Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday announced plans to initiate a recall campaign against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers who support lifting a ban on imports of food products from five Japanese prefectures affected by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster, with those in New Taipei City being their first targets.
“The KMT, as the largest opposition party, naturally is deeply concerned about this issue that could profoundly affect public health. It is obligated to supervise President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration,” Hung said during a meeting of the party’s Central Standing Committee, which was moved to New Taipei City yesterday.
Panning the DPP government’s holding of 10 public hearings within three days last month as an attempt to “sneak [its policies] through by deception,” Hung said the KMT’s mobilization of local officials and supporters during the hearings was justified, as they were intended to inform the public of the controversy.
Hung said she is grateful to the party members who initiated the anti-import referendum last week, adding that while KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and the KMT caucus have launched separate nationwide referendum drives, that does not suggest disorganization or a lack of leadership, but rather a concerted effort by party members to launch a converging attack on Tsai’s administration.
Hung made the remarks just hours after Hau announced the establishment of a food safety alliance in Taipei yesterday morning.
There have been rumors that the government plans to lift the import ban, which was imposed on all food imports from five Japanese prefectures — Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba — after the nuclear disaster in March 2011.
During the meeting, KMT Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said the KMT has the duty to help the public wield the sword of recall and sweep pan-green lawmakers from government.
As the result of DPP-initiated amendments to the Civil Servants Election And Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) last month, the legal threshold for voter turnout in a valid recall election has been lowered from 50 percent of the total eligible voters to 25 percent, and therefore it is reasonable to expect that the DPP can be “reduced to a minority,” Alex Tsai said.
Alex Tsai said information gathered by the KMT showed that DPP lawmakers representing New Taipei City are the most vulnerable to a recall, calling for city residents to work with the KMT to get rid of them.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow