Both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucuses expressed their reservations yesterday about some members of the new Cabinet.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) told a news conference that Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) failed to recruit talent from outside the government, adding that the Cabinet reshuffle was merely a reshuffle within the administration.
Lu also expressed concern that new Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), might not be able to win the hearts of the public, especially at the grassroots level, despite his academic credentials.
Lu said he could not comment on the qualification of the new minister of foreign affairs because he was not familiar with Timothy Yang (楊進添) at all.
DPP Policy Research Committee head Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the new Cabinet members were like “little Ma Ying-jeous.”
Ker said he had never heard of Yang, adding that Minister of Education Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) was more of a politician, noting that he had represented the KMT in an unsuccessful bid for Tainan County commissioner.
DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) said she “laughed out loud throughout the night” after learning of the new line-up. She did not elaborate.
When approached for comment on her way to the DPP caucus’ meeting at the legislature, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the appointment of new Cabinet members showed that the KMT had politics in mind.
Tsai urged the new Cabinet to respect the DPP, adding that the party could engage in “meaningful communication” with the KMT if the DPP were accorded respect.
Meanwhile, the new premier canceled his plan to visit the DPP caucus after the caucus said Wu should visit another time as many of its members were helping with post-typhoon reconstruction in the south.
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