Three high-ranking financial and economic Cabinet officials were appointed yesterday while Minister without Portfolio Arthur Iap (葉國興), who caused much uproar and controversy while heading the Government Inform-ation Office (GIO), will become the Cabinet secretary-general once the Cabinet reshuffle has been finalized, Premier Yu Shy-kun announced yesterday.
The three financial and economic officials are Ho Mei-yueh (
Other Cabinet officials who will remain include the head of the Environmental Protection Administration Chang Juu-en (張祖恩), Atomic Energy Council Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (歐陽敏盛), Minister without Portfolio Lin Sheng-feng (林盛豐), Minister without Portfolio Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪) and Minister without Portfolio Hsu Chih-hsiung (許志雄).
Yu made the announcement yesterday morning after presiding over the swearing-in ceremony of Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (
Su, Chen and Lee will resign on May 12 when Yu leads all Cabinet officials to resign en masse, in accordance with constitutional precedence.
Yu said yesterday that the search for financial and economic Cabinet officials frustrated him.
"I've inquired about the availability of several possible candidates recommended by industrial leaders over the past few days, but none of them were interested," Yu said, adding that the list included Acer Inc Chairman and CEO Stan Shih (施振榮).
Shih declined the offer, citing health reasons. Nevertheless, he offered to provide advice if asked, Yu said. Others cited the "revolving door" policy of civil servants or their reluctance to answer to the lawmaking body as reasons for declining the government positions.
Outgoing Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
"Some outstanding financial or economic experts are just not good at promoting themselves or don't feel comfortable interacting with lawmakers who are known for their vitriolic criticism of government officials," he said.
"It's an interesting phenomenon that the definition of a good political functionary here in Taiwan consists of 90 percent grandstanding and 10 percent hard-work and expertise," he said.
Iap, 52, was appointed minister without portfolio in July last year, in charge of reviewing media-related projects. Citing health reasons, Iap resigned in June last year.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching