The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) New Taipei City mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), is to embark today on a stumping tour for fellow DPP mayoral and county commissioner candidates in a bid to garner support before the Nov. 24 elections.
Su’s first stop will be Hsinchu, where Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) is seeking re-election.
Su is to attend the opening of a recreational sand pit designed for parents and their children at the Nanliao Fishing Harbor (南寮漁港).
It is expected to be a heartwarming occasion as it was Su who prompted Lin, during the mayor’s election campaign four years ago, to propose transforming the harbor into “Hsinchu’s answer to New Taipei City’s Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf.”
While Lin’s re-election prospects are good, the DPP hopes to parlay Su’s widespread popularity into stronger support ratings for the party’s six first-time candidates for Hsinchu county councilor and to get all 12 of its councilor candidates elected, party sources said.
Turning to Taoyuan, which borders New Taipei City, Su aims to shore up talks initiated between his and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan’s (鄭文燦) teams to build a New Taipei City-Taoyuan “greater metropolis,” party sources said.
Cheng served as head of the Executive Yuan’s Department of Information Services when Su was premier and later as director of the DPP’s Department of Culture and Communications when Su was party chairman.
The two municipalities, which face several common challenges, are in effect already a greater metropolis, Taoyuan Department of Public Information Director Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said.
For example, they teamed up to monitor wastewater discharged from homes in a public housing complex by the National Taiwan Sport University Station (A7) on the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Access MRT line, after there was a public outcry in April over discharge being flushed into two Sinjhuang District (新莊) creeks that ran through both communities, Chang said, adding that this collaboration is only the first of many to come.
Su also wields influence in the south, as witnessed in the work of another of his apprentices, acting Tainan Mayor Li Men-yen (李孟諺), who has extensive experience in river remediation, party sources said.
Li last month accompanied Su to inspect the Breeze Canal (微風運河) in New Taipei City’s Luzhou District (蘆洲) along a section of the Erchong Floodway (二重疏洪道), which was prone to flooding before Li implemented measures to resolve the problem while heading the then-Taipei county water resources division under Su.
The canal has become a venue for Dragon Boat races.
Members of DPP Legislator and Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Chen Chi-mai’s (陳其邁) campaign staff have also approached Su’s team in the hopes of collaborating to identify weaknesses in the political platforms of Chen’s campaign rivals, party sources said.
Chen said he hoped to team up with Su and Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊), whose respective experience in governing New Taipei City and Kaohsiung represents a cross-section of high-quality DPP governance and could convince Taiwanese that the DPP has what it takes to govern successfully.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS