Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) today is to begin a leave of absence to focus on his re-election campaign.
Asked yesterday morning about his feelings on his last working day as mayor, Ko said he does not feel anything in particular, as he just discussed urban renovation issues in a daily meeting and still had to review many documents.
Ko also said that his campaign director Hsiao Yeh (小野) is a “nice person,” after Hsiao Yeh appeared in a promotional video for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), stirring speculation over Ko’s political stance.
Photo: CNA
Ko had earlier said that he respects Hsiao Yeh’s decision to support Chen, as election and political party preferences are not the only concerns in personal relationships.
He added yesterday that Hsiao Yeh is a nice person with a good reputation, who has hardly received any negative comments from the cultural industries.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) on Tuesday wrote on Facebook that film director Wu Nien-jen (吳念真) and Hsiao Yeh are the two “cultural door-gods for the pan-green camp” and said that Ko asked Hsiao Yeh to be his campaign director in a bid to win DPP supporters’ votes.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Ting in the past few days has repeatedly claimed that the DPP is planning to give up on its Taipei mayoral candidate, Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智), to pour extra effort into Chen’s campaign.
Many supporters of KMT Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) left comments on Ko’s Facebook page, calling him a fake independent.
Ko said he asked Hsiao Yeh to be his campaign director because Hsiao Yeh was his teacher during his first year in college, and because his rich experience in the arts could improve weaker aspects of his team.
Hsiao Yeh said that Ko did not ask him to become his campaign director because he is skilled at electoral manipulation, but because Ko has read his books and watched his movies, and wanted him to help formulate cultural policies.
He said he has so far not criticized any candidate, but is disappointed that Ting unfairly criticized his friend Wu.
He said he has begun to doubt whether Ting really understands the nation’s cultural development, adding that his conspiracies regarding the DPP’s strategy are deeply hurting everyone involved.
Hsiao Yeh said that he left the KMT-affiliated Central Motion Picture Corp at the age of 37 and began writing books about culture, ecology and education without support from any political party.
Bursting into tears three times, Hsiao Yeh spoke about Wu’s contributions to Taiwanese culture, including a project they started with film director Ko I-chen (柯一正) to hold art performances for children in all 319 townships across the nation without any government or political party funding.
“I am not dependent on political parties, and my friend Wu Nien-jen has contributed much to Taiwan. I do not want to start a verbal battle, but he [Ting] called us door gods who control the industry,” he said, adding that he is sad to see such politically motivated smearing.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS