Former chairwoman of the Council of Labor Affairs Chen Chu (
Chen made the announcement at a press conference at the Ambassador Hotel in Kaohsiung City. Many of her friends and DPP legislators and city councilors attended the conference to voice their support. The room was decorated with pictures tracking Chen's political career, and was full of singing and applause for Chen.
Chen said that she has a close connection with Kaohsiung City and that it is time for her to pay back the warmth and assistance that Kaohsiung people have given her.
Chen said she was jailed for six years for the Kaohsiung Incident in 1979. In 1991, she was elected as a representative to the National Assembly by Kaohsiung residents. In 1998, she served as the chief of the Kaohsiung City Government's Social Affairs Bureau. She also earned her masters degree at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung.
During the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal last year, Chen was heavily criticized for her handling of the tender for the construction project and attacked by members of other DPP factions.
"Do not pigeonhole me into any specific DPP faction and do not smear me regarding controversial incidents," Chen said yesterday. "I am the daughter of Taiwan. I am not a complicated person and I've been in the democratic movement for more than 30 years. That is much longer than any faction in the DPP [has existed]."
"I feared nothing when I faced unjust imprisonment and the threat of the death penalty. Likewise, I'm ready and glad to take full responsibility when I have to," she said.
According to a poll conducted recently by the DPP assessing the popularity of possible candidates in the party primary, Chen is in the lead. Yesterday Chen cited the poll to stress that she is the "optimal candidate" for the critical party task of defending Kaohsiung.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Huang Jun-ying (
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
BACK TO WINTER: A strong continental cold air mass would move south on Tuesday next week, bringing colder temperatures to northern and central Taiwan A tropical depression east of the Philippines could soon be upgraded to be the first tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the next cold air mass is forecast to arrive on Monday next week. CWA forecaster Cheng Jie-ren (鄭傑仁) said the first tropical depression of this year is over waters east of the Philippines, about 1,867km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Nokaen by early today. The system is moving slowly from northwest to north, and is expected to remain east of the Philippines with little chance of affecting Taiwan,
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