A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker yesterday called on his People First Party (PFP) colleagues to respect the judicial independence of the probe into a journalist who took confidential notes from a prosecutors' office.
"The PFP should stay away from the investigation," Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (
The Taipei Prosecutors Office launched the probe after Kao Nien-yi (
Lee gave testimony to prosecutors on PFP Chairman James Soong's alleged embezzlement of property belonging to the Chinese Nationalist Party, of which Soong used to be secretary general
Tsai said that it was improper for the PFP to make further comment on the reporter's case because prosecutors had initiated a special investigation.
"PFP members should realize that prosecutors enjoy an independent right to investigate a legal case," Tsai said. "Any further comment by the PFP caucus could be in violation of judicial powers."
Earlier, PFP lawmakers challenged the prosecutors' position on the investigation.
PFP members said that the discussion on the legitimacy of Kao's behavior had fudged the embezzlement issue, while adding that the Ministry of Justice should shoulder the responsibility for blurring the Chung Hsing dispute.
"The focus of the issue has been moved to the reporter's acts rather than the truth of the contents of the note," PFP whip Chou Hsi-wei (
"The ministry is responsible for losing the focus of the discussion, while its indifference toward the issue led it to be blind to the investigation's faults," Chou said. "The party believes that political figures and legislators must stop their involvement in the developing controversy as of now."
But the DPP's Tsai argued that Soong should set an example to prevent politics from interfering with legal proceedings.
"Soong neither explained to Control Yuan members nor the public about the NT$380 million he was found to have remitted to US from 1995 to 1998, as well as another outlay of NT$29 million that was stashed in various accounts at the Bank of Taiwan by Soong and remitted to anonymous accounts overseas in 1998," Tsai said.
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