The People First Party (PFP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will work together to promote a single candidate for Nantou County commissioner this year, the PFP's hopeful for the post said yesterday.
The PFP's Nantou County commissioner nominee, PFP Legislative Caucus Whip Chen Chih-pin (
Survey
With a number of party old guard serving as witnesses, Chen said that he had met with Lee on Saturday and agreed to hire a survey company to run polls in Nantou County next month, and have the winner become the pan-blue camp's candidate for the area.
The comments from Chen yesterday came as a surprise, given recent remarks from PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) identifying Nantou County as one place where the party will not back down in the face of potentially stronger KMT candidates.
In comments last week, Soong said that while he acknowledges that the PFP and KMT should cooperate in the year-end elections given their overlapping support bases, the PFP will not give way in regions it feels confident of its candidates' success, such as Nantou County and Keelung City.
Done deal
"Both sides already have an agreement, that whoever loses [in the polls] will back out of the race and support the other pan-blue candidate," Chen said, adding that he is confident of his personal success, given that he is better known.
When reporting the agreement to PFP Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng (
In reaction however, Chen said he did not think that the KMT would manipulate the polls.
“China is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
RSS