The Legislative Yuan may open its investigation into allegations of improper lobbying that benefited Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) as soon as Friday, a member of the legislature’s Discipline Committee said yesterday.
However, Ker has not yet submitted documents related to the investigation, despite saying he would request the investigation himself, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said.
Lu said he expects Ker will keep his word, while also echoing Ker’s call for an open and transparent investigation that will allow the public to scrutinize any decision made by the DPP-dominated committee.
While the committee has the legal right to summon other people associated with the case, Lu said they were unlikely to question President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) or other top-ranking officials as the incident is seen as an internal affair of the legislature.
DPP Legislator Wu Yi-chen(吳宜臻), who is also on the committee, said the investigation would help clarify the circumstances surrounding the accusations of improper influence and “avoid defamation of lawmakers and accusations of abuse of power.”
Ker and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng(王金平) were implicated in allegations of use of improper influence by the Special Investigation Division (SID), which on Sept. 6 said the two lawmakers and Ministry of Justice officials used their positions to quash an appeal in a case that had been ruled in Ker’s favor.
According to the SID, Wang asked then-minister of justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌), head of the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office, to stop a prosecutor from appealing the case, in which Ker had been acquitted on charges of breach of trust.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS