Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday continued his marathon of temple visits on the second day of the Lunar New Year holiday, greeting temple-goers and distributing “lucky money” despite the discovery of a death threat at Taipei City Hall on Thursday.
“Doctors also face risks. Sometimes you’ll cut yourself and could get infected with hepatitis B or C or even HIV, but no one would say that because of this you should not practice medicine,” said Ko, former head of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Traumatology.
“We will take whatever preventive measures are necessary, but we will still do what we need to do,” he said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Tu Ying-hui (杜英輝), director of Taipei City Hall’s Public Affairs Management Center, said that a crumpled piece of recycled paper with repeated scrawled threats to kill the mayor was found on Thursday on the ground outside the building’s Family Theater.
Parts of the building have remained open to the public during the holiday, with no new restrictions planned, he said.
The note is the second reported death threat Ko has received, following a threatening phone call last month. While Ko was photographed riding the MRT unaccompanied shortly after taking office in December, he later said he would reduce such trips due to safety concerns.
The Taipei Police Department said that additional measures had been taken to protect Ko’s safety, but no additional body guards would be dispatched.
The threatening note has been sent to the police department for appraisal, while city hall surveillance cameras will be examined to attempt to determine who left it.
Many other political figures also continued their visits to temples yesterday, where they distributed red envelopes and New Year’s blessings.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also visited Ma Village (馬家庄) in Miaoli County’s Tongsiao Township (通霄).
While most of the village’s residents are surnamed Ma, none of the president’s ancestors or relatives have ever lived there.
Ma started paying homage at Ma Village on the second day of the Lunar New Year 19 years ago after he learned about it.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS