The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday told Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to come clean on how he amassed a vast fortune in stocks and government bonds in just four years.
In a counter-attack to KMT accusations that first lady Wu Shu-Chen (吳淑珍) was guilty of insider trading, DPP lawmakers said Lien had lied about not playing the stock market for the past four years because a recent property-disclosure record required of presidential candidates showed that the KMT leader had accumulated some NT$260 million worth of stocks and government bonds since 2000.
According to the reports handed over to the Central Election Commission when registering for the presidential election, Lien's movable property, including stocks, bonds and bank savings, has increased by NT$260 million over the past four years, while President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) personal assets have decreased by NT$30 million.
The KMT campaign headquarters said that the increase in Lien's wealth resulted from buying government bonds with money made from selling stocks and from the KMT chairman's other incomes, including rent revenue, pensions and stock interest.
DPP campaign headquarters spokesman Wu Nai-jen (
"The KMT's remarks are contradictory," Wu said, adding that "Lien has to explain his stock transactions in detail as NT$260 million is no small amount of money."
KMT Administration and Management Committee Director-General Chang Che-shen (
In response to Chang, DPP legislative caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (
Also see story:
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS