Speaking through a friend, former Hsinchu mayor Tsai Jen-chien (
Tsai, who had a romantic relationship with Chu for four years, was seen driving Kuo Yu-ling (
Cheng Kwai-yuan (
"The media churn out different stories each day as though they are leading the investigation," Cheng quoted Tsai as saying. "But truth will prevail. I hope to appear before prosecutors as soon as possible to clear my name once and for all."
Cheng briefed reporters after Tsai visited him at his campaign headquarters, where the two talked for an hour and a half. Cheng is seeking to retain his seat in elections next month.
Tsai did not comment directly yesterday but his friend Hsu Wen-ping (
But investigators said they have not decided when to question Tsai, or if such questioning will be necessary.
The former mayor expressed outrage at reports that painted him as a vindictive jilted lover who instructed Kuo to spy on Chu and tape her sex encounters to take vengeance on Chu's betrayal.
Through his former deputy, Lin Cheng-chieh (
Lin said it is not impossible for rival camps to engage in the practice to boost their campaign and that he had his car checked for bugs in before the Dec 1 elections.
Plagued by rumors about his romantic life, Tsai lost his mayoral post to the KMT challenger, Lin said.
Meanwhile, investigators said that more master VCD recordings Chu's private life are likely still in circulation, based on codified information in Kuo's notebook.
They said that Kuo is cunning and has been very uncooperative during the investigation.
She would not say what the entries in her notebook meant or where the video tapes are, investigators said.
Earlier, Kuo admitted to hiring a private detective agency in Hsinchu to install the hidden camera at Chu's Tamsui apartment, but insisted she did so at Chu's request. Prosecutors put her in detention Wednesday for fear that she may destroy evidence implicating her in the crime. She works as an instructor for a Buddhist sect and had been an good friend of Chu.
Several VCD manufacturers testified that Kuo approached them last summer, asking for NT$3.5 million in exchange for the right to reproduce the copy of Chu's sex encounter with a married man.
But they turned down the offer, casting doubt over the legality of the deal.
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