A woman who was named in a sex scandal that forced then-Presidential Office secretary-general John Chang (章孝嚴) to resign from his post in disgrace formally hit back at her accusers yesterday, launching a lawsuit against the China Times Express.
After attending the first court hearing yesterday in a defamation lawsuit she brought against the newspaper, Wang Hsiao-chan (王筱蟬) reiterated that she had never engaged in any sort of extramarital relationship with Chang.
Chang resigned from his post on Dec. 22 last year, a day after the Chinese-language evening newspaper Power News (
Chang admitted that due to "personal factors," he was no longer able to properly fulfill his duties, and that he had therefore requested permission to leave office as soon as possible.
Wang said her colleagues will testify that she was attending a meeting at her company on Nov. 10, when Chang allegedly signed a note in a local five-star hotel promising to divorce his wife.
The note was the prime evidence used by the press in breaking the story.
Wang said she had named the China Times Express in her lawsuit because of an article that appeared in its Dec. 29 edition, in which a photograph of the note in question appeared, with her name on it.
The name had been partially obscured, but the newspaper claimed it had used a computer algorithm to recreate her name and back up its story.
Wang added she had enough evidence to disprove claims of her alleged trysts with Chang, as has been reported in the media.
A sea warning for Typhoon Champi could be issued as early as Wednesday night, possibly followed by a land warning on Thursday night or Friday, as the storm approaches Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. The typhoon is expected to have its greatest impact on Taiwan on Friday and Saturday, bringing heavy rain to central and northern Taiwan and to Yilan and Hualien counties in the east, CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said. As of 2pm yesterday, Champi was about 2,470km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving westnorthwest at 20kph. It had maximum sustained winds of 191kph and a
The government is monitoring online rumors that a pneumonic plague outbreak has spread from Russia into China, and it might enhance quarantine measures, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During a legislative meeting, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that rumors had circulated that the disease had spread across several Chinese provinces. He asked Cho whether the government was prepared to prevent the disease spreading to Taiwan, given the volume of traffic between the two sides, and how concerned the government was about the alleged outbreak. The Ministry of Health and Welfare had implemented border quarantine measures after briefing the Executive
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RIGHT TO DIPLOMACY: Under the UN Charter, every state has the right to conduct foreign policy free from external pressure, Belize said in a statement Belize and Paraguay on Monday condemned Beijing sanctions over their countries’ ties with Taiwan, saying China’s actions create unnecessary tensions. Earlier on Monday, Beijing announced sanctions against Paraguayan Minister of Information and Communication Technologies Gustavo Villate and Belizean Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca. The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it rejected the sanctions, writing on X that they created unnecessary friction. It added that it reaffirmed its support for Taiwan and its commitment to democratic values and principles. Villate told the Spanish-language Paraguayan daily ABC Color the sanctions were “predictable” and linked them to several cooperation projects between Taiwan and Paraguay. The projects
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