President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) lost a libel suit yesterday that he filed against UFO Radio chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) over his allegation that Chen offered a huge sum of money to the former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso as a birthday gift.
However, the Taipei District Court ruled in favor of Chen in his suit against two People First Party (PFP) legislators, Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) and Tsai Chung-han (蔡中涵), in the same case. The ruling ordered the two to publish half-page apologies in the nation's major Chinese-language newspapers.
In response, the Presidential Office yesterday evening said that the president respects the ruling and was glad that it had cleared up the matter, as it had affected the nation's relations with Panama.
Liu said yesterday that he would appeal the ruling while Tsai offered no comment.
The president brought the suit against Jaw, Liu and Tsai in October 2004 after they had claimed that the president had offered US$1 million to former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso as a birthday gift.
"The issues relating to Taiwan's financing of its diplomatic allies concerns the national interest and therefore is open to discussion," said the ruling.
"Jaw used information from a Web site and newspaper reports as sources for his comments, therefore he did not make the story up," the ruling added.
The ruling said that Jaw's remarks concerning the diplomacy of Taiwan should be protected under freedom of speech.
After the ruling was given yesterday, Chen's lawyer Wellington Ku (顧立雄) told reporters that while freedom of speech is protected under the Constitution, the media should not be allowed to publish reckless and incorrect comments in name of the public interest.
Liu and Tsai, who held a news conference saying Chen had offered money to Moscoso as a gift and as a "settlement fee" for his "improper behavior," possibly referring to sexual harassment, had libeled Chen, the ruling said.
"Their allegations of a `settlement fee' were unrelated to the national interest and have defamed Chen. In addition, they were unable to offer any evidence supporting their claims," the ruling added.
Liu and Tsai said their allegation was based on comments made by Jaw during his radio show.
Instead of seeking financial compensation, Chen asked that the verdict be published and the men print apologies in Chinese-language newspapers for three days.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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