President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has instructed the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to carefully monitor the health of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the ministry will arrange a mental health checkup during Chen’s next hospital visit, if he agrees, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Amid concerns about Chen’s health and calls on Ma to order his release on medical parole, Presidential Office Secretary-General Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) said yesterday that the weekly meeting between the Presidential Office, top Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Monday addressed the issue as Wang presented Chen’s medical reports, and that the ministry would arrange another medical checkup for Chen soon.
“Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) gave the former president’s medical reports to the ministry and asked the ministry to handle the issue immediately. The ministry will arrange another medical checkup for Chen and include an examination of his mental health if he asked for one,” Tseng said.
The former president is serving a 17-and-a-half year prison term for corruption. He has complained about physical ailments, including chest pains.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) recently cited Chen’s medical assessment report and said that the former president had developed post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and had reportedly attempted suicide at least three times as a result.
Hsu presented the medical assessment report to Wang during a meeting earlier this month and Wang brought the issue up on Monday during the weekly meeting of top officials at the Presidential Office.
Following the meeting, Ma instructed Tseng to contact Hsu and asked the ministry to handle Chen Shui-bian’s medical condition carefully.
Tseng said that Sean Chen gave the former president’s medical assessment reports to Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), and that a hospital visit would be arranged for the former president soon.
Taipei Prison has dismissed Hsu’s concerns and said it has paid close attention to Chen Shui-bian’s health.
It had previously arranged for the former president to undergo checkups at Taoyuan General Hospital and Chang Gung Hospital’s branch in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Linkou District (林口), saying his ailments could be controlled by taking medicine and having follow-up appointments.
Tseng Yung-chuan said the ministry would assess the situation and decide which hospital it would send Chen to for a checkup.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods