The Taipei District Court on Friday issued a warrant for the arrest of a former political talk show host accused of libel against President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) after he twice failed to appear in court.
The court said it issued an arrest order for Dennis Peng (彭文正), who accused Tsai of forging her academic credentials, after learning that he is in the US.
Peng failed to appear at court hearings on July 28 and Oct. 20, after being subpoenaed, the court said.
In response to the warrant, Peng said in a video posted on YouTube that he had appeared for an earlier hearing and authorized his lawyers to attend on his behalf for subsequent hearings due to scheduling conflicts that prevented him from appearing in person.
“I had applied to attend hearings through videoconferencing, but the request was rejected,” he said.
Peng said that while in the US, he had received text messages that made him concerned for his safety should he return to Taiwan, adding that the nation’s COVID-19 prevention measures that would require him to quarantine for 14 days would prevent him from “doing all the things that need to be done” to investigate the legitimacy of Tsai’s academic credentials.
The former National Taiwan University (NTU) professor has repeatedly said that Tsai never completed her dissertation to receive a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1984.
In a March 31 indictment, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said investigators determined that Tsai did complete her dissertation, passed an oral exam and obtained her doctoral degree.
Prosecutors charged Peng with aggravated libel for spreading inaccurate information for his own personal gain, including to increase viewership of his online talk show True Voice of Taiwan.
The indictment came after Tsai in September 2019 filed a lawsuit against Ho De-fen (賀德芬), a law professor emeritus at NTU; Hwan C. Lin (林環牆), an associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and Peng, after they said her academic credentials were fake.
The district prosecutors’ office decided not to indict Ho and Lin, saying that the two had double-checked their claims as best as they could before making their accusations.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS