Taipei city councilors across party lines yesterday found common cause in boycotting Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) report to the Taipei City Council.
The councilors took turns raising procedural motions and presenting the mayor with small props for more than an hour before Ko was finally allowed to deliver his report.
Their questions mostly focused on a several controversies, including whether Ko had sent a draft speech for the Taipei-Shanghai City Forum in July to the National Security Council ahead of time, rumors that Ko said city workers had resigned “because there were no profits to make anymore” and the discovery of fipronil-tainted eggs on sale in the city.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Ko acts as if he is a deity that should be worshipped, but he is just gentle and gives in when facing China, although he acts tough when attacking pan-green and pan-blue parties, Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) said as he presented the mayor with a small incense burner.
“I want to remind you that you should get rid of the incense burner and step down from the altar because you are human, not a deity,” Wang said. “You are the mayor of Taipei.”
A Mainland Affairs Council press release issued after the Shanghai forum voiced dissatisfaction with remarks made by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), not Ko’s, so the mayor should stop playing the victim and focus on city policies, not cross-strait relations, Wang said.
Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) city councilors carried eggs and signs that read “Taipei refuses poisonous eggs” and “Mayor Ko, why do only Taipei residents get to eat poisonous eggs?” as they surrounded Ko’s seat in the council room, peppering him with questions about fipronil-tainted eggs.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) questioned why the city government did not inform the public that tainted eggs had been found in the city until Monday, when it learned about them on Thursday last week.
The city was not taking its residents’ health seriously, Wang Hung-wei said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Wu Shih-cheng (吳世正) and several colleagues urged Ko to apologize to his administrative team and city workers for saying that they were only working to benefit themselves, especially to former Taipei City Government secretary-general Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), who had worked long and hard so the city could successfully host the recent Universiade.
Political commentator Huang Yueh-hung (黃越宏) recently said on a television program that Ko had once said about the number of people resigning from the city government that “those people found out they have nothing to gain.”
Some people have wondered if Ko was referring to Su, who had served as Universiade organizing committee chief executive officer.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS