Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday responded to criticism regarding his absence during heavy rains and flooding in Taipei on Sunday, saying he is omnipresent like the Internet, and that the appearances of government heads at disaster sites are “publicity stunts.”
The combined forces of Typhoon Nesat and a northeastern monsoon caused heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides in parts of Taipei, including blockage of the Kangle tunnel in Neihu District (內湖).
Nationwide, there were more than 268 reports of flooding, fallen trees and other disruptions, 208 of which were in Taipei, Central Emergency Operation Center data showed on Sunday evening.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Government
Ko, who is also the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman, was in Nantou County and Taichung on Sunday, helping the party’s city councilor candidates to canvass for votes in next month’s local elections.
Ko on Sunday said that no matter where the government head is, officials should be able to follow standard procedures to respond to problems.
Taipei’s disaster response system has been updated over the past eight years, allowing officials to execute their duties without his supervision, he added.
City councilors across party lines criticized Ko for attending to TPP election business in Taichung, after which he canceled two campaign events in the evening and returned to Taipei, visiting the blocked tunnel at 8:20pm.
Democratic Progressive Party city councilors yesterday at a news conference questioned why the Taipei Emergency Operation Center was led by the city’s Fire Department head, while criticizing the late notification of approaching waters that caused cars parked along riversides to be flooded.
The councilors asked Ko to apologize to Taipei residents.
After inspecting the reopening of floodgates yesterday, Ko told reporters that “nowadays the Internet is omnipresent, and so is Ko Wen-je,” and that sending government heads to disaster-struck areas is a “publicity stunt.”
Ko said he had a Line group chat with department heads that helped him stay aware of developments, “in the digital era, everyone can work from home, so why sit in the emergency operation center for people to see? That’s too weak.”
“The US President can be on Air Force One and still command the whole world,” he said, adding that the government should spend another two years integrating data from the emergency operation center and Taipei’s “big data” center so that government heads can handle disasters more efficiently.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
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