英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

staff writer

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party yesterday accused Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu of breach of trust in the Yu Chang case.

Liu apologized but refused to resign to take responsibility for the release of a wrongly-dated document claiming to prove DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen was guilty of conflict of interest when approving a government investment in Yu Chang Biologics Co. in 2007.

Tsai said she only knew she would take over as Yu Chang Chairwoman months after leaving her position as vice premier. The DPP has accused the ruling Kuomintang of spreading lies and rumors to prevent Tsai from winning the January 14 presidential election.

Liu’s release of documents about the investment plan for a related biotechnology venture capital firm amounted to breach of trust and leaking of secrets, inflicting great damage on shareholders, DPP spokesmen said at a news conference Thursday.

Party spokesman Chen Chi-mai said Liu owed the public an explanation about inconsistencies in the documents, such as the removing of a text segment. Chen’s colleague Chuang Juei-hsiung said Liu should explain why the date on the document was changed from August 31 to March 19, which gave the impression that Tsai was heavily involved before she resigned as vice premier in May.

Chuang also asked who had changed the date and when. He suggested there was a group of conspirators behind Liu which was plotting the accusations against Tsai. Premier Wu Den-yih and Liu both claimed that the timing was only a detail, but it was the difference between a violation of conflict-of-interest laws and innocence, the DPP said.

The opposition also accused the government of abusing the judiciary to mount a campaign of insinuation against Tsai. The Supreme Prosecutors Office Special Investigation Division took documents about the Yu Chang case away from the National Development Fund offices, reports said. The DPP voice doubts about the impartiality of the investigators.

In a separate development in the case, Premier Wu’s wife, Tsai Ling-yi, apologized for having used a campaign rally to accuse Tsai of embezzling millions in government funds. The apology followed a visit by the DPP to the prosecutors’ office Tuesday to sue the premier’s wife, Liu and three KMT lawmakers for trying to prevent the DPP candidate from winning the election.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROME

The Italian government on Thursday called for a vote of confidence on an austerity package aimed at persuading bond markets that the country can get it finances under control and emerge from the widening debt crisis.

The tactic seeks to ensure passage of the euro30 billion ($39 billion) package of tax hikes and spending cuts that have been hotly contested by lawmakers and unions, which announced a second day of strikes on Friday to demand greater safeguards for workers.

The package, which also calls for reinvesting euro10 billion of the savings to spur growth, goes to a vote in the lower house of Parliament on Friday and then to the Senate, which is expected to vote by Sunday.

Despite opposition to the measures demanded by the European Union and the European Central Bank, they are expected to pass.

Premier Mario Monti was tapped last month to head a technical government tasked with reducing public debt, which stands at 120 percent of GDP, and improving the economy’s competitiveness. Monti will face big challenges in January, when Italy once returns to the bond markets to raise money and the government seeks another round of even tougher measures.

Italy’s borrowing costs spiked again in its last bond auction of the year on Thursday when the debt-ridden nation paid a yield of 6.47 percent for investors to lend it euro3 billion ($3.95 billion) over five years. The rate was up 0.17 percent from the last such auction a month earlier and was the highest paid by Italy since the euro was introduced in 1999.

staff writer

Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen discussed her dream to promote Taiwan’s biotechnology industry with American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young after leaving the Cabinet in 2007, reports said yesterday.

Prosecutors started investigating the Yu Chang Biologics Co. case this week after accusations from the ruling Kuomintang that Tsai might have been guilty of conflict of interest by approving government investment in the company when she knew she would become the company’s chairwoman.

Tsai denies the allegations, saying she was not involved in the investment project while she was vice premier and was only invited by scientists to join Yu Chang months after leaving government.

A recent Chinese-language book titled ‘WikiLeaks Taiwan’ says that Tsai had a long discussion with Young after she left government. She told him how she felt it was important to have legislation giving tax incentives and other protection measures to biotechnology research and technology.

A law governing the production of new drugs by the biotechnology sector passed in June 2007 was largely her work, Tsai reportedly told Young. She looked at US legislation from the 1990s and worked out a new version with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the book said.

According to the book, Tsai’s key ally was Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey, reportedly one of the scientists who invited her to become Yu Chang Chairwoman. AIT described the conversation between Tsai and Young as the most honest and open in ten years. She told Young she was planning to meet with leading scientists and entrepreneurs in the biotechnology sector during a visit to the United States later that year.

Tsai said the most important point was that Taiwan’s biotech sector should be able to produce drugs that were marketable overseas, according to the book.

The DPP has strongly denied allegations that Tsai was already in charge of the government’s biotech efforts when she approved the investment. The Council for Economic Planning and Development, which also supervises the National Development Fund, was in charge, the DPP said, adding that Tsai had no inkling at the time that she once would chair a biotechnology firm.

STAFF WRITER

A number of aboriginal groups asked for a chance yesterday to pose questions to the three presidential candidates in tomorrow’s final televised debate for the Jan. 14 presidential election.

Omi William, convener of an alliance that promotes aboriginal rights in the 2012 presidential election, said he “deeply regretted” that the presidential and vice presidential candidates did not even mention their policies on the country’s aboriginal peoples during two previous televised debates.

“This proves that in this presidential election, the special status of aboriginal peoples and their land rights have been ignored,” he said.

He said that he could accept that in the first televised debate, which took place between the three presidential candidates, the media posed questions to them on issues related to the international, diplomatic and cross-Taiwan Strait fronts.

But he said that in the third debate, in which various civic groups will pose the questions, aboriginal representatives have been overlooked and will be absent from the event.

Entertainer Francesca, meanwhile, said that in comparison with the 2004 and 2008 presidential debates, when aboriginal representatives were invited, this year represented a regression in the situation.

GENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina

There are fears in Washington however that Iraq, despite years of training by U.S. forces, still lacks the capacity to defend its borders and could be unduly influenced by Washington’s foe Iran

President Barack Obama">Obama

on Wednesday honored America’s nearly nine years of “bleeding and building” in Iraq, hailing the “extraordinary achievement” of a war he once branded “dumb.”

“Welcome home, welcome home,” Obama">Obama

chanted in an aircraft hangar in North Carolina, basking in the “Ooh Ahh” cheers and red berets of 82nd Airborne Division troops, part of the final US exodus from Iraq unfolding this month.

“We knew this day would come. We have known it for some time now. But still, there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long,” Obama">Obama