New State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ing-chao (吳英昭) vowed yesterday to continue a crackdown on organized crime and corruption, as well as bribery in the year-end legislative elections, so as to live up to the expectations of the public.
Based on President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) stated goal of "establishing a country based on human rights," Wu said he will also continue the extraordinary appeal system for cases that have been convicted by the Supreme Court.
Wu made the remarks when he took over the post from Ru Ren-fa (盧仁發), in a changeover ceremony witnessed by Justice Minister Chen Ding-nan (陳定南).
With regard to the March 19 election-eve shooting of the president and the Lafayette frigate kickback scandal of 1993, Wu said he would "try to gain a full understanding of the details of all those major cases as soon as possible."
On recent criticism of judicial reforms, Wu said that there has in the past been a lack of communication between him and the groups making the criticism, and that he will speak with them to try to ease the misunderstanding.
Wu is famous for his efforts to crack down on corruption when he served as prosecutor-general at the Taipei District Public Prosecutor's Office and at Public Prosecutor's Office of the Taiwan High Count.
The justice minister said in the changeover ceremony that he hopes Wu will lead the prosecutorial team in cracking down on any bribery in the year-end legislative elections so as to meet and complete the first major challenge of his term.
The ministry will make the performance of prosecutors in this crackdown the most crucial factor when giving them their annual performance assessment, Chen 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
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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