The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) New Taipei City mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), is to embark today on a stumping tour for fellow DPP mayoral and county commissioner candidates in a bid to garner support before the Nov. 24 elections.
Su’s first stop will be Hsinchu, where Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) is seeking re-election.
Su is to attend the opening of a recreational sand pit designed for parents and their children at the Nanliao Fishing Harbor (南寮漁港).
It is expected to be a heartwarming occasion as it was Su who prompted Lin, during the mayor’s election campaign four years ago, to propose transforming the harbor into “Hsinchu’s answer to New Taipei City’s Tamsui Fisherman’s Wharf.”
While Lin’s re-election prospects are good, the DPP hopes to parlay Su’s widespread popularity into stronger support ratings for the party’s six first-time candidates for Hsinchu county councilor and to get all 12 of its councilor candidates elected, party sources said.
Turning to Taoyuan, which borders New Taipei City, Su aims to shore up talks initiated between his and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan’s (鄭文燦) teams to build a New Taipei City-Taoyuan “greater metropolis,” party sources said.
Cheng served as head of the Executive Yuan’s Department of Information Services when Su was premier and later as director of the DPP’s Department of Culture and Communications when Su was party chairman.
The two municipalities, which face several common challenges, are in effect already a greater metropolis, Taoyuan Department of Public Information Director Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said.
For example, they teamed up to monitor wastewater discharged from homes in a public housing complex by the National Taiwan Sport University Station (A7) on the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Access MRT line, after there was a public outcry in April over discharge being flushed into two Sinjhuang District (新莊) creeks that ran through both communities, Chang said, adding that this collaboration is only the first of many to come.
Su also wields influence in the south, as witnessed in the work of another of his apprentices, acting Tainan Mayor Li Men-yen (李孟諺), who has extensive experience in river remediation, party sources said.
Li last month accompanied Su to inspect the Breeze Canal (微風運河) in New Taipei City’s Luzhou District (蘆洲) along a section of the Erchong Floodway (二重疏洪道), which was prone to flooding before Li implemented measures to resolve the problem while heading the then-Taipei county water resources division under Su.
The canal has become a venue for Dragon Boat races.
Members of DPP Legislator and Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Chen Chi-mai’s (陳其邁) campaign staff have also approached Su’s team in the hopes of collaborating to identify weaknesses in the political platforms of Chen’s campaign rivals, party sources said.
Chen said he hoped to team up with Su and Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊), whose respective experience in governing New Taipei City and Kaohsiung represents a cross-section of high-quality DPP governance and could convince Taiwanese that the DPP has what it takes to govern successfully.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and