An inspection visit by TSU lawmakers to the Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) yesterday failed to yield any results because the lawmakers got into a war of words with KMT Taipei City councilors.
The TSU had aimed to investigate whether the Taipei City Government had mismanaged the reservoir, the city's main source of water.
The two sides traded barbs as the city councilors accused the TSU of deliberately picking on the city government and the lawmakers accused the councilors of over-protecting Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"If there are no flaws in Ma's administration, he shouldn't have any qualms when facing our questions. If we wrongly accused Ma, there was no need for him to mobilize the councilors to interfere with our inspection," said TSU lawmaker Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘).
The argument started when TSU lawmakers attempted to ask questions after a briefing by reservoir officials.
The city councilors interrupted the questions, saying "the lawmakers have the right to find out the truth, but they are not entitled to question reservoir officials because the reservoir should be overseen by the city government."
The councilors also expressed their dissatisfaction with what they called the overbearing attitude of the TSU lawmakers. They told reporters that any rational inspection of the site would be welcomed, but that they considered the TSU to be deliberately finding fault with Ma.
The TSU lawmakers refuted the councilors' accusations, saying they were simply fulfilling their duty by asking questions at the site.
The lawmakers were particularly upset with Taipei City Government spokesman Wu Yu-seng (吳育昇), who in his welcome remarks at the reservoir repeatedly criticized comments on the drought by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as being groundless.
On Friday the former president demanded that Ma take responsibility for mismanagement of water resources.
Lee's attacks on Ma have been interpreted as a concerted effort by the former president to damage the mayor's image and decrease his chances for re-election in the year-end mayoral race.
The TSU accused Ma of mobilizing the city councilors to go to the reservoir in a bid to quiet their criticism of Ma.
With Lee's backing, Ma won the mayoral election four years ago by beating President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the DPP incumbent.
But relations between Lee and Ma turned sour after Lee was dismissed by the KMT in September last year.
The lawmakers plan to pay another visit to the reservoir today.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS