Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) vowed yesterday to turn the GIO into a "great ideas office."
The former representative to Germany took his oath of office at 11:30am yesterday.
He said he was aware his new job would not be an easy one, but that he loved to take on challenges.
"I like the word `challenge' a lot because you find `changes,' `chances' and `choice' if you take up challenges," he said.
The inauguration ceremony was hosted by Minister without Portfolio Huang Hui-chen (
Shieh's acceptance speech, in which he vowed to make the Republic of China a "republic of confidence" for the world to see, made it evident that promoting the nation would be one of the most important policies under his tenure.
"I am not a Democratic Progressive Party member, but I do believe in Taiwan's democracy. Through my two-year experience as a representative to Germany, I saw what Taiwan can do for the world," Shieh said. "We shall keep faith in Taiwan."
Shieh also hinted he might not be the last GIO minister before next year.
"Somebody told me earlier this morning that there have been eight GIO ministers during President Chen Shui-bian's (
During his address to GIO staff, Shieh said he would do his best to coordinate with everybody to do his job well. Asked whether he was ready for harsh interpellation sessions from legislators, he said he would accept and answer all kinds of questions as long as the tone was right.
"The problem is not with the nature of the question. It is the kind of attitude and tone used when someone is being asked a question about an important issue," Shieh 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:
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