Law enforcement authorities yesterday defended their handling of a financial scandal after being called to account in the legislature.
Officials from the National Security Bureau (NSB) yesterday said that they did not know the whereabouts of fugitive Rebar Group founder Wang You-theng (
NSB Deputy Director Yang Kuo-chiang (楊國強) told the legislature's Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday morning that his bureau was unaware of the whereabouts of Wang, chairman of Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團), because it was not its job to keep track of white-collar criminals.
Deputy Director of MJIB Wu Ying (
The Financial Supervisory Commission informed them on Nov. 15 and Nov. 23 last year of two more companies belonging to the group that they suspected of infringements.
As the operations of the Rebar Group were quite complicated, Wu said that his organization had needed more time to obtain a better understanding of the matter.
They could not prohibit Wang from leaving the country even if they had known his intention because they did not have any reason to do so. Apart from Wang, Wu said that the bureau had banned 48 people believed to be involved in the Rebar scandal from leaving the country since Jan. 6.
Visibly unhappy with the Investigation Bureau's handling of the matter, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) called Wu "incompetent," and said that the media could have done a better job of locating Wang.
"While you know nothing about where Wang is, you manage to keep good track of political leaders' activities," Lai said.
Lai questioned the NSB over its alleged recruitment of legislative assistants and reporters to collect intelligence for them and the tapping of politicians' phones. Yang, however, dismissed Lai's allegations, saying that the bureau had maintained administrative neutrality since it was institutionalized in 1994.
"I hereby solemnly swear that we don't do such things," he said. "If we did, the bureau chief and those involved would step down to shoulder responsibility."
Yang said that they conduct surveillance only on certain people and they do it in accordance with the law.
In other words, they must obtain the approval of the Supreme Court Prosecutor General's Office before engaging in such activity, he said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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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