The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday canceled Lin Kuan-hsun’s (林冠勳) candidacy for a Taipei city council seat after he was charged in a drunk driving case, replacing him with Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鍾小平).
KMT representative Wayne Chen (陳孝威) said he was willing to yield to Chung, KMT Taipei chapter director Huang Lu Ching-ju (黃呂錦茹) told a news conference, adding that Chung — who in May lost the KMT’s primary for Taipei mayor — would contest the seat representing Zhongzheng (中正) and Wanhua (萬華) districts.
“I invited Chung and Chen to the Taipei chapter this morning to talk about the candidacy. Chen believes that winning the year-end elections should be the shared goal of KMT members, hence his decision,” Huang said, adding that Chen expressed willingness to serve as Chung’s campaign manager.
Photo: CNA
Huang said he hopes that the party’s 33 candidates for Taipei councilor would be elected in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections and that they would help KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) secure victory as well.
Chung, 55, is serving his third term as a Taipei councilor.
He failed to secure the KMT’s Taipei mayoral nomination in 2014 and this year. His attempt in 2016 to enter the party’s chairperson by-election was also rejected due to his failure to meet requirements.
Chung’s nomination yesterday came after a sedan registered in Lin’s name was involved in an incident on Wednesday evening, in which a motorcyclist collided with the rear of the car.
Lin’s car allegedly fled the scene and returned 15 minutes later with Lin in the passenger seat and his assistant in the driver’s seat, police said.
Breath alcohol tests found that Lin’s assistant and the motorcyclist did not have excess alcohol readings, but Lin’s blood alcohol level was 0.3 miligrams per liter, double the legal limit, police said.
Lin was released on Thursday after posting bail of NT$200,000. He faces chargs of public endangerment. His assistant was released on bail of NT$100,000 on charges linked to the alleged impersonation of Lin.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,