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One of the top stories from this past week involved the newly elected mayors and county chiefs of Taiwan’s 22 local jurisdictions being sworn in on Thursday.
Newly elected Taipei City mayor, independent Ko Wen-je, said he will work hard to build a better city and a better Taiwan in the next four years. Ko said that the Taipei City Government will become a team that has serving the public as its goal.
"The employees of the Taipei City Government do not have to serve any political party or even the mayor. They only need to wholeheartedly serve the people of Taipei City," said Ko.
Meanwhile, Taichung City’s new mayor, Lin Chia-lung of the Democratic Progressive Party, said that he will become “a mayor for the people”. Lin said that he will allow residents to become “the true masters of the city”.
Lin said he has already set the goal of making the government’s action and efficiency visible to the public within his first 100 days in office. Lin also requested chief officials in his local government to sign a pledge of clean governance.
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Also this past week an organization has stepped in to save the New Year’s Eve fireworks show at Taipei 101. Taipei 101 made the announcement on Tuesday after finding a sponsor for the NT$38 million (US$1.2 million) fireworks show. The iSee Taiwan Foundation is sponsoring the show this year.
The iconic building was not able to find a sponsor earlier because one of its major shareholders, Ting Hsin International Group, was involved in a major tainted cooking oil scandal. The group’s chairman resigned from his Vice Chairman position at Taipei 101 as a result.
There were worries that no one would foot the bill for the nation’s most anticipated fireworks show. At a press conference on Tuesday, Taipei 101 spokesman Liu Jia-hao said, “the heavens have taken care of Taiwan”.
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And finally this past week the Ministry of the Interior has agreed to abolish a requirement that transgender people must undergo surgery before they can change their legal gender status.
The requirement was introduced in an administrative order in 2008. Several NGOs have criticized the requirement. On Thursday, Kuomintang lawmaker Ting Shou-chung and former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, Shih Ming-teh held a joint conference. They said that after communicating with the government, the Ministry of the Interior had agreed to abolish the requirement within a month.