Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) pledged yesterday to restart a subsidy program aimed at helping buildings in flood-prone areas set up protection barriers to reduce flood damage in the wake of serious flooding caused by Typhoon Fanapi in southern Taiwan.
Wu said the barrier system had proven very effective and that the government would overcome its financial difficulties in meeting the cost by drawing on the central government’s reserve funds, for example, to meet the needs of residents in those areas.
According to Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), a similar program in which the government subsidized up to 50 percent of the installation cost of the barriers was launched last year using some of the funds earmarked for an economic stimulus package and reconstruction plans in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot.
The program could be restarted this year, just as soon as the financial problems are resolved, he said.
Briefing the Legislative Yuan on the Cabinet’s agenda, Wu added it would cooperate with local governments to improve disaster prevention and relief operations, rather than pointing fingers of blame and shirking responsibility.
Saying the nation is predisposed to natural disasters, Wu said that finding the best ways to brace for them is his Cabinet’s top priority.
Citing Fanapi as an example, Wu said the Executive Yuan had prepared for it well ahead of its arrival and was therefore able to prevent many disasters, even though the storm, which barreled through Taiwan on Sunday last week, claimed two lives and caused widespread property damage from flooding.
Wu added the Cabinet has been concentrating on reconstruction work following Fanapi, with the repair of damaged rail lines, roads and bridges, as well as the restoration of water and electricity supplies, as the top priorities.
He also glossed over an opposition lawmaker’s question about his recent low popularity ratings in opinion polls, pointing out that it varies with the times and is heavily influenced by the media.
“It dips whenever the country is in trouble and rises as soon as the problem is solved,” he 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
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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