Chiao Cheng-chung (喬正中), director of Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) presidential campaign office, was yesterday summoned by the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in the ongoing probe over the replacement of Hung as the KMT’s presidential candidate.
Chiao was summoned as a witness, the SID said.
Separately yesterday, the SID also summoned Hung adviser and speech writer Ko Ming-hsiu (柯明秀) for questioning regarding Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei’s (陳亭妃) allegation that two individuals had attended a meeting between KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Hung, in which Chu allegedly either pressured or enticed Hung to drop her candidacy.
Chen claimed the “two individuals” possessed an audio recording of that meeting.
The investigation also aims to clarify the allegation that Chu offered a payment of NT$30 million (US$917,824) to Hung as financial inducement in exchange for her quitting the race, which allowed the KMT to convene a party congress on Oct. 17 to nominate Chu to replace Hung as the party’s candidate.
Chen and Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安), took legal action against Chu and KMT Secretary-General Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) earlier this month, accusing the two of so inn a teng (搓圓仔湯), a commonly used Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) term that means “kneading to make rice ball soup.”
When used in a political context, the term means schemes involving the coaxing of a candidate to drop out of a race by offering money, a government position or other enticements.
However, such actions are a violation of Article 84 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), which stipulates that “anyone who asks for an expected promise or asks a candidate or a person having the qualification of candidate to abandon the campaign or conduct certain actions by offering bribes or other undue benefits” is punishable by law.
On Oct. 21, the SID separately summoned Chu, Lee and Hung for questioning in the matter.
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