More than half of the people surveyed in a recent opinion poll by the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (研考會) said that they were satisfied with the performance of Premier Yu Shyi-kun one-and-a-half years into his term, a 2 percent improvement on the total six months ago.
The telephone survey, conducted between June 23 and July 24 involving 1,086 adults, found that 58 percent of the respondents were satisfied with Yu's performance, while 23 percent said they were not.
As for the overall performance of the government, 45 percent of the people polled said that they were satisfied, while 35 percent said they were not. The approval rating represents a 3 percent increase compared to six months ago.
In terms of what government achievements they were most satisfied with over the past one and a half years, 76 percent of the respondents said the government's efforts in environmental protection, 63 percent said the medical and hygiene areas, and 61 percent said the safeguarding of basic human rights.
Respondents said the government's efforts involving educational reforms were what they were most dissatisfied with -- recording a total of 68.2 percent of votes. It was followed by the government's economic performance (63.2 percent) and social security (46.3 percent).
Regarding illegal street car racing, nearly 70 percent of the respondents said it was a serious problem, while about 19 percent said it was not.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas