Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator and vice presidential candidate Cynthia Wu (吳欣盈) yesterday reiterated that the information missing from her financial disclosure statement is being dealt with, with the election just days away.
She made the remark on the sidelines of a campaign rally in Kaohsiung when asked about gaps in the most recent version of her financial information published on the Central Election Commission’s Web site, which is dated Monday last week.
The updated information includes NT$168,000 in accounts belonging to Wu’s son, but not the assets of her husband, Renaud van der Elst, a baron in Belgium.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan People’s Party
“I have said time and again that the declaration process is ongoing and that everything is being handled as the law requires,” Wu said, before ending the question-and-answer session with reporters.
Wu has been stumping for TPP legislative candidates in central and southern regions to demonstrate the party’s resolve to become an alternative to the nation’s two-party system, she said, urging people to vote.
Separately, TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) traveled through Taoyuan in a motorcade that stopped at temples and toured urban districts.
Asked about a video uploaded by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) campaign team, Ko said that the DPP’s social media department is faking enthusiasm for its material because the video had 50,000 views, but only 20,000 likes.
“Your cyberbrigade is being lazy,” he said without elaborating on which DPP-affiliated channel he was referring to.
The video suggests Lai would continue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) foreign policy, he said.
“If that were true, the US would not be constantly questioning your [Lai’s] stance,” Ko said.
Asked if he believed the DPP’s recent advertisement highlighting the importance of choosing the right vice presidential candidate was an attack on his campaign, Ko said he agreed with the spirit of the message, but has to ask whether Lai was personally responsible for selecting his running mate.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service