Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), who has been barred from leaving the nation on suspicion of insider trading and corruption, is to meet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) today to explain his dealings with biotech firm OBI Pharma Inc.
Presidential Office sources yesterday said that Wong is set to apologize to Ma for having been involved in a stock scandal, but as to whether he would offer to resign, one source said: “He did not bring it up in the telephone call asking for the appointment.”
Wong on Thursday was listed as a possible suspect in the case and barred from leaving the nation by prosecutors probing insider trading allegations involving the Taipei-based company.
He could face charges of corruption and breach of trust after being questioned by prosecutors on Wednesday along with 10 others, including OBI Pharma chairman Michael Chang (張念慈), also was listed as a potential suspect.
Chang was released on NT$1 million (US$30,931) bail.
Wong has admitted to providing funds for his daughter to purchase shares in OBI Pharma, which is developing a new breast cancer drug.
Wong sold some of those shares just days before OBI Pharma reported that the results of phase two and three clinical trials of the drug did not meet expectations, causing the company’s stock price to plummet.
However, the Academia Sinica head said it was not insider trading because he did not know the results of the trial when the shares were sold.
After investigators with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office searched his office and summoned him for questioning, lawmakers across the political spectrum called on him to quit his job.
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