The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday asked police to investigate an online rumor alleging that the general manager of the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park in New Taipei City is a financial supporter of the party.
The water park is the site of an explosion on Saturday that injured nearly 500 people and killed one person.
“While the entire nation prays and tries by all means to help victims of the explosion, there are politically calculating people who are taking advantage of the tragedy by making false accusations against the DPP,” Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎), a lawyer, said outside the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division headquarters before going inside to file a police report.
“What they are doing is very inappropriate, so we are officially asking police to launch an investigation to see who is behind such political maneuvering that also harms victims and their families,” Huang added.
Huang was referring to a message that has been circulating via Line, Facebook and other social networking or messenger services.
According to the message, Formosa Fun Coast general manager Chen Hui-ying (陳慧穎) is an important sponsor of the DPP. It says that the financial relationship explains why the DPP “has not been pointing fingers” about the incident.
“I was thinking it felt odd,” the message read. “In the past, whenever something happened in a city or county governed by the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT], the DPP would go all out and make all kinds of accusations, but this time no one is doing so — [New Taipei City Mayor] Eric Chu [朱立倫] has had a narrow escape.”
This is not an isolated case, Huang said, adding that earlier this month, a rumor surfaced saying that the family of DPP Chairperson and presidential nominee Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) owns the Hai Pa Wang (海霸王) seafood restaurant chain and is expanding in China.
The Criminal Investigation Division accepted the report, asked for more details and promised to investigate.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
RSS