Lawmakers across party lines fell over themselves yesterday to comment on the departure of the president's son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), for the US on Friday -- continuing a recent trend to hold the private activities of the first family accountable to the legislature.
Noting the deterioration in the health of Chen's mother, first lady Wu Shu-jen (
Wu was in court on Friday morning for the "state affairs fund" case. She faces prosecution along with three presidential aides.
Chen's departure for the US might prove that KMT Legislator Chiu Yi's (邱毅) previous charges against him were correct, said Chou, referring to Chiu's earlier accusation that he was in the process of applying for US residence.
Chou said he suspected Chen went to the US to take care of follow-up procedures for his immigration application or to finalize an alleged real estate investment.
Chiu yesterday claimed Chen went to the US to dodge prosecutors' possible interrogation of him over alleged perjury in the "state affairs fund" case.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Kuo-ching (
Chen's wife Huang Jui-ching (
"Just like [Taichung Mayor Jason Hu's (
"We didn't have to come back so early because [there was still time] before I was due to have the baby, but the media made us come back in a hurry, so now he has to go back to take care of some things," Huang said.
The couple returned to Taiwan before the mayoral election on Dec. 9 amid wrangling between the pan-blue and pan-green camps on whether Huang would give birth to the president's grandchild in the US and make the president break his promise of not becoming a "grandfather of an American."
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS