Cabinet spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday dismissed local media reports that Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊) had asked Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to take certain disciplinary actions and is thinking of resigning, in the wake of a Thai workers' riot last week in Kaohsiung.
Cho acknowledged, however, that the CLA chairman said in a TV program that she was thinking of asking for disciplinary action from the premier when the matter of a recent riot by Thai laborers reaches its conclusion.
The spokesman made the remarks in response to reports in local Chinese-language newspapers according to which Chen Chu had said she is willing to submit to any disciplinary action the premier sees fit to impose and does not rule out the possibility of stepping down from her post in the riot's aftermath.
PHOTO: WANG JUNG-HSIANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The premier, however, seems less interested in having his minister resign than having her solve the problem, the reports said.
"The premier highly appreciates Chairwoman Chen's performance over the years," Cho was quoted as saying in the reports.
"Whether to replace or discipline Chairwoman Chen has never been an issue, because the premier hopes she focuses on solving the problem instead of thinking of resigning," the reports said.
Cho said that Chen has been in close contact with Hsieh since the revolt and that Chen visited the premier on Thursday. Chu, however, said he knows nothing about their conversation, but he believed she uttered "one or two sentences" about the riot in Kaohsiung during her meeting with Hsieh.
Meanwhile, acting Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chi-mai (
Chen Chi-mai called on the company to immediately cancel the contract with Hua Pan, the company hired to manage the Thai workers building the city's MRT system, and take matters into its own hands.
He said that the city does not rule out the possibility of asking the company to restructure the board of trustees should the city's investigation task force -- led by Deputy City Mayor Cheng Wen-long (鄭文隆) -- find any city employees to have been involved in corruption.
In response, the MRT company yesterday announced that it is in the process of terminating the contract with Hua Pan and will sign up a professional management company to take its place.
The MRT company's general manager Fan Chen-po (
Chen Chi-mai yesterday also touted Chen Chu as a "bureaucrat devoted to fighting for the rights of laborers" and called on the public to stop harboring any "unnecessary political association" because it is not conducive to solving the problem.
The incident is seen by some as part of Chen Chu's tactics to win her party's nomination for next year's Kaohsiung city mayor election. Both Chen Chu and Chen Chi-mai have been eyeing running in the election.
In a bid to understand first-hand the working and living environment of the revolting Thai workers, Chen Chi-mai yesterday visited the workers' cafeteria and dormitory compound.
The city is in the process of renovating a career training center, where it can accommodate about 500 of the Thai workers. Chen Chi-mai said that he hopes to see the project finished by next Tuesday.
He also requested the city to speed up the construction of a new dormitory building in the workers' compound.
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:
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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