The Kaohsiung City Government was criticized by city councilors across party lines yesterday over the removal of a student honor guard band’s national flag during a parade organized by the city government on Sunday to mark the one-year countdown to the World Games next year.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正), a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member, criticized the organizers as deliberately belittling the nation.
Lin said that Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) had highlighted Taiwan’s independent status during a speech at the parade, while Ron Frohlich, president of the International World Games Association’s (IWGA) executive committee, addressed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as “President Ma.”
There was no justification for the city government’s asking the Kaohsiung Girls’ Senior High School band to remove the flag, he said.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) of the Democratic Progressive Party demanded that the officials who made the decision be reprimanded.
Approached by the media, Chen denied she had given the order to remove the flag.
She said the city government was holding World Games-related events in accordance with its agreements with the IWGA and never intended to belittle the nation or express any political preference at such events. She promised to find who was responsible for the mishap.
Liu Hsiu-mei (劉秀梅), deputy director-general of the city’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, which organized the parade, said yesterday the bureau had not been aware of the flag being taken down and did not know who had given the order.
Asked for comment, World Games Kaohsiung Organizing Committee chief executive officer Hsu Chao-chuan (�?�) said the city government and the IWGA had agreed in writing that the national flags of participants at the games should not appear at official World Games events.
City officials asked that the student band not display the flag to avoid controversy, she said.
However, Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Po-lin (黃柏霖) of the KMT said he did not understand why the city government would refer to the agreement, as the parade was not an official World Games sports event.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
RSS