The Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday issued corrections for four stories about Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and apologized for the damage the false information in the articles did to his reputation.
The four reports appeared in the weekly last year and focused on Wu’s business connections and links to corruption scandals over the course of his political career.
Two of the stories said that Wu in 2012 introduced Ti Yung Co owner Chen Chi-hsiang (陳啟祥) to former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who was convicted last year of accepting NT$63 million (US$2.15 million) from Chen to help China Steel Corp secure a contract.
The magazine also linked Wu’s friends and family members to the bribery scandal, alleging that Wu’s wife, Tsai Ling-yi (蔡令怡), his sister-in-law, Hau Ying-chiao (郝英嬌), and family friend Wu Men-chung (吳門忠) were involved.
The Special Investigation Division last year dismissed claims of the vice president’s involvement in the incident when it concluded its investigation into the Lin case.
In the other two reports, the magazine said that during his tenure as premier, Wu Den-yih had instructed the Council of Agriculture to subsidize slaughterhouses in a move that enabled his sister-in-law to receive NT$15 million and played a major role in the planning of controversial centennial musical Dreamers (夢想家).
In the corrections, Next Magazine said the former premier was not involved in the decisionmaking process for the musical, that his sister-in-law’s family did not own a slaughterhouse and that the claims of his role in corruption scandals were false.
“The stories do not tally with the truth and damaged Vice President Wu Den-yih’s reputation. The magazine would like to apologize to the vice president and clarify the truth,” the statement said.
Wu yesterday described the corrections as “delayed justice” and said he would settle the lawsuits he filed against the publication following a formal apology.
“Everyone knows that I am a man who honors my reputation. I have been under a dark cloud over the past year, but today the sky has finally cleared up,” he said.
The vice president’s office also issued a statement defending Wu’s integrity as a public servant and a politician, while condemning the magazine for having made groundless accusations against Wu and his family since he assumed the post.
The magazine also apologized to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) for an incorrect report it published last year detailing Ker’s alleged connections with gang members.
Ker told a press conference yesterday that he accepted the apology, but also raised concerns about what he called the prevalent phenomenon of false reporting among the media and political pundits.
“If [reporters] can write whatever they want without regard for the truth, what is the difference between them and mafia members who fire guns at will?” Ker said.
The lawmaker, who filed a lawsuit against the magazine for defamation of character, said the publication had proposed a settlement immediately after the conclusion of the first investigative session at the prosecutors’ office and admitted its mistake.
The magazine reported in April last year that Ker had cooperated with the Celestial Alliance criminal organization to influence the party’s next chairmanship election, which is slated to be held in May.
Additional reporting by Chris Wang
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
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater