the city government listed a budget of NT$5.5 million to hold a singing competition with the aim of making the park a venue for pop music activities.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤) said the singing competition, which is called “Flora Expo Star Boulevard,” would be a karaoke activity, which deviated from the city government’s initial plan to turn the site into an exhibition venue for art and cultural events.
“The Flora Expo Park has become a heavy burden for the city government because it is unable to maintain the venue’s popularity. Holding irrelevant activities, such a talent show or singing contest, and spending big money on these activities are not good ways to maintain the venue,” she said.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-jie (梁文傑) questioned the usefulness of the foundation, which delegated most of the activities to public relations agencies, and urged the city government to focus on a long-term plan for the venue.
Exhibition Foundation deputy director Chen Wen-shou (陳文鑠) yesterday said that the Flora Expo Park had attracted 3.6 million visitors last year and that the singing contest, which is to be held from March to July, is one of many activities that aim to make the park a recreational site for local residents.
The six-month expo, which ran from November 2010 to April 2011, was one of the largest international events organized by the city government.
The city government had promised to use the expo sites and exhibition halls for performances or for floral exhibitions once the event ended.
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
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods