President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) lawyer presented confidential documents to the Taipei District Court yesterday in an attempt to prove that People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) did indeed meet secretly with the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), while on a trip to the US.
The president said in May during a TV interview that Soong had secretly met with Chen Yunlin during his trip to the US earlier in the year.
Soon after Soong refuted the president's accusation and demanded a public apology. Since the Presidential Office never responded to Soong's demand, the PFP then filed a defamation claim at the Taipei District Court, asking for compensation of NT$50 million (US$1.5 million).
Yesterday, the judges presiding over the trial at the Taipei District Court said, "The confidential nature of the documents Chen [Shui-bian's] lawyer offered may concern issues of national security, so we asked Soong's lawyers to read the documents while under supervision."
Soong's lawyer Lee Fu-tien (李復甸) yesterday asked the judges to summon the president to testify to the court.
Chen's lawyer Yen Chih-chien (顏志堅) told the judges that the president is willing to appear at the trial if the judges think it is necessary, but according to the Civil Procedure Code (民事訴訟法), any testimony would take place at the president residence, and not at the court.
Yen and the judges did not specify from which government agency the confidential documents had come.
The nation's top intelligence official, National Security Bureau Director-General Hsueh Shih-ming (薛石民), has already denied that his bureau has provided any information on the alleged Soong-Chen Yunlin US meeting.
PFP Legislators have said that if the evidence proves that Soong did indeed meet with Chen Yunlin, then the chairman will apologize and bow out of the political arena.
In other related news, the Taipei District Court announced yesterday morning that a verdict on the president's slander suit against UFO Radio chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) will be released on Jan. 6.
The president brought the suit against Jaw last October after he claimed the president had offered US$1 million to the former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso as a birthday present.
Jaw yesterday told the judges that he had obtained the information from a Web site he had found using the Google Internet search engine.
Jaw told the court that his comments concerned the national interest and should be protected under the freedom of speech.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS