The Taipei County Council demanded yesterday that the county government discard the word "quasi" when referring to the county, as it decided to press ahead with plans to upgrade the county into a special municipality, instead of a "quasi-municipality."
A resolution calling for the Taipei County Government to remove the word “quasi” from the designation of Taipei County was submitted by 53 county councilors across party lines and cleared the council on Tuesday.
The central government upgraded Taipei County to a “quasi-municipality” last October.
CONFUSION
But the county council said the use of that term had increased the controversy over the county commissioner’s rights to promote personnel, creating a gray area between the central and the regional government.
The council said it would coordinate with the Taipei County Government in referring the resolution to the Executive Yuan to pave the way for the county’s upgrading to a “real” special municipality.
NAME GAME
The councilors were divided, however, over what the county should be called after it becomes a municipality. Some favor “Xinbei City” (新北市) or “New Taipei City,” while others said that county residents should be allowed to decide the new name.
At present, Taipei City and Kaohsiung City are the only two special municipalities in the country.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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