Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) resigned yesterday amid mounting speculation that allegations of influence peddling against Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) were politically motivated.
Following a statement on his Facebook page, Lo told a press conference about his decision, which he said centers on the “nature” of the allegations by the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office against “a speaker engaging in influence peddling in a judicial case.”
The SID on Friday last week accused Wang of illegally lobbying then-minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) on behalf of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) by urging the pair to stop a prosecutor from appealing Ker’s not-guilty verdict in a breach of trust case.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“Think about this: If you were engaged in a lawsuit against Ker and you ended up losing the case because Ker had lobbied Wang to exert his influence on the judiciary to rule in his favor, would you be able accept this?” Lo said.
Lo said the influence-peddling case was just one of many reasons behind his resignation, which included personal reasons and his family.
“The influence-peddling case and how it has evolved have had a huge impact on me. I have stated on Facebook what I thought about the case. After resigning, I can say whatever I want to say,” Lo said.
Lo said that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had thought hard of the potential political fallout before he revealed the content of the SID’s probe, and that Ma had insisted on “fighting for his beliefs” so that the judicial system would be free of political interference.
“The involvement of a legislative speaker in influence peddling — is it difficult to distinguish between what is right and wrong in this case?” Lo asked.
He said that Wang’s alleged misconduct had overstepped the red line and violated the Constitution.
“Can we be indifferent?” he asked.
Lo refused to comment on the SID’s handling of the case, including questions about due process and the legitimacy of wiretapping Ker’s telephone, disclosure of the wiretaps transcripts and leaking the information to Ma while the investigation was still ongoing.
Rumored to be interested in running for mayor of Keelung, Lo said he wold not throw his hat into the ring.
His position will be filled in two weeks, Lo said.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
China used fake LinkedIn profiles to harvest sensitive data from NATO and EU institutions by soliciting information from staff, a European security source said on Friday. The operation, allegedly orchestrated by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, targeted dozens of employees at the military alliance or EU organizations through fictitious accounts, the source said, confirming reports in French and Belgian media. Posing as recruiters on the online professional networking platform, Chinese spies would initially request paid reports before later soliciting non-public or even classified information. One particularly active fake profile used the name “Kevin Zhang,” claiming to be the head
RSS