Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday rejected media reports alleging that accusations of corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) are part of his campaign strategy, dismissing the charges as fiction.
The Chinese-language China Times newspaper yesterday reported that, prior to deciding to run in the mayoral election, Ko thought that his rival might question his personal finances, so he thoroughly checked all his bank records, making sure that there was nothing questionable.
The newspaper said that Ko’s original plan was not to respond to any initial attacks until KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) entered the fray, when Ko would then make public all the bank statements and then question Lien’s financial conditions in return.
The China Times story said that since Ko felt Lo’s attacks on him had already become intolerable, he decided to publicize details of three bank accounts related to him last week, despite strong opposition from his own campaign team.
The report also said that Ko regretted not following the advice of the staff after publicizing all of the bank statements.
Ko yesterday acknowledged that he found Lo’s allegations intolerable and that most of the people in his campaign team were opposed to publicizing all bank statements, but he denied that it was part of his campaign strategy.
“I would sometimes feel that I’m reading fiction — science fiction — when I read newspapers nowadays, the stories are so well-written and full of imagination,” Ko said on the sidelines of a campaign event. “However, what we need the least in this country are rumors.”
Ko said that his campaign staff did oppose publicizing all the bank statements at once, because there are thousands of pieces of information in the statements.
“We could become the target of harsh attacks, if Lien’s campaign finds one or two pieces of data that look suspicious,” he said.
“However, I do not care, because I have nothing to hid,” he added. “My sister and I never put even a cent of money from public or shared accounts into our own pockets.”
Ko reiterated that he would welcome anyone authorized by Lien to come to his campaign office to check the bank statements and tax receipts, while also urging Lien to also make public all his bank accounts so that voters in Taipei could better evaluate both candidates.
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
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
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