Business tycoon and KMT legislator Gary Wang (
It had previously been widely reported that, following his disqualification to run for the KMT because of pending fraud charges, Wang was to be a key member of a new political group that plans to play a high-profile role in the year-end legislative elections.
In a written statement, the three-term legislator admitted that a lot of his friends, including those from the political arena, have tried to persuade him to seek re-election.
"However, these contacts were limited to private chats and exchanges of opinion. I have not asked for any position or made any commitment, and I have not made any decision to run in the elections," Wang said.
Wang said recent speculation concerning his political career planning have been troubling him, which prompted him to make the public announcement yesterday.
"I won't run in any geographic legislative constituency at year end, and I decline, with thanks, arrangements offered from any sides to nominate me as a legislator at large," Wang said.
"I will invest more time and effort in -- and concentrate myself on -- running the media business, and do the best I can to do my part in the bid to revive Taiwan's commercial and industrial sectors," he added.
Wang is chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of the ROC (中華民國全國商業總會) and vice chairman of the Rebar Group (力霸東森企業集團), a major investor in the real estate, cable TV and fixed-line telecommunication industries.
Wang, currently a legislator at-large representing the KMT, has been disqualified by the party from nomination as an at-large legislator for the next term, because of his alleged involvement in a series of land fraud deals concerning the state-run Taiwan Development and Trust Corp (TDTC,
Wang was indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office in January over the case.
Over the past few months, there have been reports claiming Wang was organizing a new political group together with some sitting independent lawmakers. It was also rumored that Wang was going to be nominated for an at-large seat representing the group because of his financial backing of the group.
The at-large seats are allocated to political parties or groups that are able to garner at least 5 percent of the vote in the legislative elections. Their vote shares decide how many at-large seats they qualify for.
The political group in question is expected to be founded in July and may be named the "Taiwan Justice Alliance," with members including Tsai Hau (蔡豪), Lo Fu-chu (羅福助), Chen Chin-ting (陳進丁) and Wu Tze-yuan (伍澤元). Chen yesterday said Wang's decision to quit will not affect their plan to form the group.
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