One of two public welfare foundations established by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
The Dwen An Social Welfare Foundation was established by Ma with the New Taiwanese Cultural Foundation using more than NT$47 million (US$1.4 million) in mayoral election subsidies.
"The foundation has dedicated itself to providing welfare services over the past few years, but its aim was misunderstood for political reasons ... Ma never interfered with the foundation's matters, even after making donations to found the organization," Steven Chen (陳士魁), director of the foundation, said yesterday at the foundation, whose mandate is to provide counseling to teenagers.
Putting records of donations made by Ma and his wife Chou Mei-chin (
Chou, who serves as a member of the board of directors, has donated a total of NT$2.6 million since 2000, Chen said, denying Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators' accusations that Ma had pocketed the subsidies by making donations to his own foundation through his wife.
"None of the members of the board of directors got paid. Instead, their main duty is to make donations to the foundation so that we can survive," he said.
In addition to Chou, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing chairman Morris Chang (
In response to DPP Taipei City Councilor Lee Wen-ying's (
Passengers aboard Korean Airlines Flight KE189 arrived in Taichung safely yesterday after a scare the previous day encountering uncontrolled decompression, which injured 13 passengers. Flight KE189 departed from Incheon at 4:45pm on Saturday bound for Taichung with 125 passengers on board. The flight was above Jeju Island when a fault in the pressurization system occurred 50 minutes after takeoff. Online flight tracker Flightradar24’s data show that the plane dropped more than 8,000 meters within 15 minutes, before it returned and landed back at Incheon Airport at 19:38pm. Thirteen passengers on board had a headache or earache due to the incident and were hospitalized. A different
China might seek to isolate Taiwan and weaken its economy through a “quarantine,” which would make it difficult for the US to respond and force Taipei to negotiate on unification, CNN reported on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “increasingly bellicose actions” toward Taiwan have heightened concerns that Beijing would use its military against Taiwan, it said, citing a report by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). However, China might choose to initiate a quarantine, rather than a military invasion of Taiwan, to avoid US involvement, it said. “A quarantine [is] a law enforcement-led operation to control
A new message broadcast on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu (Brown) Line urging passengers to yield their seats to those in need, not necessarily elderly people, would be extended to other MRT lines and public transportation in the capital, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday. Chiang was responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a news conference at Taipei City Hall promoting healthy walking. Several disputes over priority seats on public transportation have recently been reported, sparking debate about who qualifies to sit in them, as most of the cases involved elderly people asking young people to give up their
President William Lai (賴清德) should backpedal from his new “two-state theory” and return to the “one China” principle in line with the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution, to foster and rebuild mutual trust across the Taiwan Strait, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday. Hsiao made the remark after the Chinese government on Friday revealed guidelines saying that its courts, prosecutors, and public and state security bodies should “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession crimes by the law, and resolutely defend national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity.” The Democratic Progressive Party’s “kneejerk” reaction every