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
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS