Dozens of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) New Taipei City councilors yesterday clashed with police at city hall after they were stopped on the way to New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) office to discuss a controversial public housing complex.
The DPP city councilors demanded a meeting with Chu at his office on the 18th floor after their request for Chu’s presence at a city council meeting over issues regarding the complex in Fujhou (浮洲), in the Banciao District (板橋), was rejected by the city government.
Police in the lobby of the building blocked all of the entrances to upstairs offices when the first wave of clashes broke out, with New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Kao Chung-cheng (高宗正), who was there to tell the DPP city councilors led by Deputy Speaker Chu Wen-chih (陳文治), that Chu was not in the office.
Photo: Ho Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The police eventually yielded to the city councilors to end the melee after they shouted that Chu, also chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), made time to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing and attend to the KMT’s affairs, but not to sit down with city councilors and residents.
“Resign the KMT chairmanship. Take care of city residents instead of meeting with Xi Jinping,” they said.
The city councilors scuffled with security guards outside Chu’s office again before they were finally allowed to enter a reception room to wait for his return.
Buyers of the housing complex have filed complaints about the project after fissures and cracks were found in basement beams and on the walls of some of the apartment buildings after a magnitude 6.3 earthquake last month.
The housing project is also part of alleged scandals that DPP lawmakers said benefit its developer, Radium Life Tech Co (日勝生).
“Chu has shown no respect for the city council’s authority to challenge the city government,” DPP City Councilor Cheng Ching-lung (鄭金龍) said.
Jurisdiction over the project falls to the Construction and Planning Agency of the Executive Yuan. The New Taipei City Government was involved in the selection of Radium as the developer, and is responsible for overseeing construction and issuing licenses.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
An elderly man with underlying health conditions died in mid-January, eight days after the onset of symptoms, marking Taiwan’s first hantavirus death this year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The man, who was in his 70s and lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安), tested positive posthumously for hantavirus after passing away on Jan. 13 from sepsis complicated by multiple organ failure and pneumonia, the CDC said in a press release. According to the CDC, the man sought treatment on Jan. 6 for respiratory issues and low blood pressure before returning two
RSS