Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday confronted by a vendor protesting the planned renovation of the Taipei Fruits, Vegetables and Fish Wholesale Market.
Ko went to the market at about 4am to ask supervisors of fruit, vegetable and fish vendors’ associations about their needs during the transition period, which is expected to take seven years.
Ko was greeted warmly at the market, where some vendors tried to shake his hand, while others asked to have their pictures taken with the mayor.
However, a fish vendor confronted Ko about the renovation project.
“If the project goes [ahead as planned], we will not be able to make a living any longer,” the vendor said. “We have to move out of the market when it is being renovated, but it would take about 10 years for the renovation project to be completed,” he said.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) tried to calm the man, while Ko walked away after stopping only briefly to listen to the vendor.
“The market was built in 1975 and has been in use for more than 40 years, so it must be renovated, but how business should continue during the construction period needs to be seriously discussed with everyone,” Ko later told the vendors.
During a discussion session with the association supervisors, Ko said the project had been stalled for 20 years because there had been several difficulties during negotiations, but the Taipei City Council has finally approved a NT$14 billion (US$463 million) budget for the project.
The city can help negotiate between people with different views, but the goal is to carry it out as soon as possible, he said.
The city has also approved a budget of NT$5 billion for the renovation of the Huannan Market, Ko said, adding that the management of those markets is the key issue.
“We are now spending [nearly] NT$20 billion on the renovations, so the markets must be transformed into the newest and the cleanest [state] possible, by enforcing policies such as the separation of dry and wet [ingredients] and keeping trash off the ground,” he said.
Ko said the renovation project for the fruit and fish market would start with the construction of a temporary marketplace later this year, but added that the vendors are unsatisfied with the duration of the project.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching