Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday said he was sorry that Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Chang Juu-en (張祖恩) is leaving the Cabinet and praised Chang's contribution.
"I love having him here and I was hoping to keep him on the team. However, I must respect his decision although I have tried to persuade him not to resign," Hsieh said.
"As for the candidate who will take over his position, I will make a decision on that as soon as possible and announce it to the public," he said.
Chang filed his resignation late on Wednesday afternoon. Due to career considerations and family members' expectations, Chang said he decided to return to his previous post as an environmental engineering professor at National Cheng Kung University.
Chang took the agency's helm in October 2003, when former head Hau Lung-bin (
In April 2001, Hau invited Chang to serve as his deputy. According to the law, the maximum term for a professor to be temporarily transferred to the government is four years. Chang thus resigned from the EPA to return to his previous position at the university.
"I understand that university post is `a hot spot' for people in the field. Chang has a chance to do it, so it is natural for him to take that opportunity while he can. As a result, although I really like his work, I still have to let him go," the premier said.
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Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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