Heavy metal band Chthonic’s lead vocalist, Freddy Lim (林昶佐), also a founding member of the New Power Party (NPP), yesterday said that he planned to run in next year’s legislative election.
“I will compete for the legislative seat in Taipei’s Daan District (大安),” Lim told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview. “I decided to run in Daan simply because I was born and raised there, and my attachment to the neighborhood prompted me to do something for its residents.”
Lim has rejected the traditional bipolarization of the electorate into pan-blue and pan-green camps, saying that such polarization should no longer be considered effective, as Daan, like any other electoral district, is plural in nature.
“Daan is home to a heterogenous population, which includes people like me — a founding member of a minor party — and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s [KMT] Taipei mayoral candidate in last year’s elections Sean Lien (連勝文),” he said.
The rocker and long-time human rights activist would be pitted against incumbent Chiang Nai-hsin (蔣乃辛) of the KMT in the electoral district, which is traditionally considered a pan-blue stronghold.
Chiang was re-elected as the legislator for Daan in 2012 with 108,488 votes — 60.02 percent of the total votes cast in the district — overpowering his Democratic Progressive Party opponent Chao Shih-chiang (趙士強), who gained only 54,113 ballots, or 29.94 percent of the votes.
Lim’s announcement came shortly after two human rights lawyers from the NPP — Hu Po-yen (胡博硯) and Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) — announced their bids to enter the legislative elections for New Taipei City’s Zhonghe District (中和) and Hsinchu City last week.
The one-month-old NPP advocates a “normalized” national status for Taiwan, promotion of tax reform and improved social security measures, as well as reform to the much maligned Referendum Act (公民投票法).
Lim said that a more thorough statement on his candidacy would be made public tomorrow, likely accompanied by the announcement of the second wave of NPP candidates.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS