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.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that