According to a local newspaper the following charges were made by the Kaohsiung office of the Chinese Nationalist party with the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office:
1. Polling station No. 772 in Chingtao Borough of Hsiaokang District erroneously reported 968 ballots that voted for Lien as for Chen, and 428 ballots that voted for Chen as for Lien. The pan-blue camp claims it has complained to the city's election commission but has received no response.
2. At polling station No. 408 in An-sheng Borough in Kaohsiung City's Sanmin District, three people discovered that someone had taken out ballots in their names. They were issued new ballots but the earlier three ballots were unaccounted for.
3. At a polling station in an elementary school in Kaohsiung's Tsoying Township, a ballot that voted for Lien was mistakenly reported as for Chen. The mistake was corrected after objections from two local councilors.
4. At a polling station in Kuanghua Borough, in Kaohsiung City's Kushan District, the presidential and referendum ballots were counted simultaneously, in violation of the electoral rules.
5. At a polling station in Minhsiao Borough in Kaohsiung City's Chienchen District, a voter used fingerprints in lieu of a seal but the polling station administrator and ballot monitor did not sign their names.
6. A voter in Tsoying claims that ballots bearing seals next to the number "2" -- instead of the square above "2" reserved for seals as required -- was counted as invalid while ballots marked in the same way for number "1" were counted as valid.
7. Polling stations No. 332 in Kaohsiung City and No. 837 in Kaohsiung County counted the presidential and referendum votes simultaneously, in violation of the rules.
8. Polling station No. 837 in Kaohsiung County counted more than 100 invalid ballots.
9. The pan-blue camp claims it has heard that the President Chen, Vice President Lu and close colleagues frequently held secret meetings at a monastery in Nantou County. It also claims that followers from that monastery had told them that Chen was planning to create a shooting incident on March 19 to boost his election chances.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred