Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jou's (馬英九) campaign team yesterday said his rival, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was behind recent attacks against Ma and his family in a local publication -- an allegation the Hsieh camp denied.
A new Chinese-language newspaper, Taiwan Weekly, currently on a trial run, accused Ma's wife, Chow Mei-ching (
"Hsieh's camp has been making false accusations since the campaign started, and it is using the publication to spread rumors," Ma spokesman Luo Chih-chiang (
Tsai Shih-ping (
The Ma campaign team's lawyer, Lai Su-ju (賴素如), also a KMT Taipei city councilor, lashed out at the publisher and spokesperson of the publication for dodging legal responsibility by using pseudonyms.
Lai said the Taipei City Police Department could not find the name of the publisher, listed as Tseng Tien-hsiang (
Wang held a press conference yesterday afternoon and rebutted KMT allegations that Hsieh's campaign team funded the publication.
She did not specify where funding for the newspaper came from.
Wang, a radio host, also denied she used a pseudonym to avoid legal responsibility, noting that she has been using the name for more than 10 years.
Hsieh's camp yesterday denied it had anything to do with the weekly newspaper and a DVD attacking Ma.
"We are not that stupid to do something like this, because it is bad for our campaign," DPP deputy secretary-general Tuan Yi-kang (
A report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday, which said it had seen the DVD, said it showed four people who appeared in four different segments of the 41-minute feature.
One of them was a lawyer who criticized the KMT's suppression of the founding of the Taiwan Party.
Another was Taiwan Party Chairman Huang Shui-mu (
The third person was a former investigator at the Investigation Bureau, who claimed that the KMT used judges and prosecutors as informants.
The fourth man did not show his face, but wore a brown paper bag marked "Mr. X." He chastised KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (
Tuan said he did not know about the DVD until he read the newspaper yesterday morning, adding that he was curious to know whether the DVD was produced for a political purpose or for personal profit.
Tuan urged those who possess a copy of the DVD to refrain from watching and distributing it.
At a different setting in Taipei City, Hsieh said he was against such a "dirty trick."
Additional reporting by staff writer
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
RSS