PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday joined the battle being fought between his party and the TSU over secret accounts at the National Security Bureau (NSB), saying national security should not be used to cover up criminal acts.
The TSU has accused Soong of being the mastermind behind the disclosure of expenditure records of the secret NSB accounts to undermine the position of former president Lee Teng-hui (
TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (
Huang said similar secret funds had existed during the presidencies of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), and that it was only natural that Lee continued to use the money on security and foreign affairs.
Over the past few days, the TSU has attacked PFP plans to further investigate the case, alleging that Soong was behind the leak of confidential files to Next magazine.
The TSU said the PFP was taking revenge on Lee for his alleged role in exposing the Chung Hsing Bills Finance case (興票案), in which Soong was alleged to have embezzled KMT funds when he was the party's secretary-general.
Breaking his silence yesterday, Soong said the PFP's efforts to track down the secret accounts were consistent with the party's constitutionally mandated responsibility as an opposition party to monitor the government to prevent corruption.
"It is totally preposterous that [the TSU] should create such a conspiracy theory to try to divert attention from the subject," Soong said.
Soong agreed that every country, including Taiwan, has to use secret diplomacy in some cases to survive, but he insisted that any such policy must be made in the national interests and under the supervision of the legislature.
Soong said the establishment of a sound intelligence system was crucial to national security and the safety of the nation's secret agents.
Also yesterday, PFP lawmaker Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) proposed canceling the privileges enjoyed by retired heads of state if they have been impeached during their terms of office or after they step down.
Under the present law, only presidents and vice presidents who are recalled and dismissed from office for treason or sedition are denied retirement privileges.
TSU lawmaker Chen Chien-ming (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching