Control Yuan Secretary-General Tu Shan-liang (杜善良) yesterday said that 170 suspicious contributions required further investigation to determine their legality.
But the legality of the contributions could not be investigated until new Control Yuan members were inaugurated, Tu said.
Although President Chen Shui-bian (
The tenure of the previous Control Yuan expired on Jan. 31.
Tu also said that probes into suspicious political contributions have encountered three difficulties -- insufficient donor awareness of the Political Contributions Law (
The Control Yuan's secretariat has come up with a package of proposals for revising the contributions law in future, Tu said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) received NT$62.82 million (US$2 million) in political contributions ahead of last year's legislative elections, making him the top recipient, a Control Yuan report said.
Candidates for last December's legislative elections had to apply to the Control Yuan, the nation's supreme watchdog body, to open special accounts for receiving political donations prior to the poll.
A Control Yuan report released yesterday said that 345 candidates were eligible to open the special accounts, accounting for 89 percent of all candidates.
He was followed by Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lo Chih-ming (
Other top 10 recipients included DPP Legislator Julian Kuo (
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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