Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) yesterday filed a defamation suit against Next Magazine editor-in-chief Pei Wei (裴偉), senior reporter Hsieh Zhong-liang (謝忠良) and reporter Wen Huei-min (溫惠敏) after the magazine accused him of accepting bribes from a parking lot management company.
“I don’t know what to say because it is impossible to explain something that never happened,” Chou told a press conference yesterday.
Chou’s chief of staff Mai An-huai (麥安懷) and lawyers Chou Kuo-dai (周國代) and Lee Cheng-chi (李承志) were also present. Chou is seeking NT$50 million (US$1.6 million) in compensation, while Mai is demanding NT$30 million.
RESPONSE
The lawsuit came in response to a report in the magazine’s latest edition that said Parkimo Co (百清), a firm that manages parking lots in Banciao, Taipei City, allegedly offered more than NT$10 million to the Taipei County Government, two Mercedes-Benz vehicles to Mai and a Honda minivan for Chou’s official use in return for favorable treatment in its bid to manage Taipei County’s public parking lots.
The report said that prosecutors had launched an investigation into the case.
Chou said that three members of the company were under investigation because the company had broken a contract with the Taipei County Government last month.
GOVERNMENT BID
He said his car was purchased via a government bid, which could be proven if necessary.
“The report reported that there were two Mercedes-Benz vehicles. What are their plate numbers? Make public the plate numbers so we can prove our innocence,” Chou said.
Mai said he did buy a Mercedes six or seven years ago, but sold the car after Chou became commissioner in 2005.
“I sold the Mercedes because Chou asked me to,” Mai said.
“I will resign immediately if the magazine’s accusations turn out to be true,” he said.
Next Magazine is famous for its aggressive reporters and bold reporting style, which has embroiled the company in a number of controversies.
Next has also been involved in several libel cases, the most significant of which involved a charitable organization in China called Project Hope.
Next claimed that Project Hope had misappropriated millions of yuan, but after a suit was filed, the Hong Kong high court found it guilty of defamation and awarded the plaintiff US$500,000.
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