Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (
"I took the initiative to report to the Control Yuan," Chien said, adding the move was aimed at clarifying details concerning the ministry's handling of the issue to the four-member investigation team at the government watchdog agency.
Chien's offer came while the investigation team was debating whether to summon the foreign minister to report on the controversial issue.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The minister said he explained the procedures surrounding the issuing of the notarization of power of attorney to Wang through the representative office in Geneva in July 2001 and the London office just last month.
The paper was to notarize the appointment of a lawyer to act on Wang's behalf when the court in Taiwan handles a libel lawsuit he filed against national policy adviser Hsieh Tsung-min (
The minister said he endeavored to help the Control Yuan team reconstruct the facts surrounding the issue, while clarifying related questions from the team.
The ministry has already handed a related report to an evaluation team under the Executive Yuan earlier this week before the minister approached the Control Yuan.
Chien said the ministry has handled the case in accordance with related laws and regulations, while reiterating that he hasn't maintained any friendship or long-term relationship with Wang.
Meanwhile, Chan Hsien-ching (詹憲卿) yesterday morning handed over his post as the director-general of the ministry's Bureau of Consular Affairs to Chan's successor Yang Sheng-chung (楊勝宗) after his resignation over the notarization issue.
Chan also accompanied Chien during the Control Yuan meeting.
The Control Yuan team has already summoned Chan twice since the Geneva office issued the paper to Wang in July 2001 as part of the investigation into the causes and procedures surrounding the issuance by the two representative offices.
The ministry announced last week that it decided to revoke the issuance claiming the move might put Taiwan's national interests in jeopardy, one day after officials claimed the issuance was legally justifiable.
Wang, a former arms dealer, has been wanted since September 2000 in connection with the death of navy Captain Yin Ching-feng (
Chan yesterday morning also apologized to the foreign minister after he stepped down from his post.
"A purely consular affair has triggered a political storm," he said.
Chan said he has no complaints about how he had been treated.
Chien said although the ministry deemed the handling of the issue as legally justifiable, the process has been less than ideal.
The Geneva office issued the paper after consulting the ministry by two telegrams and two telephone calls, while the London office issued the paper after an internal meeting without any prior consultation with Taipei, officials said.
Chien also said he understood the "pain" Chan has experienced after the issue prompted criticism from all sides.
Chan has insisted that even a fugitive is entitled to application for power of attorney.
Chan will serve as a senior adviser at the ministry, while his successor, before taking up the new post, was the head of the ministry's Foreign Service Institute.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,