Former DPP chairman Su Tseng-chang (
As the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has just elected a new chairman, sources said President Chen Shui-bian (
Dogged by the media yesterday, Su refused to comment on the speculation, saying only that he appreciated the concern.
Su, who resigned last month to take responsibility for the party's resounding defeat in the Dec. 3 local government elections, still enjoys a great deal of popularity and is thought to be one of the party's most charismatic figures.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Office's hesitation in responding to the Executive Yuan's decision to ask the legislature to reconsider the recently passed 2006 budget plan has observers speculating that Chen might reject the idea.
The Presidential Office's inaction on the budget is seen by many pundits as a signal that Premier Frank Hsieh (
The Constitution stipulates that the Executive Yuan must send a request to the president within 10 days of receiving the written text of the government budget from the legislature if the government wants to overturn a budget plan that the legislature has passed but it deems difficult to implement.
Hsieh said yesterday that he would recommend the president ask the legislature to reconsider the budget plan as soon as he receives the budget from the legislature.
Meanwhile, even though Su sounds to many like a good choice to be premier, some DPP lawmakers voiced concern yesterday over the idea.
Legislator Hong Chi-chang (
Hong said that Chen could consider appointing someone who is not a DPP member but has business or financial background and enjoys high social status.
Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) is an example of a very good candidate, Hong said.
"No matter who the next premier is, the pan-blue camp will still hold a majority in the legislature," Hong said.
"Do we really want to place another of our best men in the front line to take the bullet?" he said.
DPP caucus whip Chen Chin-jun (
"While four or five premiers have been replaced since the DPP came to power, the president might want to think twice about appointing a new premier as the pan-blue alliance still dominates the legislature," he said.
"I don't think the appointment of Su would help resolve the political deadlock."
Chen Chin-jun also called on the president to refrain from recruiting opposition members to join the Cabinet and instead seek talented people from within the ruling party.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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