Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) never called President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) a "kickback president," he said yesterday.
Rather, his campaign staff wrote it instead.
Hwang Yih-jiau (
First lady Wu Shu-chen's (吳淑珍) defamation suit, filed yesterday, should not be allowed by prosecutors to proceed, Hwang said.
The draft campaign speech was faxed by the alliance to media organizations on Saturday. It described Chen as a "10 percent president" who levied kickbacks of 10 percent of the value on major infrastructure projects.
Hwang did not explain, however, how circulating a draft speech containing the allegation to media outlets was in any way less defamatory than voicing the allegations at a campaign rally.
Instead he claimed that the alliance was simply asking questions about the president's probity that were in the public interest and frequently asked by ordinary people.
Whether a president has been involved in any insider trading or accepted illegal political donations are issues that fall within the scope of public discussion as they are matters of concern to the public, Hwang said.
These are issues which all citizens can call into question and that the president should not shy away from addressing, he said.
The alliance also launched a new ad campaign yesterday attempting to rebut accusations from the DPP that the Lien family's immense wealth -- estimated at NT$20 billion -- was the result Lien family members using their political connections during the era of the martial law dictatorship to illegally both acquire land and change that land's designated use.
The ad branded the DPP's charges as "false accusations," "smearing," "shameless," "distorted" and "purely fictitious."
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS