The wave of police raids and accusations of drug use continued this past week with Little Pan-pan (小潘潘) holding a press conference to rebut a report in the United Daily News that her phone number was found on the mobile phone of an associate of alleged drug kingpin Wang Feng-yu (王豐裕).
"First, I don't use drugs," she said at the press conference. "Secondly, I don't know any of Wang Feng-yu's associates." As Little Pan-pan has a sterling reputation of discretion, Pop Stop fully accepts her explanation. Not.
Meanwhile, Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎), Taiwan's answer to Amy Winehouse, gave an exclusive interview to the Apple Daily in which she denied having a drug problem. Her interview came in response to the recent discovery by police of 30.4g of cocaine and 2g of ketamine in her rented apartment.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"I'm not a druggie," she said in an article featuring images of her wrist complete with marks suggestive of suicide attempts. "I don't have an addiction. I just wanted to have fun on my birthday and didn't know I would get busted." Unsurprisingly, Hsiao vowed to stay on the straight and narrow. Curiously, there was no talk of entering a rehabilitation center, as she has to wait for public prosecutors to decide her fate.
In other drug-related news, Pei Lin (裴琳) might have bawled in front of the camera in an attempt to salvage her career after admitting to smoking pot, but she is getting kudos from the blogosphere for her portrayal of a lesbian in a music video, supposedly a first for Taiwan. In two scenes, the music video features Lin in a passionate embrace with singer Olivia Yan (閻韋伶), who just released an album called Silly Child (傻孩子).
Malaysian pop singer Gary Tsao (曹格) was reportedly "caught" in a gay bar. Again. Tsao seems to like hanging out at gay bars - mainly, it's rumored, because the gay community loves his sappy songs. But Pop Stop speculates that Tsao is frequenting gay bars to overcome his sorrow that the moderately talented Aska Yang (楊宗緯) does a better job of crooning his songs.
PHOTO: LIBERTY TIMES
Finally, expect Ada Pan (潘慧如) to call a press conference in the next few days to bolster her reputation as a good girl. The recent issue of Next published an expose of the variety show hostess, going into details about her work as a hostess. Next added Pan to a list of starlets and models who allegedly hostess, including Little Dragon Girl (小龍女), who published a steamy nude picture book, and Taiwanese/Japanese porn star Hinano Miduki (觀月雛乃), who managed to win back her wayward boyfriend with a Chinese medicine potion that she said tightens the va-jay-jay. The list, incidentally, also includes Suzanne Hsiao - who lost her contract to Pan after her first drugs bust.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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