New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) will run for re-election in the mayoral election in November because he has no other option, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) — who is also the party’s candidate in the election — told a press conference yesterday.
“I would say [the possibility of Chu running for re-election is] 100 percent. It’s my assessment though — you don’t have to believe me, but time will tell,” Lin said, adding that he had full confidence that he could beat Chu by more than 100,000 votes in the election.
Chu has yet to declare whether he would be running for re-election, fueling speculation that he might decide against doing so and focus on vying for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) nomination for the presidential race in 2016.
Photo: Lai Hsiao-tung, Taipei Times
Lin also accused Chu of hushing up his share in a company owned by his father-in-law, Kao Yu-jen (高育仁), worth approximately NT$2 million, on his civil servant’s property declaration in 2010 when he served as vice premier.
Citing information in the annual report of Tai Tung Communication Co, Lin said Chu held 1.05 percent of the company’s shares.
The company, which the Kao family invested in in 2000, had won 160 government bids over the past 14 years, including 47 bids between 2000 and 2001, when Chu was a legislator, on 56 tenders — a 83 percent winning rate, Lin added.
“Chu should offer an explanation, as this is a potential corruption case that involves his integrity,” Lin said.
Chien Sheng-che (簡聖哲), a TSU candidate in the Taipei City council elections, said Chu could have violated the Act on Recusal of Public Servants Due to Conflicts of Interest (公務人員利益衝突迴避法), which prohibits public servants or their families from securing government bids.
According to Chien, Chu had declared the 7.89 percent shareholding of his wife, Kao Wan-chien (高婉倩), in his report in 2010, but left out his own investment in the report.
In response, Chu said yesterday morning before the TSU press conference that the allegation was groundless and was only a campaign activity to boost Lin’s profile.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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