Government Information Office Minister Vanessa Shih (史亞平) told a press conference yesterday that the Cabinet has found that none of its members held dual citizenship, but that Executive Yuan Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) and Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Chen Tian-jy (陳添枝) were holders of US green cards that had expired prior to their swearing in.
Shih said the Cabinet would work as fast as it could to determine whether any member of Cabinet held permanent residency in any country other than the US, and that it would publicize its findings.
Shih also said that Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) and National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Chairman Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) had informed the Cabinet that they had held permanent residency in Canada.
Shih said that Shen’s residency had already been cancelled, while Tai’s is in the process of being canceled.
Central Personnel Administration Minister Cheng Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) said that the Nationality Law (國籍法) prohibits public officials from holding dual citizenship, but that there is no legislation prohibiting officials from holding permanent residency in another country.
Cheng said that the main reason for this is that permanent residency does not involve the issue of swearing loyalty to another state.
Cheng said that the premise behind checking for permanent residency is to find out whether the person in question is enjoying any benefits from that country.
Cheng said that the results of the investigation are only intended as a reference for superiors, and do not touch upon legal issues.
Shih said that when choosing members for his Cabinet, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) had specifically asked potential members about their citizenship status or whether they held permanent residence in another country, because he did not approve of Cabinet members holding residency rights for other countries.
However, Shih said that since it was not illegal for public officials to do so, the Cabinet would consider the opinions of different sectors before deciding whether or not the regulations should be changed.
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