What is it that's preventing your reporters from giving us a deeper story on Gary Wang (王令麟), the KMT legislator and head of Eastern Multimedia (東森多媒體), who is being held on suspicion of rigging a land deal? This is surely the political/corruption case to beat them all and will define the near-term future of politics and business in Taiwan if it is pushed to its logical conclusion.
Wang is much more than a three-term legislator and head of one of the island's biggest cable TV companies. What is not mentioned in your reports is, perhaps most importantly, that he is the son of Wang You-tseng (王又曾), patriarch of the Rebar Group (力霸集團) of companies and a member of the KMT central standing committee. The senior Wang is about as high as you can go in the KMT's business/political hierarchy and, until the May 31 election, was widely acknowledged as being more powerful than a Cabinet minister, or perhaps even the premier.
Who can forget the image a few years ago of he and Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), the KMT's other grandaddy of industry, being asked to shake hands in front of the cameras to resolve the latest skirmish in Taiwan's perennial cable TV war by the party's secretary-general, after the GIO Director General had surrendered any pretense about who really ran the government.
More to the point, under the previous government it would have been unthinkable for prosecutors to go after Wang's son. That they now feel emboldened by the new president's desire to clean up corruption in Taiwan is hardly surprising, however. What is going to be really interesting to see is whether they are able to take this one all the way.
When President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was touring Taiwan's diplomatic allies recently, anyone who recalls that famous scene from the cable TV war could not have failed to notice the gray-haired business tycoon following close on the president's heels.
Anthony Lawrance
Taipei, Taiwan
Real victims of the drug war
The article "Europe losing war on drugs, US agency warns" (Sept. 7, page 9) might almost have been amusing, were it not for the millions of people whose lives have been ruined -- not by drugs themselves, but by the costly, futile, and ultimately destructive attempts of most governments to prevent the sale and use of certain mind-altering substances.
The article consisted mostly of hyperbolic quotes from a report by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the USA, a country which now boasts the highest percentage of jailed citizens in the world.
Over half of these inmates are non-violent drug offenders. Normal, hardworking, "respectable" folks who just happened to get caught with a bag of weed.
A college student with a promising future (who also enjoys getting high once in a while) now finds himself in jail, his family bankrupted by the legal fees spent trying to keep him free.
A mother is jailed because she borrows a friend's car, not knowing there's a "stash" in the glove compartment. Her children become wards of the state and are sent to a foster home.
An AIDS patient uses medical marijuana to fight the nausea induced by the "cocktail" of drugs prescribed by his doctors (if you can't keep the medicine "down" long enough to absorb it, it does no good). The DEA prosecutes him and he dies in his sleep, choking on vomit.
A child is condemned to life in a wheelchair because she is caught in the crossfire of a "turf" war between rival drug-dealing gangs -- gangs which would not even be involved with the drug trade if it were legal and well regulated.
A woman is raped because her attacker had to be paroled early, in order to make room in an over-stuffed prison for the aforementioned college student.
These are the real victims of the "War On Drugs."
Meanwhile, the thugs and kingpins who actually make money on the illegal drug trade laugh at our stupidity. They don't want drugs to be legalized, because then their huge profits would dry up and they'd have to actually work for a living -- perhaps growing coffee beans instead of coca.
It would be nice to see this hardline viewpoint balance out with an article representing the fast-growing segment of the population who believe legalization, regulation, and education are the most effective strategies for curbing the ills associated with drug abuse.
I respectfully suggest the following Web sites for further study of this critically important issue:
John Diedrichs
Taipei, Taiwan
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
The Legislative Yuan on Friday held another cross-party caucus negotiation on a special act for bolstering national defense that the Executive Yuan had proposed last year. The party caucuses failed to reach a consensus on several key provisions, so the next session is scheduled for today, where many believe substantial progress would finally be made. The plan for an eight-year NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.59 billion) special defense budget was first proposed by the Cabinet in November last year, but the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers have continuously blocked it from being listed on the agenda for
On Tuesday last week, the Presidential Office announced, less than 24 hours before he was scheduled to depart, that President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned official trip to Eswatini, Taiwan’s sole diplomatic ally in Africa, had been delayed. It said that the three island nations of Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar had, without prior notice, revoked the charter plane’s overflight permits following “intense pressure” from China. Lai, in his capacity as the Republic of China’s (ROC) president, was to attend the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession. King Mswati visited Taiwan to attend Lai’s inauguration in 2024. This is the first
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