Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday called opposition lawmakers' demand that Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) apologize for problems with the Kaohsiung MRT project before they would allow him to present his briefing to the legislature "a meaningless gesture."
"If lawmakers want to question the premier over any issues, they will be more than welcome to question him at any time during the official legislative meetings. Their request for an apology does not really mean anything," Cho said.
Pan-blue lawmakers have accused Hsieh of making wrong decisions about Kaohsiung's MRT system when he was the city's mayor.
Hsieh's predecessor in that post, Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), now a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker, presented documents at a KMT meeting on Wednesday to bolster his claim that it was Hsieh who had decided to use the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model to construct the MRT system, not himself.
The BOT model has come under fire after Thai laborers working for the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp rioted over poor working and living conditions.
"Even if the premier does apologize, the apology will be the result of pressure from the [legislative] majority and would not really help clarify responsibilities," Cho said.
He urged lawmakers to pursue their complaints through official channels, such as questioning Hsieh during meetings or debates, instead of boycotting the premier's briefing and wasting everybody's time and money.
"The premier said he finished half a book while he was waiting [to give his briefing] on Tuesday. If opposition lawmakers want another repeat, he will continue to use his time well and serve the people by reviewing more official documents," Cho said.
"He may have a chance to finish the rest of that book, too," Cho 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:
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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