Lawmakers of the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Commit-tee confronted foreign ministry officials yesterday on how much money was given to South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) almost eight years ago.
The interpellation took place at a committee meeting on secret accounts yesterday at the Legislative Yuan.
Based on his review of Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, former ambassador to South Africa Loh I-cheng (
In the wake of media revelations last month of secret National Security Bureau (NSB) funds -- from which the donation came -- Loh said that Taipei had donated US$10 million to the ANC.
Loh corrected that amount yesterday, however, saying that it wasn't until late last month, when Su Tsang-fan (蘇蒼繁), deputy comptroller at the foreign ministry's accounting office, showed him related files that he recalled the exact amount of the donation.
Su later confirmed Loh's statement.
But foreign ministry officials declined to clarify why reports indicate that the ministry reimbursed the NSB for US$10.7 million instead of US$10.42 million, the amount of the donation.
The ministry officials frequently avoided answering questions or gave evasive answers during yesterday's interpellation, incensing lawmakers.
When R.C. Wu (
Wu then apologized to Chou under the request of the committee chairman.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (
Opposition lawmakers presented a motion proposing that the committee write to the ANC for clarification over the exact amount of the donation.
But the proposal was killed after stark opposition from DPP lawmakers and DPP legislator Tsong Tsai's (
Meanwhile, Yang Te-chuan (楊德川), comptroller of the ministry's accounting department, said the ministry has kept original receipts or written proof of the expenses of about 13 percent of the ministry's confidential budget while sending the rest of the confidential budget to the National Audit Office for further auditing.
Vice Auditor General Lee Jin-long (
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS