People First Party Chairman James Soong's (
Soong's father, Lieutenant-General Soong Ta (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Soong's mother, Hu Yao-jung (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
TSU caucus whip Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) brought the media to the front of the unit yesterday, and said that according to the Act for Handling the Army's Family Affairs (國軍軍眷業務處理辦法), which was abolished in 2002, a government housing unit assigned to a military officer had to be returned to the government after the official passed away, unless the official's parents or underage children were still living in the unit at the time.
"The act has been abolished, but Soong's unit should have been dealt with by the act long before the act was abolished. The Soong children became adults long ago, and there was no reason for Hu's continuous occupation," Chen said.
LEGAL RESIDENCE
The MND's deputy director of the Army Family Affairs Bureau, Lai Wen-chen (
"After General Soong passed away, his wife Hu Yao-jung completed the necessary procedures -- as regulated in the Statue for the Reconstruction of the Weathered Army Communities (
The ministry also issued a statement saying that Hu had agreed to move from the unit to a new unit on Chienkang Road (
However, Chen responded by saying the statute was only passed in 1996, and Soong's case should have been dealt with long ago in accordance with the act, instead of the statute, since General Soong passed away in 1975.
Chen also said that Soong's case was not unique, and the the MND currently has six outstanding lawsuits on similar cases involving military officers' families.
MUDSLINGING
People First Party spokesman Hwang Yih-jiau (
"Chairman Soong will take legal action against Chen when necessary," Hwang said.
Soong is currently traveling in Europe and will return next month.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods