Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), whose presidential nomination was rescinded by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Saturday, yesterday hired an attorney to sue online news outlet Storm Media for defamation over a report alleging that she had called for the extraordinary party congress at which she was replaced.
Storm Media on Thursday reported that former minister of transportation and communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) — an adviser to Hung’s campaign team — had been among the first group of people to be summoned by the Special Investigation Division (SID) on Wednesday over its probe of Hung’s ouster.
Yeh was the go-between between party headquarters — under the leadership of KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) — and the Hung camp, and conveyed messages and brokered meetings between the two sides, the report said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The report said that an Oct. 6 meeting between Chu and Hung — seen as the “final showdown” between the two — was brokered by Yeh.
At the meeting, Chu is said to have asked Hung to withdraw her presidential bid under her own initiative.
Hung reportedly refused to give up the campaign, saying she had been elected by the party’s due processes and was therefore the legitimate candidate.
“Hung insisted that it if she was to be replaced, it had to be done via the party’s mechanism, which mandated the calling of an extraordinary party congress, otherwise she feared she would be beset by legal problems,” the report said.
The piece also claimed that Hung had told her friends in tears that “the game is over” when she saw on Oct. 6 that even the Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) faction — the special military veteran branch of the KMT s — had sent out messages to their members calling on them to support Chu.
Hung’s office issued a news release on Thursday night rebutting the report, saying that Hung had from the beginning refused to accept any suggestion that would violate ethics and procedural justice.
“Hung was not able to prevent the calling of the congress nor the decision to replace her; distorting the facts and saying there was a ‘tacit agreement’ or that it was Hung who wanted the congress is intolerable,” the statement said.
The office accused Storm Media of “seriously damaging Hung’s political honesty and personal integrity, qualities that she values immensely.”
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
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.
RSS