Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) yesterday pressed charges against former Taiwan Pineapple Group (台鳳) vice chairman Huang Tsung-hung (黃宗宏) for libel and violation of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Law (總統副總統選罷法).
Lien accused Huang of spreading false information to the media and the public in an attempt to influence the election.
Huang wrote to the media two days ago, stating that he had twice provided political donations to the KMT. In his letter, Huang said that his donations were similar to the Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) bribery scandal.
The first donation was made in 1998, when Huang gave NT$100 million to the KMT as a political donation to prevent the stock price of Taiwan Pineapple from falling, according to Huang. The second donation was made in 1999, when former Pingtung County commissioner Wu Tse-yuan (
The donations were both linked to Lien, and Huang implied that Lien took a part of the donations.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday attacked Lien, saying former Chang Hwa Bank (
Lien pressed charges against Huang yesterday afternoon.
Chang Hwa Bank yesterday also denied that it lent money to Taiwan Pineapple after Huang paid Wu in 1999.
"We did approve Taiwan Pineapple's application for borrowing conditionally, but because Taiwan Pineapple could not have Citibank issue a letter of credit as required, the application was rejected," Chang Hwa vice president Hsieh Chao-nan (
KMT-PFP spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said yesterday that Huang and Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Chen Che-nan (陳哲男) were friends, but Chen Che-nan denied the charge.
The PFP caucus offered evidence in the afternoon to show that Huang and Chen were quite familiar with each other and had business relations.
The PFP produced a land registration document showing that Chen Che-nan's son, Chen Chi-yao (陳其堯), co-owned land in Pingtung County with the Dimen Arts Company (帝門藝術公司) and Huang's mother, and that they mortgaged the land together in exchange for a sum that was much greater than the land value.
"The arts company is actually an affiliate of Taiwan Pineapple, while Huang Yeh Tung-mei (黃葉冬梅) is Huang's mother. This shows the Chens and the Huangs knew each other well and even did business together," said Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), director of the PFP's Center for Policy Research.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
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