Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei city councilors yesterday urged the party to nominate its own mayoral candidate, at a meeting with the party’s Central Election Commission to collect opinions on the Taipei mayoral election in November.
Speculation has mounted on whether the DPP would field its own candidate or opt to collaborate with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) again.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Ho Chih-wei (何志偉) compared Ko to a recent food fad, “dirty bread” — bread covered with chocolate dust and filled with cream or custard — saying that eating the bread has made the DPP dirty, but now the fad is over, the party has to rely on itself.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) said that the time to cooperate with Ko, an independent, is over and many DPP supporters are urging the party to field its own candidate, and the party should respect their feelings.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Wang Wei-chung (王威中) said that many of the participants at the meeting supported the idea of having the party field its own candidate, although some said that they have also heard DPP supporters saying they would vote for the party’s councilor candidates, but support Ko even if the party fields its own mayoral candidate.
Wang said that some attendees suggested that the party nominate either Premier William Lai (賴清德) or Presidential Office Secretary-General and former Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) as its mayoral candidate.
In related news, following Ko’s apology in a radio interview on Wednesday to people who were upset over his remark last year that the “two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family,” several political figures and critics accused him of trying to score political points.
Ko yesterday said he cannot do anything about the fact that there will always be people upset with what he did, adding that he apologized because he was trying to console people who were upset over his “one family” remark.
Noting that there are more than 370,000 Chinese spouses in Taiwan and that China accounts for a good portion of the nation’s export market, Ko said that efforts to reduce tension or conflict in cross-strait relations are still needed.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
RSS