The DPP yesterday recommended revoking the party membership of Legislator Lin Chin-hsing (
Lin is among the 40 politicians -- 34 of whom are Kaohsiung City councilors -- who were charged on Monday in a scandal that has rocked the nation.
The party's Central Executive Committee yesterday reached an agreement to expel Lin. But the decision won't be finalized until the end of the month at the party's Central Review Committee.
Lin was indicted as an accomplice because he and his ex-wife, City Councilor Chang Wen-hsiu (章玟琇), had accepted a NT$5 million bribe from Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Chu An-hsiung (
Prosecutors want Lin to serve one year in prison.
The legislator claimed he was innocent on Monday. He told party officials that although he had accompanied his ex-wife to meet with Wang, he "was not involved in the transaction."
Lin said earlier yesterday that he may consider withdrawing from the party on his own accord.
After the party's meeting yesterday, officials endorsed the prosecutors' indictment on the grounds the decision would issue a warning and curb the corruption in elections.
While asserting the party's position against vote-buying and black gold politics, DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Chin-yung (
The city council kicked off as scheduled on April 1, despite the fact that 34 out of the 44 city councilors were involved in the scandal and in the face of a racous protest outside the chamber from citizens who wanted the accused councilors to step down.
The most effective way to drive these officials out of office is to revise the Law on Local Government Systems (
The DPP yesterday called for cross-party cooperation to push for the amendment of the laws, while urging the KMT to stop hindering the amendment with technical measures.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
RSS