There were repercussions yesterday from the unexpected resignation of Minister of Transportation and Communications Kuo Yao-chi (
The Chinese-language United Evening News reported that the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau Director-General Yang Hsi-an (
"Unless it has been proven that I am incompetent in handling the situation and that I cannot reach the same understandings as my superiors, then I would not consider leaving," he said
Yang, who previously served on the Public Construction Commission, just took up the freeway bureau job last month.
Vice Minister Tsai Duei (
Meanwhile, there was widespread media speculation that Kuo's decision to leave after a little more than six months on the job was due to differences with Premier Su Tseng-chang (
According to a United Daily News report, Kuo thought the ETC system should be run by Chunghwa Telecom, while Su has ordered that Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co continue operation.
Since Kuo is seen as one of President Chen Shui-bian's (
Government Information Office Minister and Cabinet Spokesperson Cheng Wen-tsang (
He also said that "an administrative team is an administrative team and favoritism has nothing to do with it."
The premier has never asked Far Eastern to continue operating the ETC system, either in private or publicly, Cheng said.
"The issues related to the ETC should be negotiated and evaluated according to the verdict issued by the Supreme Administrative Court," Cheng said. "No company has any advantage."
Tsai stressed that Kuo and Su shared the same goals and views on the ETC system.
The ministry gave an update yesterday on its handling of the system. It has been trying to negotiate with the three contractors who bid initially on the project to see if they want to try again.
The ETC system will be jointly operated by Chunghwa Telecom and Far Eastern for now.
The Cabinet announced yesterday that it would respect the court's decision on the ETC system.
"We will ask the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to renegotiate and select a new partner. If this does not work, we will then take care of this case by following Article 53 of the Statute for the Encouragement of Private Sector Participation in Public Infrastructure Projects (
Article 53 says that the government should take control of a public construction project when construction is delayed, operations break down or when the project does not make a profit.
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