By Shih Hsiu-chuan Staff Reporter
Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) said yesterday that the government would step up measures to stimulate the economy, including formulating “miracle cures” to lift a slumping stock market.
“In next week’s Cabinet meeting, we will present a comprehensive proposal on the economic situation. All possible measures are under consideration,” he said.
He made the remarks when approached by reporters after addressing a forum on technology investment.
PHENOMENON
Describing the global economic slowdown and sharp rise in commodity prices as a phenomenon “rarely seen in the past 20 years,” Chiu said the government would come up with action plans for the short, medium and long term, as well as magic pills to tackle economic problems.
With the stock market plunging further in response to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) remarks on Thursday that his “6-3-3” election campaign pledge — an annual economic growth rate of 6 percent, an annual per capita income of US$30,000, and an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent — was unlikely to be realized anytime soon, Chiu convened a Cabinet-level meeting late that night.
Officials yesterday refused to elaborate on what was discussed during the meeting, saying it was one of a series of preparatory meetings the Cabinet would hold in the coming days for the economic proposal to be discussed at next week’s meeting.
“The proposal will cover a range of economic issues, including policies to encourage investment, increase purchasing power, expand domestic demand in energy-saving and carbon reduction-related industries and stimulate the stock market,” Minister Without Portfolio Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬) told a press conference.
GIFT-GIVING
In related developments, Minister Cheng Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) of the Central Personnel Administration of the Executive Yuan told a press conference that a regulation prohibiting civil servants from accepting gifts valued above NT$500 does not apply in all circumstances.
His remarks came in the wake of a suggestion by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) that the government should revise the regulation in the Ethics Directions for Civil Servants (公務人員倫理規範), as it has become an obstacle to domestic consumption.
The government put the ethics directions into practice on Aug. 1 as part of its efforts to establish “clean government.”
“The regulation only applies in situations where civil servants receive gifts from those who have material interests in the activities of the civil servants,” Chen said.
If the givers are not considered “interested parties,” the civil servants can accept gifts of up to NT$3,000 in value but no more than NT$10,000 a year, Chen said.
“If a giver is a good friend of a civil servant, accepting gifts of more than NT$6,000 in value is fine. We encourage civil servants to engage in reasonable consumption,” Chen 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