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 (
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to