Questions about an alleged NT$300 million (US$9.6 million) donation by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) to the previous Taipei municipal administration continued yesterday as city councilors cross-examined Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Taipei City Councilor William Hsu (徐弘庭) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presented Ko with a criminal bill of complaint to sign against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) for denying having made statements attributed to him by Ko.
Ko in court testimony on Monday said that during last year’s mayoral election, Ker had told him that Gou had made a NT$300 million donation in support of his opponent, KMT mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文). However, Ker denied making the statements, saying that the sum referred to an earlier donation to the Taipei City Government in support of the Taipei Pavilion at the Expo 2010 Shanghai China.
Ko dismissed Ker’s denial, saying that Ker had shown him slides detailing Gou’s donation record.
Controversy over the purported donation continued to provoke questions over city policy toward the Syntrend Creative Park (三創園區) development project following allegations by Taipei City Councilor Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥) of the DPP that Gou’s donation was tied to city approval of Hon Hai’s bid for the project.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday reported that Ko’s testimony on Monday was sparked by his frustration with what it reported as the “unwillingness” of Syntrend chairman Gou Shou-cheng (郭守正) to cooperate with city development plans for the surrounding area.
“Keep watching — the competition is not finished yet,” Ko said in response to questions from Taipei City Councilor Chung Hsiao-ping (鐘小平) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over whether the city possessed any leverage over Syntrend, after the city confirmed that the corporation had already been issued an operating license for the building.
Ko called Syntrend a “demon” that was not easily persuaded.
He added that while the Syntrend contract is legal, the city’s strategy was to first establish a Greater Bade Business District (大八德商圈), and then gradually “digest” the development.
Meanwhile, DPP Taipei city councilors urged Ko to avoid allowing the donation controversy to distract from city government business.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Liu Yao-jen (劉耀仁) urged Ko to cease commenting on the issue, since it had already entered the legal process.
DPP’s Taipei City Council caucus whip Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) in turn said that the city government should focus more on supporting this year’s Taiwan Pavilion at the World Expo in Milan.
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