Kaohsiung prosecutors are investigating former premier Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh has been in prosecutors' sights ever since the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) scandal came to light. Prosecutors have said that they are still investigating to determine whether Hsieh had any involvement in the scandal.
Chang Hsueh-ming (
A Japanese official from Taisei named Ryoji Kikawa has been detained, along with a man named Chen Chien-ting (
Chang Hsueh-ming said the Kaohsiung District Court rejected prosecutors' application to keep Chang chi-jung in custody, but released him on bail of NT$300,000.
Chang Chi-jung was the chair of the New Culture Foundation established by Hsieh in 1991, the prosecutor added.
The prosecutor said authorities were trying to discover where the bribe went and whether Hsieh was involved in the corruption because of his close ties to Chang Chi-jung.
Prosecutors discovered in June 2002 that Kikawa, Chen and Chang Chi-jung dined together at a restaurant in Taipei.
Also, two commissioners from a five-member committee that conducted six public bids for the Kaohsiung MRT construction project, as well as former director of Kaohsiung City's Bureau of Urban Development Wu Meng-te (
Three months later, the Japanese firm was awarded the largest of the six projects. Prosecutors said that the bids for the six projects were flawed and skewed in favor of the Japanese firm, because the firm won the NT$8 billion contract despite the fact that RSEA Engineering Co offered a bid that was NT$2.7 billion lower.
They said city officials had rigged the bidding so that any company that won two of the six auctions could not take part in the rest. They are also suspected of manipulating the bidding process by holding the auctions for smaller projects first.
When RSEA Engineering Co won the first two smaller bids, it was forced out of the game for the bigger auctions, prosecutors said.
Five people, including Wu and Chung, were indicted for corruption and breach of trust last November, along with former deputy secretary-general to the Presidential Office Chen Che-nan (
Meanwhile, Hsieh yesterday expressed his disapproval over comparisons between his relationship with Chang Chi-jung and President Chen Shui-bian's (
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