Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday expressed their opposition to any Cabinet reshuffle.
“The economy and stock market are depressed because the global financial crisis. Therefore, it is very easy to assume that reshuffling the Cabinet will help solve the problem,” KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said when asked for comment.
“But I believe making a reshuffle at the moment will instead lead to political instability ... it may not necessarily help solve the economic depression or boost the stock market,” Wu said.
KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) echoed Wu’s view, saying the Cabinet had worked very hard to carry out its responsibilities.
Kuo said the Cabinet deserved support and encouragement given its hard work and that it would be “cruel” to call for a reshuffle at the moment.
At a separate setting, KMT caucus Deputy secretary-general Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) also vowed to support the Cabinet.
The lawmakers threw their support behind Cabinet officials amid speculation that a number of young and middle-aged KMT legislators had teamed up to demand a Cabinet reshuffle.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported on Sunday that 10 KMT lawmakers would threaten to topple the Cabinet should President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) fail to initiate a reshuffle by the end of the year.
The Apple Daily said the legislators considered Cabinet Spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平), Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川), Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏), Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德), Transportation and Communications Minister Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) and Central Personnel Administration Minister Cheng Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) to be “incompetent.”
The Cabinet on Sunday dismissed the story, saying “someone” was trying to sabotage relations between the Presidential Office, the Cabinet and the party.
KMT Legislator Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) yesterday urged the premier to make necessary adjustments to “some incompetent officials.”
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