Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s (連勝文) camp yesterday released a video of his wife, Patty Tsai (蔡依珊), recalling the time Lien was shot while stumping for KMT New Taipei City Councilor Chen Hung-yuan (陳鴻源) four years ago.
Lin Cheng-wei (林正偉) shot Lien at close range, with the bullet entering the left side of Lien’s face and exiting near his right temple.
Afterward, Lin said he had mistaken Lien for Chen. Lin was sentenced to life imprisonment in January last year.
In the video, Tsai says that despite his brush with death, Lien had not been simmering with resentment after the incident, nor had he become angry and misanthropic.
“That is why I like him, because he has been a sunshine boy,” she says.
The video then shows Tsai saying she believes God had a reason for helping Lien survive the shooting and appealing to Taipei voters to give him a chance.
“He always leaves a good impression on anyone who talks to him because he is very sincere,” she says.
Earlier in the day, when asked about the shooting, Lien said he would be lying if he said he was not haunted by the incident, adding that it had been life-changing.
“I began to think about what I could do to give back to society. Today [the anniversary of the shooting] really means a lot to me,” he said.
In other developments, Lien said he plans to donate the subsidy he will receive from the government for his votes in Saturday’s election to charity.
Lien made the remark when asked to confirm a report in the Chinese-language Next Magazine that he would announce a donation from his personal assets ahead of Saturday’s election to boost his chances.
“It [the magazine] got it wrong. We are planning to donate the NT$30 per vote subsidy,” Lien said as he canvassed for support at the Zhengyi Public Housing Complex (正義國宅) in the city’s Daan District (大安) last night.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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