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.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS