Minister without Portfolio Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) has been appointed Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) minister, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday.
The announcement came one day after Wu told the press that as council minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) had tendered his resignation on Thursday night after coming under fire over Dreamers, a musical staged to celebrate the Republic of China’s centennial last month.
Wu said the position left by Tzeng needed to be filled to maintain its vital function of overseeing educational and cultural affairs and promoting tourism.
Minister without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) and Environmental Protection Administration Deputy Minister Chiu Wen-yen (邱文彥), who are both on the roster of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislators-at-large for the next term, might also leave the government, Wu said.
Wu said one of the two KMT legislator-at-large candidates had already expressed his wish to resign, and the other might follow suit.
“We have already had minor adjustments in the Cabinet. Whether there will be more is still under consideration,” Wu said.
The Taipei Times was unable to reach Tzeng for comment on his new position because he flew to Europe to attend an international conference on science on Friday night.
A scientist recognized for his work in memory, psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience, Tzeng, 67, an academic at Academia Sinica, served as minister of education from 2000 to 2002 during the former Democratic Progressive Party administration.
Sheng resigned in response to public criticism over the extravagant NT$215 million (US$7.13 million) production. Opposition politicians and people in performing arts circles have lambasted the budget as being “exorbitant” for a production that ran for only two nights.
On Friday, both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Wu acknowledged that it had negatively affected the public’s view of the administration.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do