■ SOCIETY
Chen Hsing-yu curses media
Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) daughter angrily denounced the media yesterday. “Why are you following me all day? My dad is no longer the president.” Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) said angrily. “What have I done wrong? I’m just a doctor. Are you going to follow me like this until I drop dead?” She made the remarks when reporters approached her outside her dental clinic in Taipei City’s Neihu District (內湖) to ask for comment on a report in yesterday’s Chinese-language Apple Daily. The report said that Chen Hsing-yu had three traffic violations in two days and could face fines of up to NT$11,700. Two accompanying pictures showed her driving through red lights. Chen Hsing-yu yesterday said she drove through the red lights in an attempt to escape paparazzi, but then realized she had fallen into their trap. She also complained that people called her clinic pretending to be patients and filmed her using hidden cameras.
■ JUSTICE
Prosecutors summon Chen
Prosecutors said yesterday that they would summon former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as a witness in their investigation into Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corp’s (SSAC) embezzlement case. Prosecutors have prohibited former SSAC chairman Kuo Ching-chiang (郭清江) from leaving the country. Prosecutors said that since Kuo was appointed by Chen and certain documents indicated Chen might have been involved in policymaking, prosecutors decided to interview him as a witness. Since its establishment in 1996, Taiwan has invested about US$600 million in SSAC, but the company only won regulatory approval to build business aircraft in late 2005. So far it has only delivered one plane. Prosecutors are trying to determine if irregularities in management could have led to the substantial deficit it now faces.
■ POLITICS
Court annuls election win
Miaoli District Court yesterday annulled Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Lee Yi-ting’s (李乙廷) legislative election win. The district court said Lee could appeal the ruling to the Taiwan High Court, whose ruling would be final. Lee was indicted by Miaoli prosecutors in late January on charges of vote-buying during the Jan. 12 legislative elections. Prosecutors asked the Miaoli District Court to sentence Lee to two years in jail and impose a fine of NT$2 million (US$62,000). The case is still pending in the district court. Prosecutors also filed a civil lawsuit with the district court, and that ruling was handed down yesterday afternoon. Prosecutors suspect Lee and two campaign workers made 16 donations to several temples in the Miaoli area to secure the votes of the temples’ managers and devotees.
■ POLICY
Extra budget on the way
The Cabinet is today set to approve an extra budget of NT$120 billion (US$3.9 billion) to fund government policies. Around NT$114 billion will help local governments complete infrastructure projects, while about NT$12 billion will compensate public transport and taxi drivers for increased fuel costs. The budget proposal was made after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised in the presidential campaign to revise the budget. The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics presented the proposal to the Cabinet; it will now be sent to the legislature for review. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) local government heads have attacked the Cabinet’s decision to allocate NT$58.3 billion to each city and county according to population size, but the Cabinet said the test was impartial and would address local government needs.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
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