Former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso will sue the group of People First Party (PFP) law-makers who alleged she received a US$1 million "settlement" from President Chen Shui-bian (
According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report, Moscoso said she was "going to put a halt to this campaign of calumnies."
Moscoso's statement on Thursday was in response to allegations made by PFP caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄), Legislator Tsai Chung-han (蔡中涵) and UFO Radio chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), who said Chen had presented a check of US$1 million to her as a birthday gift and as a "settlement fee" for Chen's "improper dealings," apparently referring to sexual harassment.
"This could be the first of a series of lawsuits to be filed against those who seek to stain my reputation, here in Panama or abroad," Moscoso was quoted as saying in the AFP report.
Moscoso's presidency ended last month after an election loss to President Martin Torrijos in May.
Earlier on Thursday, Chen instructed lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to sue the three men. Instead of seeking financial compensation if the court finds for him, Chen has asked that the verdict be published and that the three apologize in five Chinese-language newspapers over three consecutive days.
Liu fired back yesterday by saying that Panamanian Prosecutor General Jose Antonio Sosa had announced an investigation into whether a NT$45 million donation to the Mar del Sur Foundation set up by Moscoso was mishandled. He said Moscoso's decision to sue him and his colleagues might have been motivated by the need to "protect herself," though he did not elaborate on this.
Liu also said there was a hint of Taiwanese-style politicking in Moscoso's threat to commence legal action.
"Since Chen has also filed suit against me, I just wonder if the Presidential Office is joining hands with outsiders to fight against Taiwanese [Taiwanren]?" Liu said at a news conference held yesterday afternoon.
Liu also speculated that Moscoso might use funds from the Mar del Sur Foundation for the lawsuit.
If so, he asked, "would there end up being a scenario in which Taiwanese taxpayers' money was being used to fight against a Taiwanese?"
Liu is a Mainlander.
In an unusual development, some of Liu's colleagues from the pan-blue alliance, including KMT Legislator Sun Kuo-hua (
At a separate news conference held earlier yesterday morning, Liu had acknowledged "there were flaws in [his Wednesday] remarks" and offered an apology, but only for using vulgar language.
He insisted however that he had not erred in pursuing issues concerning diplomatic donations and said that it was necessary to continue "hunting for the truth" of the matter.
In contrast to Liu's offer of an apology, Jaw yesterday said that he would sue Chen if the president did not clarify within three days whom he was referring to when he cited a poem verse on Thursday which read, "many devils are there where men are sparse" (
Chen was apparently describing his feelings about the pending lawsuit and the allegations made against him.
"If Chen does not make a clarification in three days, I will take legal action against him because I think the `devil' he was referring to was me," he said.
Presidential Office spokesman Chen Wen-tsung (
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has