Former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said his plan to run in Taipei City on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket remains unchanged despite talks from former presidential advisor Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) asking him to reconsider.
Koo ran a half-page advertisement yesterday in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) calling on Su to drop his bid in Taipei City and instead run in Sinbei City — Taipei County’s name once it is upgraded — against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Vice-Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫).
“Taipei County residents elected him to two terms as Taipei County Commissioner. Su is best positioned to understand the problems of these people and as a politician, he has a responsibility to step up when people need him to,” Koo said in a press conference yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
Left unsaid was that Su also holds the DPP’s best chances going up against Chu, who is also riding high in opinion polls according to surveys, released in March. In the same ad, Koo also called on DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to run in Taipei City against incumbent KMT mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
However, the requests were firmly rebuffed by Su who said in a separate setting yesterday that he had decided to run in Taipei City since March 3, the date he first publicly announced his candidacy.
While Tsai did not make a public comment on the issue, she has said previously that she did not plan on taking part in the special municipality elections in November.
Despite having already selected its candidates for Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Tainan, the DPP has yet to finalize its list for Taipei and Sinbei as well as Greater Taichung. The nomination list is expected to be released Wednesday next week but party officials added the date could be pushed back if the team were unable to come to a conclusion.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese