Responding to allegations of government inefficiency by residents devastated by Tropical Storm Mindulle, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday promised a special budget that would improve flood-prevention infrastructure.
"We will satisfy local government requests by providing NT$570 million to dredge the main rivers of Miaoli County," he said.
Yu also said that the government would find out whether officials should be held responsible for the failure of Miaoli's Liyutan reservoir to function adequately during the storm, which resulted in considerable damage and a four-day cut in the water supply in the center of the country.
"The Cabinet will rapidly punish any official who has acted negligently," Yu said, as he observed the efforts of military frogmen conducting urgent repairs on a damaged sluice gate.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs' Water Resources Agency said yesterday that the water supply will be fully operational from July 11.
Meanwhile, Taichung City councilors attacked Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) for alleged irregularities in the allocation of emergency water, saying that the mayor had priority use of water resources.
Hu denied yesterday that this was possible.
"I didn't even have a bath over those two days," he said.
However, he promised to investigate why his government did not use stored water provided for official use during emergencies.
Later yesterday, Yu promised the Taichung City government that the Cabinet would allocate more funding to dredge the Tali River over the next two years.
POLITICAL DAMAGE
Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday vowed that disaster relief would always primarily be the responsibility of government.
"This natural disaster is equivalent to an event that endangers the national security. Therefore post-disaster relief is a basic test of government capabilities," Chen said during an address at a joint military graduation ceremony yesterday.
Chen's comments were interpreted as correcting Vice President Annette Lu (
Lu had said, "It should not be considered genuinely merciful to rescue people who over-cultivated the mountain areas of Central Taiwan and ruined the soil."
Lu had also suggested that storm victims and other residents of central Taiwan move to Central America to assist those countries with development.
Local politicians and residents condemned Lu for her remarks, suggesting that she relocate to Central America herself.
Some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators were also unhappy and were quoted as saying that Lu's suggestion was "lacking in humanity."
Lu's office yesterday defended the vice president, saying she had simply proposed that the nation's mountain resources be allowed time to recover.
"I suggest that the government establish a special administration for mountain-area protection and allow the island's mountain areas a period of time so that they can rest," Lu said.
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