Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday threatened to take legal action against the Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine if it failed to clarify its accusations alleging his role in a corruption scandal.
In defending his innocence against the allegations, Wu said he has applied for telephone call records of all his family members to dismiss the allegation that calls were made to Wu Men-chung (吳門忠), a family friend who was allegedly involved in the case.
Wu Den-yih denied that his wife, Tsai Ling-yi (蔡令怡), had made a telephone call to Wu Men-chung last week to confirm his family relations with Cheng Tsai-mei (程彩梅). Cheng is the girlfriend of businessman Chen Chi-hsiang (陳啟祥), who allegedly bribed former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世) with NT$63 million (US$2.15 million) to secure contracts with China Steel Corp (中鋼) and its subsidiaries.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Wu Men-chung, a votes broker for the vice president in his Nantou County hometown, is the father of the daughter-in-law of Chen’s girlfriend.
Wu Men-chung admitted on Wednesday that he had accepted NT$10 million from Chen for introducing him to local legislators for help, including Lin.
The vice president yesterday said he and his family had no knowledge about Wu Men-chung’s behavior and said he would prove his and his wife’s innocence by producing their telephone records.
“Whether Wu Men-chung took money from Chen or not, it’s none of my business. I did not make any calls to him recently, and he did not call me or my wife, either,” he said.
“I am willing to accept public examination using magnifier, microscope or telescope. However, please do not make up stories with distorting mirrors,” he added.
Next Magazine has linked Wu Den-yih to the case by making accusations that Lin bragged about his relations with Wu Den-yih when asking for bribes from Chen, saying he was handling all of Wu Den-yih’s matters.
Wu yesterday asked the magazine for a correction and said he could file a lawsuit if it failed to clarify the issue.
Three batches of banana sauce imported from the Philippines were intercepted at the border after they were found to contain the banned industrial dye Orange G, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. From today through Sept. 2 next year, all seasoning sauces from the Philippines are to be subject to the FDA’s strictest border inspection, meaning 100 percent testing for illegal dyes before entry is allowed, it said in a statement. Orange G is an industrial coloring agent that is not permitted for food use in Taiwan or internationally, said Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智), head of the FDA’s Northern Center for
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A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
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