Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Alex Fai (費鴻泰) yesterday confirmed the existence of a “PK team” that had reportedly been set up at the order of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to have KMT lawmakers help the party’s campaign efforts for the nine-in-one elections.
Fai, who questioned National Audit Office Auditor-General, Lin Ching-long (林慶隆), on Thursday on the MG149 account controversy that involves independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and threatened to shelve the agency’s budget, said yesterday that the PK team is not aimed at Ko.
“PK” stands for “player killer” and is an online gaming term for players who hunt rivals’ virtual characters to kill them, rather than collaborate with others to solve missions or try to defeat non-player characters in a game.
The term colloquially refers to any one-on-one showdown. Some sources said the term could refer to “penalty kick,” a soccer term.
“The PK team is established by the party caucus whenever there are major events or decisions to be made, and the team collects relevant information and reports it to the public. The mechanism has been in operation for years,” Fai said.
He said he sent out requests to KMT legislators more than a month ago seeking those interested in joining it.
“It is not targeting MG149, which is a small case,” Fai said, adding that the team is also for investigating recent issues such as the tainted cooking oil scandal and the Greater Kaohsiung gas pipeline explosions.
KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), who ignited the MG149 dispute early last month by accusing Ko of corruption via the shared MG149 bank account — a public account for National Taiwan University Hospital’s (NTUH) surgical intensive care unit — while serving as its head, said she was glad “that the party caucus has finally realized that MG149 is problematic.”
“At first, only I saw the problem, but now the fact is gradually unveiling itself. With the party caucus [involved], we can make Taipei residents understand that the MG149 account is truly flawed,” Lo said.
To Ko’s call for the KMT not to attack NTUH and national medical research for political purposes, Lo said, “You asked people not to attack it, but you are hurting the institution; do not drag NTUH into this.”
“I suggest that Ko does not hurt NTUH’s academic spirit through his illegal actions,” she added.
Lo said she would attend the legislature’s committee meeting next week, which requires NTUH superintendent Huang Guan-tarn (黃冠棠) to attend, to question him.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS