Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said there was room for improvement in the handling of a music event at National Taiwan University that drew protests and ended in violence, but added that he cannot accept people calling him a partner in China’s “united front.”
The “Sing! China: Shanghai-Taipei Music Festival” was a result of memorandums of understanding on cultural and arts events signed by Taipei and Shanghai in 2010 and 2014 respectively.
It was scheduled to run for eight hours on Sept. 24 at the university’s athletic field, but was canceled after two hours, following protests by students and pro-Taiwanese independence groups.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
As the crowd dispersed, three students were allegedly injured off-campus by members of a pro-unification group.
In an ad hoc session to discuss the case at Taipei City Hall yesterday, Ko said that according to standard operating procedures, there was no negligence by the city government, but added that there was room for improvement.
The city government’s “low political sensitivity” and the deployment of police need improvement, he said.
Owing to the principle of university autonomy, police cannot be deployed on campuses, but the police station head and the officer who received calls about the violence failed to confirm that the incident took place off-campus, which caused delay in dealing with the situation, Ko said, adding that they have both been punished.
“Taiwan has freedom of speech, but not the freedom of hitting people,” Ko said, adding that while the suspects have been turned over to the court for prosecution, discussion is needed on whether the police can deploy officers on campuses during large protests.
As some protesters said the city government had yielded to China’s united front tactics by agreeing to hold the show, Ko said that “criticizing the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Ko Wen-je as partners of communists who cooperate with their united front tactics is something that we cannot accept.”
Meanwhile, Ko said the city’s Construction Management Office should add “completion report date” and “examination date” columns on the temporary construction permit registration form to avoid the safety problems associated with illegal construction.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai