Taichung City and Taichung County could be merged into one special municipality by Dec. 25, 2010 at the earliest, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
The Cabinet approved a proposed amendment to the Local Government Act (地方制度法) during its weekly meeting yesterday morning, allowing cities and counties to merge into a special municipality.
At present, the act only allows a city or county to become a special municipality like Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said the proposed amendment was particularly meaningful in terms of the government’s effort to reorganize the nation’s land and promote more balanced regional development.
The premier urged the Ministry of the Interior to negotiate the proposed amendment with different party caucuses in the hope of pushing through the legislation by the end of this year.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) previously promised to complete the merger between Taichung City and Taichung County within his term of office.
Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) had protested against the president’s promise, saying that it would be unfair to Taipei County residents if the central government allowed Taichung City and Taichung County to become a special municipality ahead of Taipei County.
Chou even threatened not to stand for re-election on Oct. 31 next year over the matter.
If Taichung city and county were merged, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡自強), who is serving his second term, would be entitled to run for mayor of the new special municipality, the ministry said.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS