The military's emergency-response mechanism was activated yesterday but it did not raise its alert level after the shooting of Presi-dent Chen Shui-bian (
"The armed forces are already on alert during the election period. But the alert levels have not been raised because of the shootings of the president and vice president," a senior official with the military spokesman's office of the Ministry of National Defense said.
"An emergency-response mechanism has been activated for the incident. It will not affect the original plans of the military to send soldiers back in batches to their hometowns to cast votes on Saturday," the official said.
All commanding officers were to remain at their posts to keep abreast of any situation starting from 5pm yesterday and the high-alert status will be maintained until 8am today, according to ministry officials.
The ministry convened an emer-gency meeting after the shooting. Ministry officials said that all department chiefs and ranking military officials took part in the meeting and that the results would be announced later.
The shooting was seen as more of a shock to the National Security Bureau (NSB), which is responsible for the security of government leaders, than to the defense ministry. The bureau declined yesterday to comment on the shooting, leaving it up to the Presidential Office to comment.
But the Presidential Office did not touch upon security issues in its explanation of the attack.
The shooting is sure to raise concerns about the security guards that the bureau provides for the president and vice president as well as security measures for the two leaders.
A marine corps master sergeant, who declined to be identified, said the bodyguards of the president and vice president were not as good as they are supposed to be. The bodyguards are largely military officers, with the rest recruited from the police.
"They are not alert enough to emergency situations. With a small team of special operations forces, I could easily neutralize all these bodyguards," the sergeant said.
"The National Security Bureau should be more careful in its selection of bodyguards for the president or vice president," he said.
An army officer voiced similar concerns.
"It is incredible that the president and vice president were shot at the same time without their bodyguards discovering any un-usual signs or suspect elements," the officer said.
"Judging from evidence available from television footage and accounts of the incident by the Presidential Office, the bullets were fired from a handgun at close range," he said.
"One of the bullets penetrated through the window of the jeep which carried Chen and Lu. It was believed to be the one that hit Chen's stomach," he said.
"A man who could approach the president and fire a gun at him without being discovered might be using a modified gun which did not look like a gun at all. Or he could have opened fire from inside his pocket," the officer said.
"Whatever the situation might be, the bodyguards and security network surrounding the president and vice president have very serious problems, which should be identified and addressed as soon as possible," he said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS