Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that Public Construction Deputy Minister Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) will assume the role of acting commissioner for Yunlin County until a new commissioner is elected in December, while Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (邱太三), who officially resigned his post, will announce his candidacy for Taichung County commissionership on Monday.
"Lee is now the most appropriate candidate for the position and we will discuss more details with him soon," Hsieh said. "As for Chiu, we have received his official resignation and will accept it, as he is campaigning for the year-end elections."
Hsieh made the remarks at the legislature yesterday while answering questions from People First Party (PFP) Legislators Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和) and Cheng Chin-ling (鄭金玲).
Chiu himself told reporters that he will call a press conference Monday morning to announce his plans to run in the year-end county commissioner elections.
Chiu said of a rumor that Ketagalan Institute vice president You Ying-lung (游盈隆) will take over his position as MAC vice chairman that the final decision will be up to his superiors -- President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Hsieh and MAC Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮).
In addition to questions about the Cabinet, the PFP lawmakers also asked the premier about details of the March 26 rally against the Chinese government's of the "Anti-Secession" law.
Asked if he would participate in the rally, the premier was evasive and side-stepped a question whether it is proper for some officials, who are in charge of public safety, to join the rally. Hieh also said he would announce whether he will participate in the demonstration on Monday.
"I will follow the president's lead. That means, if the president joins the rally, I will too," Hsieh said.
Meanwhile, Hsieh also said that the rally has nothing to do with political disputes. It will be an event for the public to vent their anger toward the Anti-Secession law. As a result, people with differing political affiliations will be welcome at the rally.
The premier said that the government never changed the cross-strait relationship. It was the Chinese government which did so.
"They (Chinese officials) decided to change current status quo and endanger the peace in the Taiwan Strait. Of course, Taiwanese people have the right to show their anger because their rights were ignored," Hsieh said. "Only Taiwanese people have the right to decide their future."
Hsieh also promised that during his term as premier, he will not endorse or support the making of a new constitution or change the name of the country.
"However, if the majority of Taiwanese people decide to [to amend or make a new Constitution], government leaders are supposed to respect that decision," Hsieh said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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