Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s (連勝文) campaign office yesterday displayed a document showing that campaign executive director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) has signed a letter of consent for a debate with Taipei independent mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to be hosted by SET-TV.
“We welcome any opportunity to debate [with Ko], regardless of which news network hosts the debate,” Lien spokesperson Chien Chen-yu (錢震宇) said.
Chien said the office never refused to take part in a debate televised by Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS), but it hoped that TBS could give it an explanation as to why TBS discussed its debate proposal with Ko’s office several times, but has never made contact with Lien’s office.
His remarks clarified what has been considered vagueness shown by Lien’s office on Monday, when Tsai said Lien would not accept a TBS debate proposal, while Lien said he would be happy to have a debate with Ko no matter which TV station hosts it.
SET-TV later yesterday obtained a notarized letter of consent from Ko’s camp, with the signature of campaign executive director Yao Li-ming (姚立明).
Chien said that Lien’s office would negotiate the debate’s format, scheduling and other details with Ko’s office.
Separately, Next TV and TVBS have both expressed interest in hosting a televised debate for the Taipei mayoral campaign.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is