The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday demanded that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) “reveal her stance” on the abolition of the death penalty, which is supported by candidates of the New Power Party (NPP), which the DPP endorses.
KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏), KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) and KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) criticized NPP legislative candidate Freddy Lim (林昶佐) over his burning of a Republic of China flag, and calls for the legalization of marijuana and the abolition of capital punishment.
The KMT officials asked whether Tsai endorses Lim’s actions and beliefs.
“NPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Lim and Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), the party’s district legislative candidates, are all for the abolition of capital punishment. Chairperson Tsai, do you support their stance?” Wang Hong-wei asked. “It is a question that should not be shunned.”
“There have been small, innocent children murdered in Taipei. Do we still want the death penalty to be abolished?” Alicia Wang asked.
“Seeing lives being taken and society plunged into fear by people like Cheng Chieh (鄭捷), do we still want to do away with capital punishment?” she asked.
Cheng attacked passengers on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit system on May 21, 2014, killing four people and injuring 22 on the Bannan Line.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by