Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan
Speaking to reporters after voting at Taipei's Chin-ou Girls' Senior High School, Chen said that the ministry did not suffer from manpower shortages similar to those that crippled election inspectors' work during the legislative election last year. He said, however, that these elections covered only Taipei and Kaohsiung City and were not nationwide.
"A few months ago, the word on the street was that that there would be more bribery in Kaohsiung this year. Our information does not match this assertion as far as I can see. ... I am glad to see such progress made by prosecutors, voters and candidates themselves because it seemed to me that everybody was expecting a clean election and was working very hard toward that end," Chen said.
According to the statistics from the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office, prosecutors arrested 805 people, of which 12 have been indicted -- including two Kaohsiung City Councilor candidates -- and 11 detained. Excluding the candidates, all those arrested were vote captains.
In Taipei City, according to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office and the Shihlin District Prosecutors' Office, no-one was arrested or indicted for bribery.
However, Taipei District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達) said that prosecutors carried out their duties right through election day.
During last year's nationwide legislative election, prosecutors arrested 3,509 suspects -- all of them vote captains -- for bribing voters. Police later indicted 106.
The Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法) regulates that a candidate's registration will be automatically canceled if convicted. In addition, if the candidate is convicted after he wins the campaign, his status as a public official will be automatically voided.
Meanwhile, prosecutors reported that three voters, two in Kaohsiung and one in Taipei, were arrested after ripping up their ballot papers -- a criminal offense in Taiwan.
According to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, 21-year-old Lin Che-june (
Yang Chang-mei
Han Chang-an
Kaohsiung prosecutors released him but have not decided whether to charge him.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai