Pan-green Taipei City councilors yesterday filed a lawsuit against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Independent Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (
Chien alleged that Ma helped Taipei Fubon Bank amass more than NT$100 billion (US$3.2 billion) in illegal profits when it approved the merger of the privately owned Fubon Bank (
She said when the two banks were merged, the new entity acquired Taipei Bank's 44 branches, including land and property, based on their original value dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.
She said Ma might have violated the law because he did not order a reassessment of the value of Taipei Bank's real estate before selling it to the new bank.
She added that Taipei Bank's profit-generating capability was 2.75 times that of Fubon Bank, but the share swap ratio was set at a low 1.42 shares of Fubon Bank for each share of Taipei Bank.
Chien also alleged that on Nov. 30, 2006, Ma ordered the city government to deposit all of the city treasury's assets in Taipei Fubon Bank without holding a public bid.
She said the city council rejected a city government proposal to deposit the city's assets in Taipei Fubon Bank in July 2005, and the council thought Ma would hold a public tender to decide which bank would take the city's assets.
By ordering the treasury to put the funds in Taipei Fubon Bank, Ma might have violated the Government Procurement Law and illegally benefited the bank, she said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai