South Korean prosecutors said they sought court approval yesterday to arrest five more former executives of Daewoo Group, accusing the bankrupt conglomerate of operating a multi-billion-dollar slush fund through its office in London.
Prosecutors are also trying to track down 65-year-old Daewoo Group founder Kim Woo-choong, believed to be hiding overseas, to persuade him to return and face charges of using the illicit fund for bribery and other purposes during Daewoo's reckless expansion in the 1980s and 1990s.
It narrowly escaped becoming the nation's largest bankruptcy in 1999 when domestic creditors agreed to delay repayment of its short-term debt and extend new loans. At the time, the group said its debt totaled only US$36 billion at home and US$9.94 billion abroad.
According to prosecutors, Dae-woo Corp, Daewoo's flagship trading arm, secretly borrowed US$7.5 billion in foreign-exchange loans through its London office and stashed much of the money in a slush fund.
Yesterday, they asked a Seoul district criminal court to issue warrants to arrest three former executives of Daewoo Corp, a former president of Daewoo Motor Co and a former president of Daewoo Heavy Industries Co on charges of fraud and violation of foreign exchange laws.
On Thursday, the court allowed prosecutors to arrest three former Daewoo executives on charges of falsifying books to exaggerate their companies' net worth in order to take out a combined US$1.2 billion in badly needed bank loans.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)