Three former legislators who lost their seats in last month's legislative elections were recruited to the Cabinet yesterday.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Wang Tuoh (王拓) was appointed chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs, taking over the position that was vacated by Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠), who was elected a DPP legislator-at large last month.
Former DPP legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) will succeed Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), who was also elected a DPP legislator-at-large, as deputy chairman of Sports Affairs Council.
Former Council of Hakka Affairs deputy minister Chiu Yi-ying's (邱議瑩) position will be filled by former DPP legislator Peng Tien-fu (彭添富).
Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (
Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南), who was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of China in February 1998, has been asked by Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) to serve in the position for another five-year term, Shieh said.
Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) will move to become deputy minister of Transportation and Communications, filling the position left vacant since last May, when Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) was promoted to Executive Yuan secretary-general.
Lee's vacancy at the Justice Ministry will be filled by former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Kuo Lin-yung (郭林勇).
Minister Without Portfolio Lin Chin-chang (
Chen Tso-chen (陳佐鎮) has been appointed deputy minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. He has previously served as director-general of the Bureau of Standards, head of the economic department at the nation's representative office in Canada and also as director of the ministry's office in central Taiwan.
Vacancies left to be filled in the Cabinet are vice chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, vice chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission and vice chairman of the Fair Trade Commission.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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