Vice President Annette Lu (
According to a statement issued by the vice president's office last night, Lu believes that the second verdict by the Taiwan High Court had clarified the fact that Lu did not spread a rumor that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was having an affair with one of his female aides.
The release said that Lu was not 100 percent satisfied with the decision by the court that changed her original request to ask the magazine to publish a clarification with an apology in Taiwan's 32 major newspapers and radio and TV stations. The second verdict required the convicted Journalist employees to print apologies in only four newspapers.
"Though the decision was not satisfactory, my name shall be cleared by the publication in the four newspapers anyway. As a result, I decided not to appeal," Lu said.
The Taiwan High Court upheld the verdict of a lower court that The Journalist magazine did not libel Lu when it reported that she had called its editor-in-chief to spread a rumor of an affair involving Chen on Dec. 13, 2001. But it ordered the publication and five of its personnel to bear the costs of publishing a correction.
The magazine said that it would appeal anyway.
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
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