Government officials leapt to defend President’s Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) record on women’s issues yesterday, defending Ma against accusations from female Democratic Progressive Party legislators and women’s rights groups that he had delivered on less than half of his campaign promises.
Speaking to a press conference at the Government Information Office yesterday, Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Minister Chu Chin-peng (朱景鵬) dismissed the allegations.
“Three of President Ma’s twelve campaign promises in relation to women are already in place. The government has also made substantial progress in advancing four of the other nine,” Chu said.
Personnel Administration Minister Wu Tai-cheng (吳泰成) said that the government was close to raising the percentage of female Cabinet officials to one-quarter within four years and one-third in eight years.
“The percentage of female Cabinet officials has increased to 20 percent, up from 12.5 percent before Ma assumed office,” Wu said.
In related news, Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) yesterday rejected criticism that the government’s proposed maternity policy that would allow working women to take pregnancy leave for up to one year would turn out to be “pie in the sky.”
“As long as it is the right thing to do, the government has to stick to it,” Wang said.
Other welfare measures that protect the interests of women were also considered unrealistic when first implemented but eventually worked well, she said.
Citing subsidies for female workers on six-month unpaid infant care leave introduced in May, Wang said that about 26,000 women had applied for the leave as of last year, much higher than the average of 3,000 working women who took such leave before the policy was implemented.
“There were also concerns that the subsidy would be just another fantasy, but there has been an increase in the number of workers choosing to take such leave,” Wang said.
Meanwhile, employers found discriminating against female workers returning to work after pregnancy leave can be fined up to NT$500,000 (US$15,650), she said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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