The Presidential Office yesterday tried to pre-empt news of the indictment of the first lady by holding an unscheduled press conference, claiming that prosecutors might be confused because the president couldn't reveal "secret" information related to the case.
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (
Cho made the remarks at an informal press conference he called at 11:40am yesterday.
Last-minute
As rumors started to spread around noon that prosecutors were preparing to wrap up their investigation into Chen's alleged embezzlement from the fund, Cho called a last-minute press conference, indicating that he may have been aware that the first lady would be indicted, even before prosecutors officially announced the indictment at 4pm.
As of press time, the Presidential Office had made no further comments about the indictment.
Cho said that the Presidential Office hoped that prosecutors would not misunderstand the president's situation, because he couldn't reveal "extremely confidential" things to them.
Cho restated Chen's previous statement that the president never stole from the state fund, saying that the entire fund was used for public affairs.
Chen last month survived a second parliamentary vote aimed at ousting him after the opposition failed to garner enough support.
The first recall motion to drive him out of office failed to pass the legislature in June.
According to a story by the Central News Agency, Cho said the main part of the state fund was spent on six major projects.
Expenditure
The president spent NT$35 million on "lobbying," NT$6.6 million on "supporting democratic activities," NT$2.5 million on "the nation's efforts to join the UN," NT$3.2 million on "supporting human-rights activities," and NT$10 million on "expanding the nation's international space."
The amount used for these six projects in 2003 and 2004 was NT$59.3million, Cho added.
When asked why he had called a press conference, Cho said he had no specific reason, but said that the Presidential Office had recently finished sorting out relevant receipts.
In a related development, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday called off a planned visit to Penghu and returned to Taipei.
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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: