Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) have criticized Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), for not accepting an invitation to participate in a televised debate.
Ko, an independent seeking re-election, declined an invitation to attend the Taipei session of a Taipei and New Taipei City Youth Forum organized by more than a dozen university student associations.
Ko on Thursday said he wants to focus on administrative work and turn to campaigning after he takes leave from his mayoral post on Nov. 8.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
On Friday he said his decision to not attend the forum does not mean he would not take part in debates with other mayoral candidates.
Ting, Yao and independent Taipei mayoral candidate Lee Si-kuen (李錫錕) have agreed to attend the Taipei session.
Ko was avoiding televised debates and the forum, Ting said yesterday, asking whether it was because Ko cannot stand being grilled by the public.
With Taipei losing its competitiveness in the world and its residents becoming the working poor, Ko is unwilling to face the people and only willing to appear on popular video blogs, playing a fool to deceive young people, Ting said.
Yao on Friday evening said that attending televised debates is a basic requirement for mayoral candidates in the nation’s capital.
Residents should despise candidates who are unwilling to attend, Yao said.
Yao yesterday presented questions for Ko: Would he attend an open debate? How will he deal with the Taipei Dome project and why is it not in his white papers? What did he discuss during visits to China with doctors allegedly involved with organ harvesting?
“I will certainly take part in debates and I did not say I would not attend, but I have my own schedule,” Ko said yesterday, adding that it makes no sense that everyone must attend debates organized by a certain group.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
RSS