The Control Yuan team investigating the Mirage fighter plane purchase has asked the deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office, Joseph Wu, (
The Control Yuan yesterday provided the relevant years and documentary numbers, and asked the Presidential Office to investigate if it were in possession of any further related files.
Wu said the investigation would be prompt, and that any further materials, if found, would be submitted to the Control Yuan as soon as possible. The Control Yuan hopes to receive an answer from the Presidential Office within two weeks.
In addition, the Control Yuan has passed a resolution asking five members of the Control Yuan, Chao Chang-ping (
The Control Yuan has previously invited officials from the Ministry of NationalDefense and the Air Force General Headquarters to a closed-door meeting to explain the procedures leading to the decision to purchase the Mirage fighters and the additional budget allocations.
The Control Yuan is of the opinion that several items in the ministry's and the air force's explanations are impossible to clarify.
After the meeting, Control Yuan members told the press that some of the explanations regarding the purchasing, reporting and decision-making procedures were contradictory, and that the Control Yuan therefore had requested the military to provide further documentary information.
In addition to price changes in several reports regarding the Mirage purchase, there is also the question of whether the large additional budget allocations were reasonable. This is something that now must be clarified by the Control Yuan's investigative team, which is already analyzing ministry and air force data.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but