A television and radio pundit was ordered by the Taipei District Court yesterday to pay NT$2 million (US$60,346) in compensation to Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) for falsely claiming that Gou made a NT$300 million political contribution to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate during last year’s Taipei mayoral election.
Clara Chou (周玉蔻), a HitFm radio host and frequent TV talk-show guest, in addition to paying monetary damages, was also ordered to write a half-page apology statement to be published on the front pages of seven newspapers, as well as on my-formosa.com.
Chou said on Facebook that she would definitely appeal the ruling.
According to the court, an investigation proved that Gou did not donate NT$300 million to Sean Lien (連勝文).
Chou made the claim based solely on an account by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and did not verify it with Gou or Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), the court said.
The case can be traced back to January, when Ko said in a radio interview that during the run-up to the mayoral election, a certain entrepreneur gave NT$300 million to his rival.
Soon after, Chou said on a TV talk-show that the entrepreneur mentioned by Ko was Gou.
Gou later filed a defamation suit against Chou. He also filed a civil lawsuit to demand compensation of NT$10 million from Chou.
When testifying in court, Ko said before the mayoral election, he had turned to Ker to help introduce him to Gou in the hope of seeking the tycoon’s support.
Ko said he was told that Gou supported his rival and had given the latter NT$300 million. Ko said he therefore dropped the idea of meeting Gou.
However, Ker testified that Ko misunderstood what he said. Ker said what he meant was that Gou had donated NT$300 million to the Taipei Pavilion of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai during the tenure of former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry