The Green Party Taiwan (GPT) announced yesterday that it has settled on five of its 10 candidates for January's legislative elections.
"We have confirmed five candidates out of the 10 we plan to nominate. We are still debating our legislator-at-large seats because these will provide the best positions from which to push environmental issues," GPT Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (
Pan will contest Taipei City's Songshan (松山) and Xinyi (信義) districts, Calvin Wen (溫炳原) Taipei County's Shulin (樹林) and Yingge (鶯歌), Mary Chen (陳曼麗) Taipei County's Yonghe (永和), Hung Hui-hsiang (洪輝祥) Pingtung and Chung Pao-chu (鍾寶珠) Hualien.
Pan said the party may yet decide to nominate Chung and Chen for legislator-at-large seats to maximise their participation in environmental debates.
He added that the party wants to push for government funding for minority representatives and for limits on campaign spending so that "the Legislative Yuan isn't dominated by well-connected and well-funded people."
The GPT hopes to raise at least NT$4 million (US$123,483) to support its election efforts.
Pan said he would push for the cancelation of the NT$200,000 election deposit required of each legislative candidate.
"Ten nominees will cost us NT$2 million -- just for the deposits. We urge like-minded people to support us in this," he said.
Pan said the GPT has three priorities: "To change the structure of Taiwan's economy and promote a low-carbon economy, to vote against the construction of the Suhua Freeway and to build a second forest park instead of a second dome complex on the site of the old Songshan Tobacco Factory."
"We are talking with several social movement groups about joining forces in the election. However, regardless of whether we find a partner or not, we will enter the election to make our voices heard," he said.
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