Arguing that proposed changes to the Public Welfare Lottery will threaten their right to work, handicapped lottery ticket vendors yesterday called on the government not to reduce lottery draws to once a week from the current two.
"Public fever over the lottery in its early stages is understandable," said Chen Kun-tsai (陳坤財), representative of a group representing handicapped vendors. "The Ministry of Finance should just let the lottery fever cool down naturally rather than changing its policy."
Chen was referring to a proposal aimed at dissipating public fervor about the lottery that was submitted to the finance ministry by the Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee last week. The proposal asks for the number of drawings to be reduce to one a week.
"Rather than reducing the frequency of lottery draws and putting our jobs in jeopardy, the government should work on ways to achieve the original purpose of the lottery-public welfare -- and enable us to benefit," Chen said at a press conference yesterday. Legislators Lee Ming-hsien (李明憲) and Chien Chao-tung (簡肇棟) of the DPP and Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) of the KMT called the press conference to address the concerns of the handicapped vendors.
Chen said that by changing lottery policy, the government risked harming the lottery's credibility and may dampen the public's desire to buy lottery tickets.
"This would result in the smothering of our employment opportunities and defeat one of the objectives of the Public Welfare Lottery, which is to benefit the handicapped vendors financially from the profits from ticket sales."
During the press conference, Tseng Kou-lieh (
"We will take into consideration input from all relevant departments and parties on this issue," Tseng said.
"For now, there will still be two drawings a week."
Meanwhile, the alliance also urged the media to give more coverage to what it called "positive aspects of the lottery rather than negative aspects.
"By focusing a disproportional amount of coverage on the negative sides [of the lottery] and leaving out many of the heart-warming acts and stories, the media is conveying the false impression to the public that the lottery brings only greed and suicides and nothing good to society," Chen said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
RSS