The KMT may soon file a lawsuit against independent presidential candidate James Soong (
Huang gave Soong a 24-hour deadline by which time he had to clarify the origin of funds remitted during the past several years from the KMT "secretary-general's special account" -- opened under Soong's name -- to the accounts of Soong's son and his sister-in-law.
Huang said Soong has never given an adequate explanation of either the origin or the final destination of those funds.
Also yesterday, Soong's financial advisor, his sister-in-law Chen Pi-yun (陳碧雲), appeared in a morning interview on UFO Radio, joined by New Party legislator Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大) -- who has headed a privately-based investigation into the allegations of financial misdeeds against Soong and lawyer Tsai Yu-ling (蔡玉玲), a member of Hsieh's investigation team.
In response to accusations that Soong had remitted between US$4 million to US$6 million overseas to make investments there, Chen said the overseas remittances were used for "scholarships."
She said the remittances had been described as "family support expenses" (
Chen also guaranteed that neither she, Soong, nor his wife held any investments in the US.
When asked why she had not reported the campaign subsidies Soong received from the Central Election Committee after the Taiwan province gubernatorial election in 1994 to tax authorities, Chen said she had "never heard of anyone reporting such funds [as income]."
Hsieh, meanwhile, handed her team's report to finance ministry officials yesterday morning, but the officials declined to give her their ministry's report on its own investigation, as Hsieh had requested.
Minister of Finance Paul Chiu (
Hsieh's team and the finance ministry disagree over several important aspects of the Soong affair, including the total amount of money remitted.
Chen and Hsieh's team maintain that the total was US$4.09 million, while the finance ministry said it was US$6.36 million.
The ministry sent its report to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office on Dec. 31. Yesterday, chief prosecutor Hung Tai-wen (洪泰文) said he planned to summon ministry officials to clarify some points in the report.
For its part, the ministry plans to summon Soong's donors for questioning soon to investigate possible tax evasion, according to ministry officials. Both the donors and recipients of contributions dating back to 1992 will be summoned, the officials said.
Apart from the finance ministry and the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, the Control Yuan and the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau are also conducting probes into Soong's financial affairs.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
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