President-elect Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) office apologized yesterday over the seating arrangements for Tuesday's presidential inauguration ceremony, adding that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) would be attending the ceremony.
Ma’s office offered the apology yesterday in response to Wu’s alleged discontent after he was originally given a seat in a section behind foreign guests and government officials.
A report in the Chinese-language United Daily News said that Wu was furious over the seating arrangements and had initially said he would not attend the ceremony.
Ma spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said that the seating had been arranged jointly by the Presidential Office and Ma’s office, and that it was customary to seat foreign guests, Presidential Office officials, incoming Cabinet members and legislators at the front in the “VIP zone.”
Chairmen of political parties and guests from civil groups were usually seated in the second VIP zone, Wang said.
Ma and vice president-elect Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) acknowledged that such seating arrangements were inappropriate and asked the preparatory team to seat the KMT chairman in the front row in appreciation of Wu’s contributions during the presidential election.
“Chairman Wu will be the ruling party chairman after the inauguration and should be treated with great respect,” Wang said yesterday outside KMT headquarters.
“We apologize for any carelessness during the preparatory process and hope everyone will forgive our negligence and attend the inauguration ceremony in high spirits,” he said.
Ma and Siew will complete the transfer of power at the Presidential Office with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on Tuesday morning before heading to the inauguration ceremony at Taipei Arena.
The president-elect and foreign guests will then take the Taiwan High Speed Rail to Kaohsiung, where the inauguration banquet and a fireworks display will take place, Wang said.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS