Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday filed a lawsuit against Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) for his comments implying the assassination attempt on the eve of the 2004 presidential election was staged.
“I suggested that former president Chen ask for NT$10 million [US$300,000] in compensation for the damage the minister’s remarks caused to the former president’s reputation,” former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇), an attorney, told reporters as he filed the suit on the former president’s behalf at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday morning.
Hsu said Chen Shui-bian would ask prosecutors in charge of the slander case to go to the original site of the incident to investigate.
Hsu said that although Chen Chao-min apologized for the remarks on Monday, the former president still chose to file the suit to defend his name.
During his first briefing to the legislature’s Diplomacy and National Defense Committee on May 19, Chen Chao-min said the wounds on former president Chen Shui-bian’s abdomen had not been caused by the shooting on Chinhua Street in Tainan City.
Chen Chao-min said his remarks were based on the investigation conducted by the 319 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee, of which he was a member.
The shooting occurred when Chen Shui-bian and former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) were campaigning in a jeep in Tainan City. The incident left both Chen Shui-bian and Lu with minor injuries.
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