While a great majority of the public is confident President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will do well on cross-strait issues, opinion is more divided when it comes to his ability to keep politics out of education and the judiciary, a survey showed.
The poll was conducted by the Cabinet’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Executive Yuan, to get a better sense of public reactions to Ma’s May 20 inaugural address.
In his address, Ma vowed to address the abuses that, in his view, had marred the nation’s democracy.
The survey, released on Friday, showed that 54.4 percent of respondents believed there would be no more illegal wiretapping, selective judicial investigation or political interference in media and electoral institutions under the Ma administration, while 22.7 percent did not think so.
More than 61 percent of respondents said they were confident Ma would “eradicate all forms of political interference in education,” as Ma had pledged in his address, while 20.7 percent said they were not.
Ma’s promise to demand that officials behave with integrity and efficiency in a clean political environment was received favorably by 61.1 percent, while 27.5 percent said they had doubts.
The survey showed that the public had higher confidence in how Ma would handle cross-strait affairs than in domestic reform.
Asked for their opinion on Ma’s pledge to maintain the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait under the principle of “no unification, no independence and no use of force,” 81.6 percent of respondents said they agreed, while 8.3 percent said they disagreed.
On a whether they supported Ma’s stance that the so-called “1992 consensus” should serve as the basis for the resumption of cross-strait talks, 74.6 percent agreed, while 11.7 percent disagreed.
The poll showed that 88.9 percent of respondents backed Ma’s contention that Taiwan and China should pursue reconciliation in the region and on the international stage, while 4.1 percent said they disagreed.
Eighty-two percent of respondents said Ma’s inaugural address demonstrated goodwill toward China, with 2.4 percent thinking otherwise.
The survey showed that 16.1 percent of respondents believed Ma had failed to defend the nation’s dignity in his inaugural address, while 64.3 percent disagreed.
The poll, conducted by telephone on May 22 and May 23, involved 1,087 respondents over the age of 20. Results have a 95 percent confidence index, with a standard deviation of 2.97.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai