People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
The report said Soong fell to his knees before Chang when the conversation came to a water-resources budget slashed by the central government, but it did not say whether Soong was asking or apologizing to Chang for something. Apparently stricken with grief, Soong criticized the budget cut as a shameful act, the report said.
PHOTO: CHUANG YU-FENG, TAIPEI TIMES
Both the blue and green camps are wooing the independent Chang's support in next year's presidential election.
Chang is a former member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) but was expelled from the party in 1997 for running in the commissioner's election in defiance of party orders. Chang has since built a formidable power base in Yunlin.
Commenting on Soong's kneeling down, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official said yesterday that Soong was at his wits end.
"Since the most recent poll showed the DPP's support rate is on the rise, while the Lien-Soong ticket's support rate is suffering, Soong's falling on his knees simply showed that he was at his wits end," DPP deputy secretary-general Lee Chin-yung (
Gao Jyh-peng (
"Facing mounting calls for Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
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,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
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
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it