Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he has not received word from the New Power Party (NPP) about possible cooperation with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), of which he is chairman, but added that his ideas for adjusting the housing tax rate are similar to those of the NPP.
Reporters had asked Ko about NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming’s (徐永明) remark on Saturday that there is room for cooperation between the NPP and the TPP.
Hsu added he hoped Ko would clarify his stance on adjusting the house tax.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The NPP insists on the value of monitoring the government rationally and if third-force parties could join forces, they would not lose to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11, NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
Ko, who founded the TPP in August, yesterday said he has not heard from the NPP about possible cooperation.
Whether the two parties can cooperate depends on the issues they intend to work on together and how they plan to cooperate, Ko said.
The NPP’s ideas on housing justice and the house tax rate are similar to those of the TPP, he said, adding that the Taipei City Government would send a proposal to the Taipei City Council about house tax adjustments, but the rate is still being discussed.
While some say that the relationship between the so-called “white force” — led by Ko — and the pan-green camp has broken up, he still has many friends in the pan-green camp, Ko said, adding that the world cannot simply be divided into two.
Cooperation is a good thing, but it depends on issues to cooperate on, he added.
Asked about DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan’s (林飛帆) remark on Friday that “we do not believe in the pan-blue camp, the light-blue camp, or the white camp with touches of red,” Ko said he believes that 97 percent of Taiwanese constitute the “Taiwanese camp,” which views the nation’s sovereignty and rights as its first priority.
Lin’s remark is a typical example of labeling others and manipulating the “sense of the nation’s impending doom” (亡國感), which is a frequently used election strategy to manipulate the ideologies of pro-unification and pro-independence camps, Ko said.
Lin yesterday denied the DPP engaged in manipulation and said that people have such feelings because some politicians have an ambiguous attitude toward cross-strait ties, leading to concerns about the nation’s future.
‘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
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
Three human skeletons and artifacts believed to be about 400 years old were unearthed by construction workers at National Ilan University in Yilan County, the university said yesterday. The discoveries were made on May 10 as workers were digging to expand the College of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science’s facilities, the university said in a statement. The skeletons were found at three sites, along with glass beads, copper bells and rings, discs and a fish-shaped metal knot, it said. The find is likely connected to the “Old Baili Village” (擺厘舊社, Bai Li Jiu She), an as-yet-undiscovered Kavalan settlement that has been mentioned in