Statements issued by the Presidential Office seeking to clarify allegations that an inappropriate relationship exists between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) have not convinced the public, long-time political activist Shih Ming-te (施明德) said yesterday.
In a post on Facebook commenting on the statements the Presidential Office made on Friday, Shih urged the Democratic Progressive Party and its chairperson, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to “take the necessary political action” to address the situation.
Ridding the government of corruption would require the efforts of not only the prosecutorial system and anticorruption activists, but also of the DPP, Shih said, referring to media personality Clara Chou’s (周玉蔻) allegation that Ma accepted an off-the-books political donation from Ting Hsin.
Chou’s claim is now being probed by the Special Investigation Division of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.
With the revelation of the most recent cooking oil scandal — in which recycled waste oil and animal feed-grade oil was found in products produced by Ting Hsin subsidiaries — Ma’s relationship with the food conglomerate was called into question as it became evident that some of the Ting Hsing executives who are part of the Wei (魏) family that owns the group had emerged relatively unscathed from previous food safety incidents involving the company.
Chou has alleged that Ting Hsin offered NT$200 million (US$6.29 million) to Ma during his presidential re-election campaign in 2012.
Had it not been for the benefits Ma received from Ting Hsin, the Wei family would not have been allowed to “go on a rampage” throughout the nation, Shih said.
In an opinion piece published in the Chinese-language Apple Daily on Friday, Shih said that after carefully going through the allegations regarding the relationship between the Wei family and Ma, his confidence in Ma being a clean president had been badly shaken.
It is not out of the question that Ma could face jail time on charges of corruption after he completes his tenure, just like former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who has been serving a sentence for graft at Taichung Prison since 2008, Shih said.
Ma must clarify allegations that Wei Ying-heng (魏應行), the youngest of the four Wei brothers, reported to him on the cross-strait trade of agricultural products at the Presidential Office and that he instructed Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) to assist the Wei family in the matter, Shih said.
Despite the difficulty of proving Chou’s claim — because if the donation was made in cash, there would be no trail of evidence to follow — it appears to be based on sound reasoning, judging from how Ting Hsin was able to engage in various investments in Taiwan after returning empty-handed from China, Shih said.
Ma should come forward to clarify these doubts, he said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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