Proceeds totaling NT$1.02 billion (US$36.7 million) from recovered ill-gotten Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets and an administrative settlement are to be placed in a fund in the first quarter of next year, the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee said.
The committee on Saturday said that it had so far recovered NT$75.89 million in unfairly or illegally acquired assets, as well as NT$950 million from a settlement with Central Motion Pictures Corp (CMPC, 中影公司).
The film studio on Aug. 24 agreed to hand over 330 films and NT$950 million, representing the amount CMPC was undervalued when it was in 2006 sold by Central Investment Co, a KMT affiliate.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
The committee had initially frozen NT$11.8 billion of CMPC’s assets, which the studio appealed. The parties later reached a settlement agreeing to return the undervalued amount from the 2006 sale and transfer ownership of the films to the government in exchange for the committee repealing the company’s designation as a KMT affiliate, and unfreezing its remaining assets. The Taipei High Administrative Court recognized the settlement on Sept. 17.
The Transitional Justice Commission outlined possible uses for the fund: providing therapy for victims of political violence; establishing service centers to care for the survivors of political persecution; a reward system for those who preserve historical sites related to the White Terror period; and a database for records related to political persecution, it said.
After the commission concludes in May, other government agencies that handle transitional justice work could apply to use the fund, it said.
Commission member Frank Wang (王增勇) said that the commission had been unable to establish a fund with the recovered assets, as previously it had only recovered about NT$10 million.
The commission was concerned that if a fund is not established before it concludes, it might not be possible to do so later, Wang said.
The commission must wait until cases related to the recovered assets complete judicial procedures before the money can be used, committee spokesman Sun Pin (孫斌) said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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