Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday announced plans to initiate a recall campaign against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who support lifting a ban on imports of food products from five Japanese prefectures affected by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster, with those in New Taipei City being their first targets.
“The KMT, as the largest opposition party, naturally is deeply concerned about this issue that could profoundly affect public health. It is obligated to supervise President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration,” Hung said during a meeting of the party’s Central Standing Committee, which was moved to New Taipei City yesterday.
Panning the DPP government’s holding of 10 public hearings within three days last month as an attempt to “sneak [its policies] through by deception,” Hung said the KMT’s mobilization of local officials and supporters during the hearings was justified, as they were intended to inform the public of the controversy.
Hung said she is grateful to the party members who initiated the anti-import referendum last week, adding that while KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and the KMT caucus have launched separate nationwide referendum drives, that does not suggest disorganization or a lack of leadership, but rather a concerted effort by party members to launch a converging attack on Tsai’s administration.
Hung made the remarks just hours after Hau announced the establishment of a food safety alliance in Taipei yesterday morning.
There have been rumors that the government plans to lift the import ban, which was imposed on all food imports from five Japanese prefectures — Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba — after the nuclear disaster in March 2011.
During the meeting, KMT Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said the KMT has the duty to help the public wield the sword of recall and sweep pan-green lawmakers from government.
As the result of DPP-initiated amendments to the Civil Servants Election And Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) last month, the legal threshold for voter turnout in a valid recall election has been lowered from 50 percent of the total eligible voters to 25 percent, and therefore it is reasonable to expect that the DPP can be “reduced to a minority,” Alex Tsai said.
Alex Tsai said information gathered by the KMT showed that DPP lawmakers representing New Taipei City are the most vulnerable to a recall, calling for city residents to work with the KMT to get rid of them.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
ASEAN BATTLEGROUND: Japan and Australia could be drawn into Pacific tensions as China sets its sights on the Diaoyutai Islands and further beyond the first island chain Tensions between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to intensify, the National Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, recommending that Taiwan continue to emphasize its shared values and interests to encourage resistance to Chinese aggression. US commitments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to continue unabated despite the war in Ukraine, as Beijing takes advantage of the conflict to expand its influence in the region, the agencies said in reports delivered to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Sunday, ahead of a hearing yesterday on regional developments and trends. Although Russia’s invasion of
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said